Every morning around 8am I wake up and do the same thing.
I grab my phone, and check my texts. Then, I look at emails, and finally I open Twitter. When I did that this morning, the first tweet I saw said…
“What if I wore an African-American shirt?”
As someone who gets daily tweets about what would I say if there was a “WhiteSportsOnline” I can’t say I was surprised I was getting a tweet like that. At first I didn’t know the context of it. Then I proceeded to see ESPN’s Bomani Jones trending for wearing a graphic tee of the Indians logo, but saying Caucasians with a white guy wearing a $.
When I saw the varying opinions about it, it reminded me of something Michael Irvin said to me many years ago when I was explaining the concept of BSO. Irvin laughed as only Irvin can laugh, and then he got serious, looked me in the eye and said, “SON…THEY ARE GOING TO HATE YOU, THEY DON’T LIKE WHEN THE RABBIT HAS THE GUN.”
Let me be clear. When I give the following scenario, I am not talking about all white people in America. However, if you don’t understand the rabbit and gun analogy, go ask a Trump supporter what they think about cops or George Zimmerman getting off for murdering black people. Their answer is likely going to be something like this.
“They feared for their life.”
“He was a criminal.”
“Why didn’t he just obey their commands?”
“We have to trust the process of the Justice System.”
“All Lives Matter!!!”
Then, ask that same person about what they thought about the OJ trial. Study their expression, and I am pretty sure that their answers about justice being served will be a little different.
Asks them what they think about native Americans who are offended by the Redskins or Indians logo. Most will be dismissive of them because they feel they are beneath them.
The interesting thing about oppression is that the oppressor doesn’t have an issue with it until it is actually happening to them. Then, they are outraged and changes have to be made immediately.
According to TMZ, people at ESPN “freaked out” about Bo’s shirt and asked him to cover it up. I reached out to ESPN to get a comment and this was their response:
“During Mike & Mike this morning, Bomani addressed why he wore the shirt with Molly Qerim and Mike Greenberg. ESPN has discussed the Native American mascot topic across its platforms many times.
Regarding your sweatshirt question, on background I can tell you as the show progressed, we felt Bomani made his point and had openly discussed why he was wearing the shirt, and we wanted to keep the focus to the topics of the day.”
If true, the bigger issue is how the media who is controlled by 90% white males and freely speak in stereotypical and coded tone about the minority players they cover never cause a “freak out.”
People like Clay Travis get promoted, and Curt Schilling, who makes borderline and sometimes outright racist comments almost on a weekly basis, still has a job. Curt Schilling saying a black man’s hair makes him “less professional” isn’t the cause for a freak out, but Bomani wearing a shirt that if your brain functions at even a remedial level is more about the Indians and their use of an offensive mascot than white people causes a “freak out?”
No you can’t wear a “African-American” tee if you are white. You can’t have a whitesportsonline. The reason minorities have to carve their own niche is because it wasn’t that long ago that minorities were treated like subhumans. Frankly, in 2016, there are instances everyday that make me wonder how far have we truly come.
Oppression works off fear; fear to speak your mind, fear of consequences of speaking out against the oppressor. When you aren’t oppressed you just say whatever the hell you want without consequence. That is the definition of white privilege. I can honestly say I am not sure I’d have the balls to do what Bomani did because he is an extremely intelligent guy, more intelligent that a lot of the executives that are freaking out.
I don’t know what Bomani was thinking when he woke up this morning and made this decision, but he knew what he was doing and frankly that isn’t the point. The point is a network that is doing Greg Hardy interviews and allows their own employees to take shots at each other and the network as a whole shouldn’t be judging.
You are free to disagree with Bomani or anyone about anything, that is your right as an American, but you are a hypocrite if what Bomani did made you uncomfortable. I don’t agree with everything Bo does or say, but he isn’t afraid to point the gun back at people who has shot us in the back for centuries and then said it was our fault they pulled trigger. It isn’t his job or anyone’s job to make the oppressor comfortable, because black people have been made uncomfortable from the day we were forced to take that vacation over to a country that was stolen from the Indians, the same Indians the “Caucasians” are still profiting from.
Funny how that works.