Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell must be tired of questions about the league’s hiring record for Black personnel besides the padded and helmeted employees. I suspect many NFL owners, executives and fans feel likewise, sick of queries about employment decisions off the field — where jobs don’t require physical strength to complement your mental prowess.
But if Goodell and league stakeholders are weary of the discussion, they can imagine how we feel!
We’re supposed to accept the drip drops of progress and believe the system is based on merit? Hateful diversity, equity and inclusion assailants have swallowed the Kool-Aid but we can’t keep it down. Our stomachs reject such drivel and spit it out.
Goodell tried to clean the mess Monday for the third straight year at his annual Super Bowl press conference. Even though former NFL Network reporter Jim Trotter didn’t attend, Goodell was asked again about the league’s newsroom demographics. Because Black reporters and editors want opportunities in the NFL as much as Black executives and coaches.
“I know you don’t run the NFL media newsroom, but you do run the NFL, and they answer to you as well as the 32 owners,” Kansas City radio reporter Darren Smith began in addressing Goodell. “As of this press conference, the NFL Media newsroom still employs zero Black managers, zero Black copy editors, zero full-time Black employees on the news desk, and your only full-time Black employee, Larry Campbell, passed away over the weekend.”
Smith noted that Trotter asked similar questions in 2022 and 2023 before his contract wasn’t renewed and a lawsuit followed. “In a league that has more than 60% African Americans that have played the game,” Smith asked, “how does knowing this sit well with you, and after two years of being asked this question, why…
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