RACIAL AND GENDER JUSTICE

I used to play basketball, a little. I was a skinny white kid. I could shoot pretty well, dribbled fairly well, and enjoyed the game. Until our school played a high school from Milwaukee. All of the players on that team were black. They were all taller than me, I at 6 ft., I was one of the tallest players on my team. They could all jump higher, shoot better, fun faster and dribbled circles around me and everyone else. We didn’t stand a chance. Then they laughed at us at weak and pathetic white boys. That really hurt!

This caused me to reflect on the strongest argument for racial justice in America. The NBA. According to the best information available, 81.1% of players in the NBA are black. Only 17.9 percent of them are white. Many of them are huge white guys from overseas with names I couldn’t possibly pronounce. The bottom line is that if you are a white kid, who likes to play basketball, the chances of playing in the NBA are close to zero. How is this fair? If we are going to have racial justice, then let’s have racial justice for all. Starting with the NBA. I propose that effective immediately all NBA teams be required to set a quota for Black Players to be no more than twice the percentage of black people in the country. That is about 13.4%. To be fair, let’s round that up to 15%. To be even more fair, let’s allow teams to have twice that percent of black players, or 30%. This seems only fair, because Coca Cola will no longer work with law firms that do not have 30% black attorneys. Every major corporation is required to set a goal for a certain percentage of black officers and directors. Every occupation, that is dominated by white people, is being forced to actively recruit and hire black applicants. Why should the NBA be exempt from social justice?

So, by 2023, which will be close to the end of the COVID 19 lockdowns in Democratic States, the NBA must have a plan of action to have 70% of players be non-black. At the same time, we need to be looking at the NFL. According to reports in 2019 58.9% of NFL players were black. It is reported that by 2020 this had increased to 70%. How is this remotely fair?

Now naïve people could conclude that black people can run faster and jump higher than white people. But that would be just so fascist. Are we to believe that people have inherent strengths and weakness because of their race? How is that possible? Even if true, that is still unfair. How do we really know how well white players can perform in the NBA or the NFL if they are not even given a chance. Talk about a lack of racial justice. So, effective 2023, every NFL team should set a goal of having at least 70% of players non-black.

If you feel this is unfair, this is exactly what the NBA and the NFL is demanding regarding coaches. There is tremendous pressure on both NBA and NFL teams to recruit and hire black coaches. They are also under pressure to recruit female coaches. Which brings up another point. In addition to increasing the number of white players in the NBA and the NFL, we should also demand that 50% of players and coaches be female. That is only fair.

If we are going to have racial and gender justice, then let’s have racial and gender justice. Some, again naïve, people would argue that sports should not work this way. That only talent and the ability to play the game should count. But talent and the ability to play is now irrelevant in every other field, so why make an exception for sports. Joe Biden clearly is against that, which is why he is all in on transgender males competing in woman’s sports. Otherwise, he would be admitting that gasp, males, and females have different athletic abilities. Heresy I say heresy. It would be like saying that women have more to fear from physical attacks by men then men need fear physical attacks by women. We know that this could not possibly be true, because if you believe that, you probably believe men and women have different physical makeups and ability. How unfair is that. If you think you are female, you should have all the rights and protections of a female. Biology has nothing to do with gender. Nothing else is fair.

All I am asking is for racial and gender equality. Everywhere. In every occupation. At every level. Then and only then will we all understand the importance of equality.

TDM