Look I admit this. I despise Creighton University. Its an elitist Jesuit college here in Omaha that overcharges students and puts itself on a Hilltop above all. With an alumni full of physicians and lawyers who pretty much run the government around here, the place has infuriated me with its iron grip on this town for many years. So when it goes thru tough times, whether it be passing illiterate basketball players right through the system to keep them playing and then discarding them like trash, or when assistant coaches get nailed by the FBI for taking bribes I take great pleasure. But this latest problem, in which the head coach, a man named Greg McDermott, uses what can only be described as racially insensitive language at best I dont take any pleasure in this. Because once again, it highlights this nations greatest shame. Racism.
McDermott, after a loss at Xavier Saturday night, stood in front of his team in the locker room, a team of majority black players and said "Guys, we got to stick together. We need both feet in. I need everybody to stay on the plantation. I cant have anybody leave the plantation". Plantation? To a bunch of unpaid black players? I assume he didn't use the Foghorn Leghorn voice as he said it.
The blowback has been brutal. McDermott got out in front of this. He apologized. He offered to resign. He has been doing the mea culpa tour of local talk shows. And he hasnt even gotten to New York, where his conference tournament will be held. Where his worst days will occur.
White Omahans are weighing in, as if it matters. Universally it is at best well he didnt mean anything by it to at worst the cancel culture morons defending his words. But this locker room fuck up, by a well respected coach says a lot about all of us. What lays deep inside the minds of white people can come out when stressed, sometimes awkward and badly stated at best, to hateful and nasty at worst. McDermott is a farm boy from Iowa. What the fuck does he know about plantations? Well apparently something took hold inside his psyche and out it came. Maybe it was one of those things you say that as its coming out of your mouth you try to suck back in. We have all done it. Maybe McDermott did it too. But wow man. That was bad.
I don't know if McDermott survives this. Creighton doesnt take well to bad pub. They have a rep to maintain. They are after all a Jesuit University. The Jesuits are highly educated priests who from what I've experienced, don't even believe in God. So if McDermott stays on, and I honestly don't see how he does, he's a twice wounded animal. Thru the FBI scandal and now this. Yeah I hate Creighton, but this is just another embarrassment suffered for us white folks.
Years ago, 1970 or so, when my Dad had season tickets to Creighton basketball games, I'd often go with him. The racial tension in the student section was apparent. The white privileged students would sit together and be the loud vulgar assholes they still are, and the black students sat together, didnt stand for the anthem and openly rooted for only the black players no matter what team they played for. It was uncomfortable to even be there. One game after a white student threw a chair on the floor and a miniature brawl broke out among blacks and whites who went to the same school, Dad stood up, put on his coat and said lets go. We left early. On the way home he told me he doubted if he'd ever go back stating that school has problems and I dont want to get caught in the cross fire when it blows up. Those problems apparently remain.
1 comment:
Lived in a small town in Iowa in the 80s. Pretty much the same vibe except it was some brown people from Mexico. It was weird how, instead of banks and big agribusiness THEY were partly to blame (instead of a response) for the farm crisis that was exploding at the time. I'm pretty sure the only reason the Mexican-Americans were allowed to play on the sports teams was because there weren't enough white kids! Well, a few white folks new what was up, they went into banks and shot loan officers. Given the meatheads Iowa keeps electing it doesn't look like there's been too much progress.
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