ArtLindsey.com

I’ll be the first to admit it.

I’m a white man.

I’m a very white man. In fact, if I go into the sun for a prolonged period of time, I’ll explode.

99.9% of my friends are white. I have one true black friend, whom I jokingly call my “token black friend”, and I am his “token disabled friend”. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship when it comes to paperwork, and we get along just fine.

Come to think of it, I have *Lebanese* friends who are even whiter than me (You have no idea how white that is.) They are so white, that the fascination they have with the Dave Matthews Band is downright disturbing. For the love of God, Mario, change your ringtone, okay? …It makes me want to go “Under the Table…and Shoot Myself”.

Enough of that. Let me get to the point here. I can’t believe I still have to bring this up. Here it comes:

Just because you’re black, that doesn’t make you special.

I’m tired of hearing about “black this” and “black that”. Shut up already, will you? I can’t even enjoy Super Bowl coverage without hearing about it. Alright, fine. I’m aware that Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy are the first black coaches in the Super Bowl. Call me crazy, but I think that they are probably well aware of it too. I feel bad for them, because when they each won their respective conference championships, the first question that was asked of each of them was “How does it feel to be the “first/second black head coach in the Super Bowl?”

That’s just wrong. It doesn’t matter.

In the case of Dungy, this man toiled for years, building powerhouses out of Tampa Bay and Indianapolis, but he was never quite able to pull it off. Until now. Why can’t the man just be lauded as brilliant and left at that? The same can be said for Smith, even though it didn’t take him as long, because he came into better situations than Dungy did.

The fact that Dungy and Smith are black has nothing to do with why they are coaching in the Big Game. They’re just good at their jobs. I find it sad how those who claim to fight against the concept of racism do nothing but perpetuate it.

If I was ever to lead a team to the Super Bowl, I’m sure someone would ask me, “How does it feel to be the first disabled coach…”
It doesn’t feel like anything. I’d be thrilled to do it, because I love football, and I’ve coached it myself, but the fact that I use a walker is completely irrelevant. Personally, I’d take the Mike Ditka approach to it and tell reporter to stop being stupid, and ask me better questions.

Really, the most disturbing part of all this is that the media treats this like it’s some sort of anomaly as a whole. That it’s rare that a person succeed in this country because they are black. That is simply not true. Success has to do with effort and desire, and absolutely nothing to do with color. This is proven just by using the NFL as a base template. The majority of the players are black, and the percentage of black coaches in the League is well higher than the national average when based against the percentage of black *population* in America.

If we want race to stop being an issue in this country we need to stop bringing it up.

I don’t know about you, but I just want to watch some football.

Popularity: 19% [?]