 |
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Taunting is a black-and-white issue
Posted: Wednesday December 08, 1999 10:14 AM
Got a comment or question for Dr. Z? Click here. For more on this topic, be sure to check out Dr. Z's latest Mailbag. When Brett Favre ran his finger across his throat during the Lions game a week and a half ago, the NFL reacted with uncharacteristic swiftness in making the slash gesture a fineable offense. The NFL also breathed a huge sigh of relief, because Favre happens to be white. The slash thing is nothing new. The first time I saw it was when Pete Carroll did it at the end of a game a few years ago. It was noted the next day, but it was no big deal. The issue lay dormant for a while, then it seemed to have caught on this season, predominantly among the league's growing majority of black players. There were a few muted grumbles from the NFL office, but it took Favre, a white player with high visibility, to push the red button. Taunting is something that has embarrassed the league office for years, but the NFL has moved slowly and cautiously against the offenders. No spiking the ball in front of an opponent, no undue celebrating, that kind of thing. A penalty, yes -- 15 yards. But no fine, until the slashing thing came along. The problem, and I swim very carefully in these turbulent waters, is that taunting is most common among black players. Many African-American players and coaches whom I've talked with agree. It's an observation that sounds harsh, and naturally would be denied by an NFL hierarchy that is not prepared to enter into this kind of arena. But the fact is, taunting is part of the culture of the small towns and inner-city neighborhoods that produce many of the great black athletes. The Colts' great defensive end, Bubba Smith , who grew up in the football hotbed of Beaumont, Texas, once told me about the carryover from the black high school circuit in East Texas to the NFL."Down there it wasn't enough just to be a great player," he said. "You had to have a little trademark. Each guy had his own signature number, and the fans came to expect it. One guy would do a dance after he scored a touchdown, another one would do a flip, or maybe I'd have some kind of gimmick cooked up after a sack. Taunting? Sure, that was all part of it, except that we called it jiving in those days. When we came into the NFL, all that stuff naturally came in with us." "It's the kind of hip-hop that black kids grow up with," says Dr. Harry Edwards, a sociologist on the faculty at Cal-Berkeley, a longtime consultant to the 49ers -- and a man who happens to be black. "These kids don't park their culture at the door when they come into an NFL locker room." I go back a long way with the Doc. I remember sitting in a back room of a Harlem street academy in the '60s listening to H. Rap Brown, a black activist at the time. Brown was describing an impending demonstration against an indoor track meet run by the New York Athletic Club, an organization that barred blacks and Jews from its membership rolls. Harry Edwards, one of the organizers of the protest, was at his side. "That's how Rap Brown got his name," Dr. Edwards told me this week. "Putting someone down was called 'rapping' in those days, and Brown had a real talent for it. He'd put a guy down so fast and so convincingly that people started calling him Rap. That's where the term 'rap music' came from. "When I was a kid we used to call it, 'playing the dozens.' Verbal one-upsmanship. Now, in the athletic arena, it's called taunting." In the old days of mainstream sports it was unusual. Even in a game as violent as football, there were things that simply weren't done -- bragging, or taunting a beaten or fallen opponent. But bigtime sports were overwhelmingly white in those days, and, just as they do today, the athletes competed according to the traditions they grew up with. The first wave of black players in the NFL came in on tiptoe, very careful not to offend. Yessir, nosir, that kind of thing, even though the hypocrisy of their existence was very plain to them, the fact that they could not share the same hotels and restaurants, for instance, with their white teammates. But as the game turned from white to black, so did the culture on the field. Tradition? So what? The tradition these pro players knew is the tradition they grew up with. Why should they honor the tradition of a sport that put a lid on them? As Dr. Edwards puts it, these kids didn't park their culture at the door. "What you had, and what you still have, is a totally disjointed existence between the athletic establishment and the main product, namely the players on the field," Dr. Edwards says. "Players might see a few black coaches here and there, and one or two front office people, but aside from that they see that what they're going to get, they're going to get on the field. The odds are very much against them moving onto the [broadcast] set or behind a desk." Years ago a white player, no matter how much of a roughneck or carouser, realized that if he shaped himself up and started minding his P's and Q's he could go far in the business. Head coach, general manager -- who knows where he could wind up? For the black players, uh uh. Sorry. Door closed. Now? Well, it's a long shot. Seventy percent of the league's players, but only three out of 31 head coaches, are black. GM? Forget it. So they do their own thing. They taunt, they rap and, as we used to say as kids, they show off. The league office doesn't particularly care for this, but how do you seriously crack down on something that is primarily a black thing? Oh, there are white players who like to talk smack and frisk around, too. Who can forget ex-Jet Mark Gastineau 's sack dance? The Broncos' Bill Romanowski instantly comes to mind. The Panthers' Kevin Greene has been known to get pretty boisterous after a sack. But it almost seems as if they're a minority group trying to achieve acceptance, as the NFL's black minority did in the old days. The NFL, which would really like to cut down on all the taunting and social embarrassment on the field, but dares not to because the connotation would be interpreted as seriously racist, finds a safe target in the throat slash -- because Brett Favre did it. Bad example for the kids, and all that. But what about all the mayhem and trash we see in the commercials? Makes the good old throat thing look downright tame. What lies ahead? More fining offenses? More banned gestures? Who can tell? "I'll say this," Dr. Edwards says. "The league better figure out a way to bridge the gap between players and establishment. I've been profiling kids for the 49ers for 13 years, and the difference between kids coming out now and six years ago is profound. You think the guys in the league now are rough customers? You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait till you see what's going to be." Got a comment or question for Dr. Z? Click here. For more on this topic, be sure to check out Dr. Z's latest Mailbag. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
