by Ijeoma Oluo
In 2017, four confident, talented, unapologetic young women of color were elected to US Congress, and everyone freaked the fuck out.
It sounds almost ridiculous to type that in this day and age, but when I think about the politics of recent years, it is as accurate a way as any to describe the fear, anger, and downright hatred that many Americans have toward women of color who dare reach for political power without first capitulating to white male supremacy. In 2017, forty-five years after Shirley Chisholm was accused of playing “vaginal politics” and the words “go home nigger” were hatefully scrawled across her campaign materials because she dared to believe that a Black woman could be president, and almost twenty-five years after Lani Guinier was labeled the “Quota Queen” for daring to envision an election process that didn’t disenfranchise voters of color, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley have been called everything from racists to terrorist sympathizers for daring to believe that their communities were worth representing and worth fighting for.
“Listen to Black women.” “Listen to women of color.” That has been the refrain of so many on the left since the 2016 elections. We are the group that voted against Trump more than any other. We are the ones who kept Roy Moore out of office. Almost every day I get a message from a white person saying, “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” As if I haven’t been writing for years. As if Black women and women of color haven’t been saying what is wrong with this country for centuries. And right now, we have women of color—strong, capable women of color—in Congress with solid progressive ideals and good ideas, and they are being lambasted as “too radical” and “too divisive.” Right now we have women of color who are writing about what is needed to move this country forward, and they are being dismissed as “race-baiting” and “antiwhite.” And chances are, in future elections, we will again be reaching out to them and asking, “What do we do now?” “How can we fix this?”
Studies have shown that pretty much any time a white man talks about equality and justice, he is praised. It is seen as proof of his broad leadership abilities and his magnanimousness. But women of color are never praised. They are seen as bitter, divisive, vindictive, and self-serving. This view hurts women of color in politics, in the office, and in academia. We are often the most harmed by the failures of our systems to address structural inequality; we are often the first sacrificed to political compromise; we are the vote taken for granted in every single election; we are often the only group standing between an electorate and the next white supremacist representative—and yet when we try to advocate for policies that won’t have us scrambling to save everyone’s asses in the eleventh hour, we are ignored or attacked.
What does it look like to respect qualified women of color as thought leaders instead of waiting to turn to them in dire times as saviors? What does it look like to recognize that the ideas we have to help our communities might just benefit all communities? What does it look like to recognize that we are more than warriors, more than survivors—we are innovators and leaders?
White men get to be respected in every step of the political process. We look to them for fresh new ideas; we look to them for the wisdom of ages; we look to them to rescue us from disaster. And yet it is women of color who are consistently tested and proven right. I hope that we will be able to recognize the talents of our current generation of women of color to lead, and to lead with courage and creativity, before it is too late for anybody—even them—to save us.
CHAPTER 7
GO FUCKING PLAY
Football and the Fear of Black Men
It may surprise you to learn that American football, a sport today known for the Black athletes who showcase their physical speed and strength every Sunday, was created to be played by wealthy white men.
There was a lot of money to be made after the Civil War and during the United States’ violent expansion into Western territories in the 1800s. Families newly wealthy from the growth of railroads and trade (brought by the forced displacement of Indigenous peoples) were looking at their own sons nervously. It had taken a lot of strength and force to build their wealth and power, and it would take more strength and force to maintain them. Would their rich, spoiled offspring have what it takes to grow an American empire? What could wealthy young men do to cultivate strength and aggression if they lived a life of ease? They could, perhaps, play a rough sport.
“The very foundation of football in this country comes out of fears of ruling-class mediocrity and [fears of] the mediocrity of their own children.”
I’m sitting at a bookstore café in Washington, D.C., across a table from a noted author on the history of race and sport, Dave Zirin. It’s his opening line for our conversation on football and Blackness, and it surprises me. But I shouldn’t be surprised to be immediately learning from Zirin; he has written multiple best-selling books on sport, has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, and is widely recognized within the sports world as an authority on sports history and sports labor issues. He’s the guy to talk to about this.
Like the mandate to “Go West, Young Man,” football was born out of Muscular Christianity. Theodore Roosevelt, American cultural icon and the nation’s twenty-sixth president, was, as we’ve seen, a big proponent of this doctrine.
“Teddy Roosevelt—he was like the prom king of this culture of toxic masculinity in sports and seeing sports as a substitute for the fight for empire and war,” explained Zirin.1
American football had its beginnings in the Ivy League colleges, which were attended by young elites like Roosevelt. Its early days were so violent that dozens of student athletes died every year, nearly dooming the sport before it fully got off the ground. The Smithsonian detailed some of the injuries recorded during a particularly brutal college game in 1905: “Four concussions, three ‘kicks in the head,’ seven broken collarbones, three grave spinal injuries, five serious internal injuries, three broken arms, four dislocated shoulders, four broken noses, three broken shoulder blades, three broken jaws, two eyes ‘gouged out,’ one player bitten and another knocked unconscious three times in the same game, one breastbone fractured, one ruptured intestine and one player ‘dazed.’”2
As outrage began to rise over the death toll of the sport, the New York Times placed football right alongside the lynching of Black Americans as our nation’s “Two Curable Evils.”3 Through the great effort of powerful defenders like Roosevelt, who claimed that “it is mere unmanly folly to try to do away with the sport because the risk exists,” football’s supporters instead pressured colleges to form the NCAA to increase oversight and decrease deaths and serious injury.4
Although football persevered through the crisis to become one of our nation’s most beloved pastimes, I am not what anybody would call a sports person. My mom signed me up for a flag football league in fifth grade, and I still haven’t figured out what I (or the team that had to endure my sulky attitude and extreme lack of athletic ability) had done to warrant such punishment. I have watched a few football games (especially during my hometown Seahawks’ Superbowl-winning season in 2014), but I don’t think anybody could confuse me for a “fan.” Instead, my interest in football has been almost entirely political, increasing with the University of Missouri protests in 2015 and continuing with the national-anthem protests started by Colin Kaepernick. To me, the idea of sitting around watching a bunch of Black bodies crash into each other to the delight of white team owners and managers is not entertaining. Even though I can respect and appreciate the great efforts the athletes put forth, the sport has long represented to me the exploitation of Black labor and Black bodies, and little else. But I have come to value (if often with dismay) the way in which we can see the reflection of American racial attitudes through the sport.
Modern-day American football has in many ways progressed and digressed racially along with American racial attitudes. While many would look at the Black millionaires it produces and think that t
he sport represents racial progress and Black success, it still also represents the ways in which racism and white supremacy have successfully moved out of the spotlight of violent racial terror and instead woven their way through the fabric of both the sport and society—existing and operating constantly, yet only making themselves more visible when the sport’s integrity is directly threatened.
Today, Black athletes make up the majority of popular American football team rosters, but that was not always the case. My great-grandfather on my mother’s side was one of the early white players. I remember my mom showing me pictures of Daddy Bud from the early 1930s in his football uniform, before a train accident crushed his foot and his professional prospects. My mom watched football in the tradition of her white family, so it did not carry the same complications for her that it carried for me—although perhaps it should have.
That American football was invented, at least in part, to create and maintain a violent white male ideal—an ideal so brutal that it claimed dozens of promising young lives each year—is a history that should perhaps be just as troubling to white Americans as the current state of football is to Black Americans. The appeal of early football was white male dominance, a hierarchy that many in the sport tried to maintain by excluding Black players. Although football was eventually integrated, that integration stopped at the surface, and it hid all the ways in which the sport still worked to maintain the ugliest of white male power. The white male dominance that was first demonstrated in how white players tackled each other on the field was diverted to how they could control the physical power of Black men. Yes, the majority of players now are Black, but those calling the shots—the owners, the managers, the quarterbacks—are primarily white men. White fans shifted their relationship to football as well. They identify with the quarterback if they identify with a player at all.
“Why is it that fantasy football is so popular?” Zirin asked rhetorically. “It’s popular because, when it comes to football, fans identify with being an owner or a general manager, not with being a player. Why don’t they identify with being a player? Well, a couple of reasons. One: race, without question,” he explains. “And two: because being an NFL player is to be a very specific kind of athlete. You are six foot three, 280 pounds. You’re running forty yards in 4.5 seconds, and fans, white fans, view these NFL players as half god, half chattel.”
As white America shifted its relationship with Black America, so did football shift its relationship to Black players. Although Black players are allowed to succeed for the few years that their bodies remain healthy, they are expected to be grateful for the same success that is costing them their bodies, and—often after repeated concussions—their minds. No guarantees are given players. They have no true security. And the moment they try to wield any of the power that their fame might bring them, the punishment is swift and sharp. White fans rejoice in order restored.
The fear of the physical power and strength of men of color and their perceived threat to white male power drove the creation of a sport that began with the deaths of dozens of young white men. From there, football briefly became a tool of the exploitation of white workers. It would eventually find its way to the state it is in today—so wed to its need to hold power over Black players that it endangers the health and safety of all players and limits the potential success and popularity of the sport.
In football, I see what the fear of the perceived physicality of men of color means to a white male supremacy defined largely by its ability to maintain control through violence. I see the ways in which the need to maintain physical power over others has been translated into maintaining control over the physical power of Black men. And I also see how even fans of the sport, who only have the illusion of control over the players on their television screens, can be manipulated into helping owners maintain that control over players—even as it risks the sport they love.
But I also see opportunity to move the discussion around race and masculinity forward. I see the potential for people to come together over their love of the sport to have real dialogue on issues of justice and equality in this country. And when I look at how hard those in power in football have worked to stifle any player empowerment or solidarity around issues of justice and equality, I realize that I’m not the only one who sees that potential.
SEGREGATED FOOTBALL NOW, SEGREGATED FOOTBALL FOREVER
There is no more difference in compromising the integrity of race on the playing field than in doing so in the classroom. One break in the dike and the relentless seas will rush in and destroy us.
—Georgia governor Marvin Griffin, 1956 5
Willis Ward was sitting on the bench. So was Hoot Gibson. Both Ward and Gibson were starting ends for their college teams—Georgia Tech and University of Michigan, respectively—but they were both benched for the entire game, much to the dismay of their teams’ fans. Why? Because Willis Ward was Black.
Until that game in 1934, not many teams had had to deal with the issue of Black football players because, well, there just weren’t that many. This is not because football wasn’t popular in the Black community or because Black players weren’t talented. It was because at that time, few Blacks were allowed on most college campuses, let alone on the football teams. Those Black players who persevered and were able to gain a spot on the team were often met with extreme racism and violence. When All-American player Paul Robeson joined Columbia University’s team in 1918, the young Black player was quickly met with a brutal welcome.
“On the first day of practice, I was attacked by twenty-one guys,” Robeson recounted. “All the guys on the defense, and all the guys on my team. They put me in the hospital for two weeks.”6
Robeson’s experience, while exceptionally violent, was not all that unique. Black players were frequently attacked and singled out, not only by opposing teams but by their own teammates. Robeson was not the only Black player to end up in the hospital due to the racist aggression of white players, and when a Black player was injured on the field, it was sometimes accompanied by chants of “kill the nigger” or “kill the coon” from the stands.
In 1923, Iowa State’s lone Black team member, Jack Trice, was killed after sustaining beatings during a game against the University of Minnesota that left him with hemorrhaged lungs and internal bleeding.7 Eleven years later, the two universities would once again feature in public racist violence; during a game between them, Iowa State’s Black halfback, Ozzie Simmons, endured so many brutal hits from Minnesota players that he was forced to leave the game three times, all while enduring racist taunts from the players who had injured him.8
In 1934, due to the racist exclusion of Black players and the regular, violent terror visited upon those who were able to beat the odds and find a place on a college team, Georgia Tech football fans and supporters were surprised, and quite frankly appalled, to find that the University of Michigan expected them to play against Willis Ward, a Black man, in their upcoming game. While Northern teams seemed happy to maim their Black players, Southern teams simply refused to play with or against Black players. When Georgia Tech discovered that Michigan not only had a Black player, but they expected to start him, they demanded that the team pull Ward from the game.
The University of Michigan agreed with little fuss. But after Michigan students launched protests over the university’s quick capitulation to open racism, the two universities came up with a compromise. Michigan would exclude Ward if Georgia Tech would also bench one of its starting players. Apparently, the disadvantage of removing one of the team’s star players from the game was worth it if it meant they wouldn’t have to walk on the same grass as a Black man.
Michigan won the game against Georgia Tech that day, but the real winner in the compromise was segregation: Georgia Tech and other Southern teams were so appalled that they had to go to so much trouble to avoid playing against Black athletes that they informally boycotted Northern teams until the 1970s.9
Mr. Marshall was an outspoken foe of
the status quo when most were content with it. His fertile imagination and vision brought vital improvements to the structure and presentation of the game. Pro football today does in many ways reflect his personality. It has his imagination, style, zest, dedication, openness, brashness, strength and courage. We all are beneficiaries of what his dynamic personality helped shape over more than three decades.
—NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, in remembrance of George Preston Marshall, 196910
From 1934 to 1946, there were no Black players in the NFL. There had been a few Black players before 1934, but for a dozen years there was not a single one. No official answer exists as to why, but we do know that no Black players whose contracts were up in 1933 were renewed for 1934, and no Black players were allowed to try out for NFL teams. When scholars have dug into the reason behind this unofficial ban, they often come across one name: George Preston Marshall.
Marshall was the owner of the Boston Braves, which he later renamed the Boston Redskins, which eventually moved to D.C. and became the Washington Redskins. If you couldn’t tell by the fact that this was the man behind the still highly controversial and offensive Redskins team name, let me say without any reservation that George Preston Marshall was a fantastic racist. Not only was he the genius behind naming his team a racial slur, but he doubled down on the racism by having his head coach, William Henry Dietz, dress in a headdress and war paint and dance for the crowds during halftime. (Dietz, also known as Lone Star Dietz, didn’t seem to mind this insult to his Indigenous heritage—but maybe that is because he was actually a white dude who had stolen the identity of a Sioux man in order to try to cash in on the white American fascination with Indigenous culture and the immense star power of Indigenous players like Jim Thorpe, Gus Welsh, and Bill Newashe.)11