Writer Apologizes for Saying America Needs College Football

Writer Apologizes for Saying America Needs College Football

This is the lowest form of virtue signaling. Groveling for having an opinion the woke mob doesn’t like.

From Inside Higher Ed:

Why America Needs College Football — Part 2

It doesn’t. I was wrong. And even worse, I was uninformed, ignorant and harm inducing.

I recently led a piece in Inside Higher Ed titled “Why America Needs College Football.” I am sorry for the hurt, sadness, frustration, fatigue, exhaustion and pain this article has caused anyone, but specifically Black students in the higher education community and beyond.

I am struggling to find the words to communicate the deep ache for the damage I have done. I don’t want to write anything that further deepens the pain experienced by my ignorance related to Black male athletes and the Black community at any time, but especially in light of the national racial unrest. I also don’t want to write anything that suggests that antiracist learning is quick or easy. This is the beginning of a very long process, one that started with learning about the empirical work related to Black college football athletes.

Rather than make excuses, I should talk about which facets of the article that I have recently learned are harmful — through my students, wider social media community and distinguished academics like Donna Ford, Joy Gaston Gayles and Gilman Whiting.

I learned that I could have titled the piece “Why America Needs Black Athletes.” I learned that Black men putting their bodies on the line for my enjoyment is inspired and maintained by my uninformed and disconnected whiteness and, as written in my previous article, positions student athletes as white property. I have learned that I placed the onus of responsibility for democratic healing on Black communities whose very lives are in danger every single day and that this notion of “democratic healing” is especially problematic since the Black community can’t benefit from ideals they can’t access. I have learned that words like “distraction” and “cheer” erase the present painful moments within the nation and especially the Black community.

Hat tip to Nick Gillespie of Reason:

This sort of groveling, forced admission not just of error but sin reads like a confession from Stalin's purges or Mao's Cultural Revolution. @wesyang @JohnHMcWhorter @thomaschattwill @spikedonline https://t.co/XQ8kmK4xqv

— Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) September 29, 2020

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