The Black Beast: The NFL Regional Combine and the NFL's Responsibility To The Hood: An Open Letter to Roger Goodell

About the Black Beast title

A blog on racism in professional and college Sports...Beast, animal, and the like were the first names our ancestors were given out of their own name by the slavers. This dehumanized them and set the stage for the entire enlavement process. It was objectification. Today, adult black men who play professional sport are referred to as beasts (and required to be more athletic than their professional white counter parts who are only required to be some what athletic and intelligent so that better black athletes are cut and more white ones are given large sums of money to be professional(as if black athletes do not demonstrate intelligence) which would not happen if all athletes were equally appraised. But more white athletes is a requirement by white coaches, white owners, white ruled leagues who realize that white children look up to, even idolize these men in uniform and that role can never fall to the Black Beast alone. Moreover the self identity of the white male is at stake, for the white male must be able to compete. (The white male must!) This beastly objectification harkens back to the day of the slaver when our ancestor was nothing more than muscle to do their bidding. Here in this blog, The Black Beast is loosed to take back humanity, to demand treatment as a human being, more than muscle and sinew bid to win or loose for white males.Here in this space, it's the Black Beast walkin' down every iota of racism and vindicating all uses of the race card against those who created it.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The NFL Regional Combine and the NFL's Responsibility To The Hood: An Open Letter to Roger Goodell

Mr. Goodell,
Please let me first say that I'm sorry I missed this and forgive me for the belated response to the NFL purchasing the Elite Combine system last year. Forgive me, I was in the middle of a recession which seems to be striking the African American community quite hard and as an African American male who is part of the African American male group which has the highest unemployment rate in the country, I was quite busy focusing on my job, and not my hobbies, so that I did not add to the truly ugly statistic.

What has this to do with my answer to the NFL's purchase of this combine system? Well in a word every thing. Times are rough and many of the men who will participate in the now NFL Regional Combine system will be black, and I dare say an overwhelming number will be as I've witnessed first hand the population of and Elite Combine. And many of them will be unemployed and will have dedicated valuable resources to giving the NFL 200 DOLLARS for the right to evaluated by the NFL. This, as an aside, seems wonderfully like the NFL simply took over Elite and is merely continuing its practices. I did not have a very good experience with Elite and made that clear here in this blog which is read by many people affiliated with your league, both players and others.

A short but important word about my experience with Elite. Let me say simply that I called it the Hamster Wheel combine which was a spectacle of inaccuracies to say the least. You see when a combine makes its money ostensibly from evaluating you, it is not in the interest of the combine system to "graduate you" for obvious reasons because they get their money by having you come back. An age old adage in business is the best customer is a repeat, loyal, or core customer, even if you have to make them believe they need you. Add to that what I know about the athletic talents of the African American male in this country who has dedicated his life to dream of becoming a millionaire sports baller and Elite's promise of working out before the league in the showcase round with a limited number of spots available and you have an inherent detrimental curve. Let me be clear, there are far more many young brothers in America who could complete a combine making the grades needed than there are spots(and these posted grades have to be achievable or a man wouldn't put up his hard earned money to try.)in Indy in the Elite Combine system. So I believed then that what remains is what I saw, slower times than actual times, non warmed lifting, in order to ensure that it is not overbooked. It gave me pause and wonder about successful combine participants and their representative's relationships to Mr. Austin then owner of Elite and now Director of the NFL Regional Combines

I wont bother with more of a discussion of that poor experience it is not the point of this letter, what is is the troubling notion that a billion dollar league is taking money from poor black men who would do better to put that money to better use. And this billion dollar industry benefits directly by the entire community's dedication to achieving in that league forgoing all other dreams or opportunity. Am I saying that the NFL is responsible, accountable, for the incredible number of Black men who have the dream to be NFL Ballers? Yes, yes I am. And I'm saying this because of the overwhelming majority of the cream of the crop of the multimillion dollar earning College Football unofficial farm system and NFL ranks are Black men. Look lets be frank, in the NFL the majority of the starters are Black men committing miracles of athletic prowess who would not be doing them and thereby drawing a great number of fans with out their foundation in the culture of "Black athletic making it" dedicated to honing the skills. With out a doubt, to say that the NFL owes the black community nothing is the denial of a huge responsibility which the billion dollar league has more than enough resources to carry out.

So exactly what am I suggesting? That Black men be allowed to participate at the NFL Regional Combine for nothing? No, I don't believe that would be acceptable to either party. A more sensible and palatable thing for all concerned would be for the NFL to tie donations from the regional combine directly to charitable organizations in the black community. Not the NFL's Play 360 fund, if such a fund exists. Not the ones with the large centralized focus like the YMCA, The Boys Club, The March of Dimes. All very worthy causes, but a donation there may not serve the 'hood branch completely or even reach there. In this economy, the Non-profit sector has been challenged and strained. Here in Raleigh the well known YMCA's hood branch closed placing great strain upon the Triangle YWCA. I am certain, it is like that all across America. As a result, I urge you to look into a giving campaign to struggling community centers and the Independent branches of larger but decentralized organizations. Put the money on the ground directly in the communities where these men were born, raised and will return to work after their dream dies before you and them at the NFL Regional Combine which odds say it will because the participants will be overwhelmingly Black men and an incredible precious few will succeed to make it to Indy and the showcase round.

We here at The Black Beast thank you for your time on this very important matter.

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For The Record

I give little to no love to any one other than Brothers in this space, even if I love them, because these other ballers have ESPN, Sports Illustrated, CNN, Network TV NFL Network and its Media Machine, The AP, UPI, Every Corporate Sponsor, TV announcers and so called experts trumpeting average or merely above average exploits daily to the detriment of Black men (and women in other sports)who routinely do the incredible in front of the either purposefully ignorant or the uninformed as an entire society ignores these feats in large part due to the previously mentioned Media Outlets, Corporations, TV announcers and experts own often intentional or unintentional racism .

The Big Picture: Why we should care about Racism in Pro Sports

Statement:

I can't sympathize with pro athletes .. A sharecropper is one step away from a slave.. The differene between a SLAVE and a Pro Athletic(sic) is at minimum 5 million dollars!!!!!!!!!!!! Plzzz..

Answer:

NO. You can not, must not be jealous of what one has. Wealth given in abundance must be shared equally. It is a difficult spiritual lesson but it is truth...Just because the numbers are larger does not mean there is no discrimination. To do otherwise is simply to objectify those individuals, yet again. No one asks for sympathy, what is sought is equal treatment. Allow them to be treated unequally and this attitude only "trickles down" to every strata of society. Your boss who accepts it as fine that there is inequality in NFL contracts, lets say, will only believe the same is fine in your contract...Unnerstand?

Full entry