Jason Whitlock

NFL truth: Hip-hop culture hurting NFL (by Jason Whitlock)


You get one NFL Truth today. Watching Chad Johnson and Larry Johnson undermine their respective head coaches, Marvin Lewis and Herm Edwards, on Sunday gave me a singular focus, forced me to contemplate an uncomfortable truth.

African-American football players caught up in the rebellion and buffoonery of hip hop culture have given NFL owners and coaches a justifiable reason to whiten their rosters. That will be the legacy left by Chad, Larry and Tank Johnson, Pacman Jones, Terrell Owens, Michael Vick and all the other football bojanglers. In terms of opportunity for American-born black athletes, they're going to leave the game in far worse shape than they found it.

It's already starting to happen. A little-publicized fact is that the Colts and the Patriots — the league's model franchises — are two of the whitest teams in the NFL. If you count rookie receiver Anthony Gonzalez, the Colts opened the season with an NFL-high 24 white players on their 53-man roster. Toss in linebacker Naivote Taulawakeiaho "Freddie" Keiaho and 47 percent of Tony Dungy's defending Super Bowl-champion roster is non-African-American. Bill Belichick's Patriots are nearly as white, boasting a 23-man non-African-American roster, counting linebacker Tiaina "Junior" Seau and backup quarterback Matt Gutierrez.

For some reason, these facts are being ignored by the mainstream media. Could you imagine what would be written and discussed by the media if the Yankees and the Red Sox were chasing World Series titles with 11 African-Americans on their 25-man rosters (45 percent)?

We would be inundated with information and analysis on the social significance. Well, trust me, what is happening with the roster of the Patriots and the Colts and with Roger Goodell's disciplinary crackdown are all socially significant.

Hip hop athletes are being rejected because they're not good for business and, most important, because they don't contribute to a consistent winning environment. Herm Edwards said it best: You play to win the game.

I'm sure when we look up 10 years from now and 50 percent — rather than 70 percent — of NFL rosters are African-American, some Al Sharpton wannabe is going to blame the decline on a white-racist plot.
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You can always count on Jason Whitlock to engage in race-baiting. I think hip hop is destructive to our society too. And one's involvement in a hip hop lifestyle may affect the quality of advertising and promotional gigs an athlete gets from white advertisers. But, as usual when it comes to race, Whitlock carries his premise way too far, suggesting that hip hop is somehow a contributor to poor performance on the field. It is clearly a coincidence that the Pats and Colts have the lowest number of African-American players (if indeed that is true). The fact the Pats and Colts have the best teams is mostly because they have among the best players, coaches and GMs. Their cultural backgrounds are irrelevant.

Whitlock never disappoints, though. He remains one of the leading race-baiters and dumbasses with press credentials.

Okay...I am assuming that this time around, you're serious.

And I will agree with you. To a point.

Normally, I am not a fan of Jason Whitlock. He is the type of man who bothers me most: a member of the black community who manages to see racism everywhere he looks. I find that particular outlook to be harmful, to say the very least. While some things truly are racially motivated, not everything is, and if you manage to see such things everywhere, you will miss the places where they are actually present, places where one can truly create change. The fact that Jason Whitlock makes his living as a writer is even worse. The ESPN Page 2 staff currently has 4 black writers, and they all spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on racial issues. Writers like Jason Whitlock enforce the stereotype that black folks aren't really black unless they see hatred and oppression everywhere they look. Obviously, that idea bothers me a lot. I am not that type of person.

That said...

I don't think that he's entirely off-base in his thinking. His complaint was about the attitude of me first, last, and always. Greed is good, and people are only good for what they can do for you. It's an unfortunate attitude, and it is one that is openly embraced by a staggering number of black men. And I think we'd be pretty hard pressed to say that it hasn't become a serious problem.

But I don't think it's some sort of conspiracy. Teams who are trying to keep that corrosive attitude away form their locker rooms are bypassing players who act in such a fashion. A large proportion of men on the field who don't act that way (at least not in large doses; I mean come on, Tom Brady may be a "model citizen," but he still has a babymama) happen to be white. But there are black men who shun that attitude as well. Shaun Alexander is an excellent example.

While what is happening can be viewed in terms of race, I think it might be smarter to simply say that the more successful teams in the NFL today are shunning players who are disruptive to team dynamics and undermine the winning attitude of the roster overall. It's just better for business that way.