The fight against racism isn’t getting any better as people are getting discriminated against based on their race on a daily basis. There is a disturbing video of a Valdosta player recording a coach saying he is not allowing a black play to play because of his hair. What?
This is unacceptable and this coach should be brought to book and punished. Black Twitter is going crazy over the video as the reactions are wild. Somewhere in 2021, there were reports of racism at Georgia’s Valdosta High School and it appears Valdosta is known for racism.
There is no joy in Titletown, as this South Georgia city calls itself.
The Valdosta Wildcats are undoubtedly one of America’s most successful high school football teams, with more than 900 victories, two dozen state titles and its star players seemingly on a conveyor belt to football meccas like Georgia and Alabama. Greatness is a given here.
So the Wildcat faithful can only bemoan the scandal suddenly unfolding before them, one involving mysterious hirings and firings, rampant rumors and allegations of dirty dealing by some of the South’s most famous college coaches. Poignantly, this racially split community seems unsure whether it can come together even around football.
For now, Valdosta is plumb out of coaches, with its current head coach on administrative leave after he was caught on tape whispering about a recruiting slush fund and the previous one, a white man, alleging racial discrimination after he was fired, though a five-touchdown loss to a local rival can’t be dismissed as a factor.
Who links these disparate threads?
Valdosta Player records video of coach saying he is not allowing black player to play because of his hair. (Second part of video shows he’s not the only player on team with this hair length). pic.twitter.com/4wN0hFvElT
— Black With No Chaser (@BlackNoChaser) August 22, 2023
That would be Michael Nelson, the recently deposed (meaning both fired and placed under oath) executive director of Valdosta High’s Touchdown Club. Nelson boasts that he is one of the fiercest Wildcats fans in town history and calls himself a “one-armed white Jihadist.” He lost his right arm at 13 and since then has used his other hand to sign his name as “Nub.”
Nelson’s deposition in former Coach Alan Rodemaker’s discrimination lawsuit transformed Titletown’s family dysfunction into headline news. It was Nub, too, who secretly recorded the current coach musing about corrupt recruiting schemes he said were carried out by the likes of Kirby Smart, Nick Saban and even Bear Bryant, dead nearly four decades.
All of this has magnified some of the area’s longstanding obsessions.
Pt. 2 (includes player hair comparisons). pic.twitter.com/tQo23fOsKQ
— Black With No Chaser (@BlackNoChaser) August 22, 2023
“Valdosta is known for two things: the Mary Turner lynching and winning high school football games,” said Thomas Aiello, an associate professor of history and African-American studies at Valdosta State University.
Will racism ever end? Hell no! But at least with collective efforts, it can be minimized with fewer cases of racism on a daily basis. We claim we are all the same people yet we look down on ourselves all because of wherever we are coming from. This coach shouldn’t go unpunished.