By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Late Fall 1975, I was sitting in my living room that we never sat in with my father’s tie on. A coach from some nondescript college was talking to my Dad about me coming to play for him. “Never saw a missed block all night,” he crooned. “Your son can play.” My Dad, obviously flattered, asked the coach about academics and was edified that “Look, the books are the same wherever he goes, but we can do more for him. We can make him a man … you know, build his character.” “That’s our job,” Dad replied. Dad ushered him politely out of the house.
South Beach Bully
The nation’s been riveted by the revelations coming out of the Miami Dolphins locker room. Stanford educated right tackle Jonathan Martin abruptly left the team before a big game and checked into a local hospital claiming emotional exhaustion. The fatigue was not caused by the grinding NFL schedule but, according to Martin, from constant bullying by fellow offensive lineman Richie Incognito and others over a two-year period. Martin’s lawyers filed a complaint with the league for denying their client the right to earn a living by promoting or permitting a hostile work environment. Proven league bad-boy Incognito was suspended indefinitely.
A victim of bullying himself (according to his dad who makes Jim Piersall’s father look positively Howard Cunningham-ish by comparison-just read his message board comments sometimes), Incognito claims the coaches asked him to “toughen up” Martin. The Dolphins refuse to admit or deny any role in the hazing despite some persistent questioning from the press on the topic. Nicknamed “Big Weirdo” by Incognito and other NFL millionaires, Martin played left tackle for tough guy coach Jim Harbaugh during his college career and anchored one of the meanest o-lines in the country at Stanford. No matter, in today’s thuggish NFL because second round pick Martin didn’t drink, carouse, use racial epithets, get into fights with waiters, and generally behave the fool (like allegedly harassing women with a golf club to their private parts) like Incognito, Martin was not of the right stuff. Didn’t have the right character, you know.
Once the guffaws died down in the locker room, Martin’s teammates were quick to come to Incognito’s defense. Incognito, they said was Martin’s “best friend” and protector. Despite a grotesque voice mail message where Incognito called the mixed race Martin a “half-ni**er” and threatened to defecate in places too obscene to mention, the gridiron pros from South Beach decided breaking the Code of Silence so prevalent in all all-male institutions was worse than threatening to assault someone’s mother or vowing to kill a teammate or wishing to take part in a gang rape of your sister.”If I’m not mistaken,” one teammate said, Martin played the voice mail before members of the locker room fraternity laughing all the way. “If I’m not mistaken”? You’d think you’d recall with certainty the biggest story in the country’s key piece of damning evidence, but group think does have the tendency to make your forget facts and perhaps even morals, it seems.
Heartfelt From the Heartland
Change the scene from sin-city Miami to America’s heartland in Ypsilanti, Michigan: Former hot college coach Ron English, once defensive coordinator at football factory Michigan and other lesser members of the football cabal which dominates our consciousness on Saturday afternoons — and Tuesday nights, and Thursday nights, takes a new job and vows to “change the culture” at hapless Eastern Michigan University. That was 2008 and four plus years later all the Eagles have to show for that culture change is a 1-8 record this season losing eight straight games by an average score of 48-18. The previous years under English weren’t much better. He’s gone 11-46 since his arrival. Now frustrated at his players lack of “character,” English lashes out at the 18-22 years olds who beat themselves silly every day risking real injury as football’s concussion scandal has now shown, trying to please the man in the green golf shirt with the whistle around his neck:
* “You’ll always be (bleeped) up.”
* “How did so many young guys go bad?”
* “This is (bleep) football, as bad as I’ve ever been around.”
* “You have no respect for yourself.”
* “I respect football players … you ain’t no football players.”
You can listen to the “character building” yourself. Warning: Poor audio containing harsh but common football language including the seemingly obligatory homophobic slur:
Recorded by a player, the rant forced English out as coach even before his winning (or lack thereof) percentage did. The mavens of academe (who obviously have a wolf by the ears) issued a statement that reads like an epistle from St. Paul:
“We hold our coaches and staff to high standards of professionalism and conduct and there is no place, particularly in a student environment, where the language is appropriate. The statements made by Coach English are absolutely unacceptable. My decision to make a change in leadership of our football program was the culmination of a lot of factors including the comprehensive review of our program, the competitive performance and this tape.
“Our primary interest is in the well-being and success of our student-athletes and this will continue to be our priority in every decision we make and every action we take. My focus moving forward is on the quality of our student-athletes’ experience as well as the search process for the next leader of our football program.”
Well, maybe it reads more like an episode from Lassie: “What’s that girl? You say there’s bullying going on by adults over teenagers and 20-year olds who come to our school? Quick, Lassie get to the university legal affairs office for help! We need a statement now.”
What kind of character?
Maybe, if I was more savvy back in 1975 I would have the presence of mind to ask the coach in my living room just what kind of character he had in mind for me. Judging by the two recent debacles I think I’m getting the idea. I was to be machismo incarnate — tough, hostile to gays, intolerant of “weakness” real or imagined. A carouser, a harasser of women, respecting only those in the game and no one not associated with its savage charms, in short I was to be a football player in today’s NFL.
The sad and ironic thing is that the game really can build character. Time and scores of kids I’ve coached have showed me that. It can take shy kids like I was and, when it’s done right, allow them to earn confidence and acquire leadership skills. My high school coaches, as imperfect as they were, showed me that but I was too immature to see it. At 18, all I could understand was that Dad had just dismissed one of the few coaches in the world who thought I was good enough to put on a jersey for their team. How could Dad take away my dreams and forgo whatever financial scholarship bone the coach was willing to throw my way? Boy in 1975, I was mad.
Thanks, Dad.
Sources: USA Today; NY Daily News
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
RWL:
Who is this Akbar fellow?
Here are 2 quotes I found:
“We are ignorant of who we are and what we can do. We have a need to gain consciousness and only in consciousness is our true human capacity open to us.”
“Human beings are equipped with what they need to do and once they are stirred with that realization, there are no barriers.”
>“Her work [the black female slave] as a human being was reduced to the >particular financial value or personal pleasure she could hold for the >master. As a breeder, she was to be mated with the plantation’s strongest >’studs’ regardless of human attachment.”
Had a co-worker back in the day make an off-hand comment about how blacks dominate sports because they were “bred” for it. Kinda like we bred all the different dog breeds into being.
Knocked my socks off.
RWL:
that was some kind of post.
Wow.
I forgot add: Goodell’s book, entitled “The African Slave Code” (1835) is utilized as a reference in Dr. Akbar’s book.
From his book, “Breaking The Chains of Psychological Slavery” (1996), Dr. Akbar depicts the psychological legacy of slavery on the African-American Family:
“Probably the most serious effect of all was the impact that slavery had on the African-American family. The family is the very foundation of healthy, constructive, personal and community life. Without a strong family, individual life and community life are likely to become very unstable. The destruction or damage to the African-American was accomplished by destroying marriage, fatherhood, and motherhood:
‘Slavery does away with fathers, as it does away with families. Slavery has no use for either fathers or families, and its laws do not recognize their existence in the social arrangement of the plantation. When they do exist, they are not the outgrowths of slavery, but are antagonistic to that system.’
“William Goddell (1835) describes the institution of marriage as it was viewed by the slave holders”
‘The slave has not rights, of course; he or she cannot have the rights of a husband, a wife. The slave is a chattel and chattels do not marry. The slave is not ranked among sentient beings, but among things, and things are not married.’
“Goddell (1835) continues in his graphic description of slave marriages:
‘The obligations of marriage are evidently inconsistent with the conditions of slavery, and cannot be performed by a slave. The husband promises to protect his wife and provide for her. The wife promises to be the helpmeet of her husband. The mutually promise to live with and cherish each other, until parted by death. But what can such promises by slaves mean? The legal relation of master and slave renders them void! It forbids the slave to protect even himself. It clothes his master with authority to bid him to inflict deadly blows on the woman he has sworn to protect. It prohibits his possession of any property wherewith to sustain her…It gives the master unlimited control and full possession of her own person, and forbids her, on pains of death, to resist him, if he drags her to his bed! It severs the plighted pair at the will of their masters, occasionally or forever.’
“The African-American man was evaluated by his ability to endure strenuous work and to produce children. He was viewed by the slave master as a stud and a workhorse. The stronger and more children he could sire, the greater the expansion of the master’s slave holdings and the greater his financial worth. The more work the slave could perform, the greater the production, the greater the profits that came to the master. African-American manhood was defined by his ability to impregnate a woman and the magnitude of his physical strength.”
“The virtues of being able to protect support and provide for one’s offspring, which is the cornerstone of true fatherhood, were not considered the mark of a man on the plantation. In fact, the slave who sought to assert such rights for his offspring was likely to be branded as a troublemaker and either punished or killed. After several generations of such unnatural treatment, the African-American man adapted and began to resist the role of a true father.”
“Today in African-American communities, around America, we carry the mark of the strong-armed stud from slavery. He occurs as the modern-day pimp or the man who delights in leaving neglected babies dispersed around town. He is the man who feels that he is a man only by his physical, violent, and sexual exploits…….Such family irresponsibility does not occur among African people who have never endured the ravages of American/European slavery or who were able to preserve their cultural integrity in spite of slavery.”
“The African-American woman was valued as a breeder or sexual receptacle capable of having many healthy children. Goddell (1835) offers an example of a newspaper advertisement for an African woman, which demonstrates the desirable qualities of the slave woman:
‘A girl, about 20 years old of age (raised in Virginia), and her 2 female children, one four and the other two years old, is remarkably strong and healthy, never having had a day’s sickness, with the exception of the smallpox, in her life. The children are fine and healthy. She is very prolific in her generating qualities and affords a rare opportunity to any person who wishes to raise a family of healthy servants for their own use.’
“Her work as a human being was reduced to the particular financial value or personal pleasure she could hold for the master. As a breeder, she was to be mated with the plantation’s strongest ‘studs’ regardless of human attachment. She was also usually expected to be receptive to the sexual exploitation of the slave master, his relatives, and/or his friends. Goodell (1835) documents this point:
‘Forced concubinage of slave women with their masters and overseers, often coerced by the lash, contributed another class of facts, equally undesirable. Rape committed on a female slave is an offense not recognized by law.’
“Such abuse of African-American women began to damage the natural nurturing and dignity of motherhood. Children were conceived out of convenience for an oppressor-not even at the level of animal lust. The child was doomed to continue in the very conditions, which had bred him/her. Many women either became abusive to their children or over-protective of them in response to such inhuman conditions.”
“Even today, we find too many frustrated young African-American women choosing to become breeders in their search for an identity. Too many of those young mothers become abusers of those children, or turn into spoiled and irresponsible pimps by indulgently protecting them against a cruel world.”
“Probably the most serious effect of all was the impact that slavery had on the African-American family. The family is the very foundation of healthy, constructive, personal and community life. Without a strong family, individual life and community life are likely to become very unstable. The destruction or damage to the African-American was accomplished by destroying marriage, fatherhood, and motherhood:”
RWL,
Exactly. You can’t discuss illegitimacy while forgetting this.
Mike S/Juliet:
I do think that illegitimacy leads to higher incidence of criminality. I only blame unwed mothers in part. Absent fathers bear responsibility too. Here’s the stats:
“…growing up without a father is a far better forecaster of a boy’s future criminality than either race or poverty. Regardless of race, 70 percent of all young people in state reform institutions were raised in fatherless homes, as were 60 percent of rapists, 72 percent of adolescent murderers, and 70 percent of long-term prison inmates.”
“I do think that illegitimacy leads to higher incidence of criminality.”
Mark,
I don’t doubt the truth of that, but the cause has much more to do with the results of severe economic inequality and racism, rather than a lack of personal responsibility. The former creates the latter and in decrying that lack of personal responsibility by blaming the victims you’re missing the point.
Mike Spindell:
Summer of 1980 Carter was still president. So I am not sure why you are invoking Reagans name. Since Carter would have been in charge of the program.
Reagan didnt take the oath of office until January of 1981.
But anyway the reason I asked is that I worked with 2 black women around 25, I was a little younger. They were good workers but never wanted additional hours. I asked them why once and they both told me their welfare would be cut off. I asked them what they meant because I was thinking that they would lose some of their benefits if they worked over a certain amount. Much to my shock, they told me they would lose all of their benefits if they worked more than the amount they were allowed to work by law.
I thought then and still think to this day that that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. No wonder people cant get off welfare, the system traps them. It makes them dependent on government and slaves of the politicians who pander to them and promote their dependency. All in the name of being re-elected.
“I thought then and still think to this day that that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. No wonder people cant get off welfare, the system traps them.”
Bron,
You and I finally agree!. The reason for welfare in the first place is that the “Fed” has ensured for years that every time the country booms, unemployment goes down and wages go up, they raise the interest rates to dampen the economy. American Corporatism always needs a certain percentage of people out of work to keep wages low. Those on Welfare serve as a caution to workers to work hard, or lose their jobs and be destitute. It’s a game Bron and it is played by both sides of the aisle in their dancing to the tune of their corporate masters.
Almost everything one needs to know about raising kids can be found on youtube.
You’ve got questions, just check with Al Bundy or Peggy. 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Al+Bundy+teaches+Bud+to+be+a+man&sm=3
No money for kids welfare from the govt, even after they paid corporations to ship jobs overseas,(ie; Romney/Delphi,), but all the money in the world to further set up a Nazi type police state.
I think federal welfare funding is currently $80 billion a year.
Yet every month Wallst Banks/Insur co’s are getting $85 billion in tax payer backed welfare.
And wallst has the govt granted monopoly to leverage those funds 10-100 times the original $85 billion. (That’s why the USA will turn into Greece.)
That 234 trillion derivatives is just about 20% of the estimated 1.5 quadrillion derivatives of bad debt still float around on Wallst/City of London’s balance sheets.
This is interesting about the Obamacare Scam below:
(Careful about James O’Keefe’s edit until vetted.))
http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-truth-about-navigators.html
Conversely, here are a few more group stats based on being fatherless.
90% of chronic arsonists[often a sexual expression gone horribly wrong!]
85% of youth w/ behavioral disorders
75% of adolescents in chemical abuse treatment
More exceptions to the rule. The following were raised fatherless.
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Gene Hackman
Jon Stewart
Halle Berry
Robert Frost
Bach
DaVinci
Jodi Foster
Mark Twain
BB King
Jane Austen
Stephen King
http://www.prisonplanet.com/gov-documents-expose-massive-domestic-spying-operation.html
This govt demo/repubs, they are not going to fix anything, just more of the same & worst.
Here are some highlights:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-12/meet-cftcs-new-head-timothy-massad-man-responsible-regulating-234-trillion-derivativ
As I stated previously our prez is just one of many exceptions to the rule. The fact that I need to type out these stats is a bit odd, but whatever.
Here are percentages based on fatherless children. There are many more.
63% of youth suicides
90% of homeless children
80% of rapists
71% of high school dropouts
85% of youth incarcerated
“The fact that I need to type out these stats is a bit odd, but whatever.
Here are percentages based on fatherless children. There are many more.”
What I find odd is that all you need have done was provide a link, so that we could read the source material for ourselves and you would have had less to type.
SWM, I did not say, nor do I think, boys cannot grow up to be good men w/o a father. Our president is a good man and I believe good father to just name one. I can think of several people in my own life who also fit that mold. I’m just saying the odds are against them. I coached boys who were fatherless and took that role model position very seriously. When I was a teacher, I could often tell the kids who didn’t have fathers in the home. The boys more so than the girls, but girls lose out w/o a male role model also. I didn’t need to get the background on those students. They would just focus on me like a laser. They would to varying degrees seek out my attention, both positively and negatively.
nick, I don’t about that. Some boys have been raised by strong grandmothers and have turned out fine. If you have one person who is 100% in your corner be it male or female, the odds are in your favor.
Bron, Absolutely correct, the problem is a culture where men take pride in fathering as many children w/ as many women as possible.
“Bron, Absolutely correct, the problem is a culture where men take pride in fathering as many children w/ as many women as possible.”
Yes let us blame and disparage the victim. In the process let us forget 300 years of slavery that robbed Black men of their culture and specifically limited their having a normal family life. Let us also forget 100 years past slavery when Jim Crow existed in the South and in the North. While we’re at forgetting everything that happened before ten minutes ago let us definitely forget the purpose re-introduction of heroin into Black neighborhoods by the CIA in the late 60’s that destroyed the Civil Rights Movement. Let us be sure to forget these and other historical facts because they inconveniently disrupt your “cogent” analysis. Context is annoying, which is why most people prefer to ignore it.
Elaine, I absolutely agree about a man being present not guaranteeing a boy becoming a good man. But the social science is unequivocal, a fatherless boy has 2 strikes against him growing up. Only a man can teach a boy how to be one. Same for a woman and a girl.
Elaine:
Thats right. Children dont do well in those households either.
Juliet:
We give people plenty and day care.
The problem isnt money.