The collapse of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin on the field in the first quarter of the team’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals last week was unquestionably terrifying, first and foremost to Hamlin, but also to his family, his teammates, his community, the NFL, and the nation, all of whom have rallied around him in the aftermath with an outpouring of love and support.
While Hamlin’s ongoing recovery from what’s been called a cardiac arrest has been nothing short of remarkable, the woke hot take that came from “Scientific American” in response to his injury left a lot to be desired:
Though the author, Duke University assistant cultural anthropology professor Tracie Canada, acknowledged that one reason for the allegedly “disproportionate” nature of violent hits affecting black men being because there are far more players of color in the NFL, she also laid the blame on what she called “racial stacking”:
Non-white players account for 70 percent of the NFL; nearly half of all Division I college football players are Black. Further, through a process called racial stacking, coaches racially segregate athletes by playing position. These demographic discrepancies place Black athletes at a higher risk during play.
Throughout her piece, Canada cited fellow wokesters who agreed with her like sociologists Billy Hawkins and Harry Edwards:
On these playing fields, ones that sociologist Billy Hawkins would argue are never theoretically far from plantation fields, financial stakeholders value Black bodies for their productive potential and physical prowess.[…]In the words of sociologist and activist Harry Edwards, “like a piece of equipment, the black athlete is used.”
Interestingly, though this article was published in the purportedly respectable Scientific American magazine, not a single scientific argument was made to support Canada’s case that there was a racial component to this beyond the fact that more black players are in the NFL than white, as she even admitted:
While I am not aware of research that compares the rate of injury between Black and white football players, heatstrokes, ACL and labrum tears, ankle sprains, bone breaks, and concussions are just a few of the consequences of how these bodies are used.
Understandably, Canada’s claim was widely mocked and ridiculed, including by former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy among others:
Others correctly pointed out that Scientific American has become an “embarrassing joke” in recent years due to an increased obsession with “progressive wokeness” and like many other scientific publications and institutions shouldn’t be taken seriously anymore:
For instance, over the summer, Scientific American slammed NASA for ending their “Pronoun Project.”
Also, in June 2021 SciAm removed an anti-Israel op/ed from their website after criticism from other scientists, some of whom called out the magazine for “falsifying facts.”
They’ve also admittedly colluded with the mainstream media on politicizing the climate change debate.
They’ve also alleged that there is an “anti-fat” bias in the medical community primarily because some physicians dare to point out to their patients that losing weight could help them become healthier and perhaps experience fewer physical problems.
In a related piece, one author proclaimed that “you can be fat and fit at the same time.”
Not surprisingly, they’ve also gone woke on the gender identity politics front, stating that it’s “transphobic” for anyone to suggest that men who identify as women should not be allowed to play in women’s sports.
Question of the day, from retired Navy SEAL chief Tim Wood:
Thoughts?
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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