Dumbest "controversy" of 21st century to date

The ongoing presidential primaries have certainly provided ample material that would fit the title of this blog entry, but I've decided that above all else, uproar over the cover of the current issue of Vogue magazine is the most idiotic thing I've ever heard. Announcement to people of all colors, creeds, races, religions, political parties, sexual preferences, and also to anyone who hasn't quite figured out yet that public funds are not intended for use by elected officials to subsidize extramarital affairs or trips to their brothel of choice: Black men and white women are allowed to be in each other's company without raising a major stir! This is the year 2008. Racism has not vanished from the face of the earth, but as everyone other than those who Barack Obama listens to on Sunday mornings should have figured out by now, we no longer reside in the era of Native Son or To Kill a Mockingbird. Within certain families trouble will no doubt be brewed if the wrong answer is given to the age old question - Guess who's coming to dinner? Nevertheless, the times they have already a-changed to a refreshing degree. As result it is actually possible to look at a photograph of a black man with a white woman, even one where the black guy is clowning (which apparently looks way too much like demonic scowling to some), and not automatically assume that the picture is a reinterpretation of a King Kong movie poster. I did not look at the accompanying photo and fear that the poor model was about to be raped or mugged or eaten alive by the primitive holding her captive. I did not conclude that LeBron was just begging to be lynched. What I thought was - there goes a picture of two young, attractive, famous, rich people, one of whom happens to be the girlfriend of the quarterback for the losing team in the Super Bowl. And then I moved on with my day. Anyone who gave this picture much more thought than that has way too much time on their hands and way too big a chip on their shoulder. I was not offended by the image in the slightest, but I am offended by anyone who takes issue with it because they are stuck in a past that is keeping us from moving full speed ahead into the future. A color blind world may not be right around the corner even if the right candidate is elected president, but surely we live in a day and age when a magazine should be able to blatantly peddle good old fashioned sex without inciting a race riot because the man and woman pictured do not look like genetic brother and sister. Reverend Wright was slandered endlessly for harshly criticizing this country, and Barack Obama was roasted by association. But aren't a few potshots warranted by a nation so obsessed with race that a pretty picture is able to distract us from the fact that we have (for starters) an economy in dire need of fixing and a weakly plotted war desperately in need of an ending?

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- Roy Pickering (Author of "Feeding the Squirrels: A Novella)

http://www.synergebooks.com/ebook_feedingthesquirrels.html

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p.s. - IMHO this is one heckuva speech: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23690567/

This Super Bowl Sunday Is No Ordinary Day

The first Sunday of February 2007, aka Black History Month 2007, is fast approaching. Super Bowl XLI will be played on that day, not your average run of the mill Super Bowl, but one of historic proportions. No, I’m not saying this because Prince will be performing at half time, though I do find that to be pretty cool. The reason I’m excited about 2/4/07, even though it will be one more Super Bowl Sunday that does not feature my beloved New York Jets, is because African-American men will be patrolling both sidelines as the respective head coaches of this year’s participants – the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears.

Black men are certainly not in short supply on NFL fields of play, in fact, they constitute the vast majority of those in pads and uniforms. But when it comes to the skin tone of their bosses, there has been shockingly little rise in melanin count from the league’s earliest days when Vince Lombardi and his pack ruled supreme. One could reasonably cite racism as the cause of such a slow rate of progression. How else to explain the rationale behind Richie Kotite being hired to run more than one team over his career while a large number of qualified African-American head coach wannabes have had to wait and wait and wait for their shot?

The 2006 season began with 7 Black head coaches in a league of 32 teams. Two of them have since been fired and one team (the Pittsburgh Steelers) recently hired an African-American to be the man in charge of the troops, bringing the current total to 6. Two of those six, Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith, will face off against one another in this year’s Super Bowl. The odds of this happening were probably better than the odds of someone named Lovie ever being a professional football coach, but still, it makes for quite the story, an even bigger one than the castaways (This is not a Survivor reference, sports is my reality television) finally getting off of Gilligan’s Island.

Tony Dungy has clearly paid his dues, overcoming what would seem to be debilitating personal tragedy with the suicide of his son and fielding a football team that was finally able to get over the hump and make it to the big show. For this reason, coupled with the fact that Peyton Manning slings the rock with precision abandon and shoots some pretty funny television commercials, my rooting interest is swayed towards the Colts, especially since this season’s version of the Da Bears is no where near as entertaining as the last team they sent to the Super Bowl back in 1985 (has it really been 22 years since America experienced its love affair with William “The Refrigerator” Perry and I was pledging Delta Phi during my freshman year at NYU?). If I was a betting man, I’d gamble that years of getting so close without grabbing the cigar is enough to give Indy the advantage over Chi-town, even if the latter is my kind of town, Chicago is.

History in the making by a couple of class acts on the sidelines, the purple reign of Prince at halftime, at least one television commercial featuring the “talents” of Kevin Federline (who has somehow ended up looking like the classier half of his televised marriage to Britney “no need to put my baby in a car seat cuz I’m country” Spears), and a great offensive team going up against a great defensive one should make for quite a game. Since the NFL is famous for being a copycat league, perhaps numerous teams will go in search of a qualified black guy to be their head coach, much like many of them tried to copy the success of the west coast offense or the 3-4 defense in years past. Or will the NFL prove itself to only be a copycat league when the cat is a white feline rather than one who evokes fear simply by crossing your path? We’ll see soon enough.

My hope if not quite my prediction is that the appearance of Tony Dungy and Lovie “the millionaire’s wife” Smith will lead to social progress. If the Rooney Rule required any vindication, consider this year's Super Bowl to be it. Perhaps in the not too distant future the number of African American head coaches will reach double digits. Or maybe the impact will be even bigger than that. This historic Super Bowl may actually have enough impact to finally convince the powers that be to move the celebration of Black History to a month with more than 28-29 days.

- Roy L. Pickering Jr.

P.S. - Being that Dungy and Smith are such classy guys, some might find them a bit on the boring side. So visit the link below if you wish to see a head coach demonstrating that he epitomizes the last three letters of class.

http://nfl.aolsportsblog.com/2007/01/23/belichick-shows-his-lack-of-experience-with-being-a-gracious-los/