Donnie Douglas
Columnist
A likely result of today’s column is some readers will conclude I am, in no particular order, a racist, homophobe, transphobe, sexist and probably some other slurs because these words will be interpreted as a defense of Jon Gruden, the former coach of the Las Vegas Raiders but someone I liked better in the TV booth than prowling sidelines.
Gruden recently was forced to resign as coach of the Raiders when emails surfaced from a decade or so ago that contained language that would lead some to believe – logically even – that he is a racist, homophobe, transphobe, sexist and probably some other slurs. He might be all those things, and here is where I will hang myself: I could not care less.
If he is, that’s his problem, not mine, and it affects me in no way at all. Neither does it affect you, even if you are a person of color, gay, transexual or a female. What is a problem and lingers today, is institutionalized racism and sexism that make longer and more bumpy life’s road for those who live on society’s fringes. That is a national legacy that I do believe had been fading until a booster shot about five years ago.
Color me unsurprised if a 58-year-old white man who grew up essentially on the football field believes women should remain barefoot and in the kitchen and isn’t hip with alternative lifestyles. He is probably not alone in the NFL orbit although others might be smarter than to memorialize those thoughts in emails.
I struggle a bit with the racist tag, believing if you don’t like people of color you might not play and then coach football. It is also more than a tad interesting that the only openly gay player in the NFL, Carl Nassib, plays for, drum roll please, the Raiders. This, for what it’s worth, was what Gruden said about Nassib the day after the defensive end came out as gay in June of this year: “I learned a long time ago what makes a man different is what makes him great,” Gruden said.
The NFL’s hypocrisy here – the league leaked the emails to take down Gruden – will be in full bloom on Feb. 13, 2022, at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles during the halftime show of Super Bowl LVI. The performers include Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Eminem and anyone vaguely familiar with the lyrics of some of their songs gets my point. If you aren’t, use Google because if I were to publish those words here, you would not have the opportunity to read today’s column and there might not be another next week. I would get canceled.
But the NFL’s hypocrisy is not my main point. This is: We are becoming a society in which people are judged for what they think – or rather, what others think they think – and not for their actual actions. Now pause on that.
This is just a hunch, but if Gruden were all those things would his bigotry not have been revealed often through his deeds during his rise to coach Tampa Bay to a Super Bowl victory in 2003 or his eight years working as a color analyst in the booth for ESPN? Mike Tirico, a play-by-play guy, spent seven seasons in the booth with Gruden and while labeling the emails “deplorable and disappointing” said that during the time they were working mates he saw no evidence that Gruden held such hateful beliefs.
And even if Gruden were able to contort himself daily as to not reveal what was in his heart, then does what is in his heart even matter? There are no sticks and stones.
I think a much more focused photo of a person can be taken if the lens captures that person’s actions and there is no effort by those who embrace victimhood to creep inside the mind. But more and more, in an age of wokeness, we condemn based on what we discern and not what is in plain sight.
That puts us all at risk.
Donnie Douglas is the former editor of The Robesonian in Lumberton.