Memo to Bill Rhoden - It's not 1969 Anymore

Boom, there are many who haven't moved on. It's the same thing now going on with a black man running for president.
Rhoden plays the angle often and if you read what he wrote, he does make sense. However, this is not a racial situation with Young. This is a case of a young man (pardon the pun) who is having problems with failure at the game's highest level.

 

So true. I am convinced that Kyle Orton, Tony Romo and Tom Brady would be re-writing the rules of quantum physics if they weren't NFL quarterbacks.

 

Hyperbole isn't your friend.

Don't you find it funny that its' mostly educated or successful African Americans who often make the claims that they had to work twice as hard to dispel the stereotypes they confronted to get there?

It isn't a coincidence or some disturbed paranoia on their parts, as much as some would like to diagnose it.

The preception is out there, and you have some who relish in it and others who let it consume them to the point they don't move forward.

I'm not sure how one can say someone as educated as Rhoden or successful as McNabb are just "spooked" out their frazzled minds.

For the record, I don't see how Young is used as an example by Rhoden.

 

This is a no-win argument that's been played out as long as there have been message boards. I'll politely bow out. Nobody is changing anybody's mind about this stuff.

 

I agree but the constant dismissal of what man have traveled through in their lives is downright dishonest.

No one is trying to win anything because nothing can be won out of it. Just accept it and take it into account rather than dismissing it as something false.

Rhoden didn't nail it at all in that article IMO, but to put on some front that things were left back 39 years ago is ridiculous.

 

Rhoden wrote about what he perceives is happening. To some extent there is truth in what he writes. The sad part about all of it is that this is 2008 and this shouldn't be a topic but it is.

 

Here is the paragraph that really stuck out to me:

Annndd, here's the pitch!

I felt like he was going to ask for my credit card number at the end of the column.

 

Yes, it was a shameless plug.

 

Interesting Freudian Slip right there, because I think that is part of the problem, especially with Rhoden. I don't think preception is even a word, but it suggest a preconceived notion. While there are definitely still racists attitudes in the world, there are also people like Rhoden who assume that race is at the heart of every problem that ever occurs. It is a factor, but not nearly as important a factor as Rhoden makes it out to be.

Rhoden also gets dismissed by some on this topic because he has beaten it to death, and he hasn't done it well. It is hard to take him seriously on this topic, and he has only himself to blame.

And please note that Rhoden himself is dismissive of Young's opinion on the topic. Why? Because it doesn't fit his little theory. Young is being booed on his merits, or more accurately, his lack of merit. He was overly hyped as a rookie and now fans are disappointed because he has not progressed as a quarterback. Maybe all those people, reporters and others, who were hyping Young his rookie year were just racists, setting him up for a fall. That would fit Rhoden's way of thinking, wouldn't it?

He also plays the, "You can't possibly understand" card yet again. Perhaps he should just get out of the business if he feels that way. He is not a professional athlete, so I guess he can't possibly understand anything about the athletes he writes about. Now that I think about it, that might explain a lot.

 

Well Chee, if it does, I'm not hearing it. Maybe it's a thought process still being suppressed by some, and maybe it's still being said somewhere in redneckland, but nobody's expressing anything like that anywhere I've been in years. The idea that this is still some pervasive idea like it was in the 60s is mostly hogwash, imo.

Now I HAVE heard a lot of people suggest that Rex Grossman is a "low browed thinker" (actually fucking idiot is I believe how they put it) but that has everything to do with his propensity to fire into double coverage, nothing to do with race or anything else. If a black QB makes decisions like Grossman, he might get the same name calling for the same reasons.

 

Rhoden should know better but willfully ignores reality. Phil Simms was booed AT the draft. Not many quaterbacks were treated worse by fans than Simms his first 5 years. He got hurt and played in only 2 games the next in 2 years. He got beat out of his job by Scott Brunner for a while. Rhoden should know this but to compare the treatment of the 2 would invalidate his simpleton's approach to his job.

 

Asked and answered.

A-men.

When WR meaningfully changes his approach to his position, let me know. Otherwise, let's not waste any more time on an inert horse.