Y’all know the drill. I normally sit in the cut and wait to see what else is going to fall out of the closet before I weigh in. On Wednesday the San Francisco 49ers suspended their radio analyst Tim Ryan for saying that Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson’s dark skin helps him disguise a dark football when running fake handoffs in Baltimore’s zone-read-heavy offense.
So in other words, the dun is only the best quarterback in the National Football League because he’s got a built in advantage of dark hands. If is hands weren’t darn near the same color as the ball he wouldn’t be destroying the league. That’s what he was saying in a nut shell.
However, it completely blows my mind that folks can say and do whatever they want to black folks in America and it’s never a problem. Police officers can kill unarmed black folks on routine traffic stops. Neighborhood watch guys can kill our kids with a pack of Skittles and a soda in their hands for walking home from the store minding their own business. Our president can even say outlandish things bout people of color and get away with it too.
The are no rules either morally or literally on the books for mistreating black folks in America and people want to know why racism is so rampant in this country. If there are never any consequences to being racist or saying racist things then it will never change.
Miss me with the “See something! Say something!” foolishness because we see it everyday and nobody cares unless it directly affects them. The fact that Tim Ryan still has a job today is evidence that nobody cares about how black folks are treated in America and that includes black folks many times.
Ryan apologized to the 49ers players on Thursday and Richard Sherman, who is black, defended him afterwards by saying this foolishness. “I know Tim personally and I have listened to the dialogue and saw it written and honestly I wasn’t as outraged as everybody else. I understand how it can be taken under a certain context and be offensive to some, but if you’re saying ‘Hey, this is a brown ball, they’re wearing dark colors and he has a brown arm, honestly sometimes we were having trouble seeing it on film. He’s making a play fake and sometimes he’s swinging his arm really fast and you’re like ‘OK, does he have the ball on that play?’ And then you look up and Mark Ingram is running it. So, it was technically a valid point, but you can always phrase things better. You can always phrase things and not say his black skin.”
As long as people, both black and white, continue to make excuses for ignorant behavior we’ll always have outburst of ignorance towards people of color in America.
Regardless of how nice of a guy you think Tim Ryan is. What he said was a fireable offense and should not be tolerated by the 49ers, their players, front office, owners or the NFL.
Remember when Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder was fired by CBS in January of 1988 for saying that many blacks were superior athletes because of breeding from the time of slavery and that the only area in sports left for whites was coaching?
Please don’t act like you forgot about ole Jimmy The Greek? So if in 1988 folks were willing to fire a fool for saying something that was offensive. Then why is it that in 2019 folks can’t make an example out of Tim Ryan for saying something racist about a black quarterback that is just clearly better than every quarterback in the league?
Does his dark hands help him run faster than everybody else too? Does his dark hands help him throw the ball further or is he just better than everybody else playing the position? It’s racism and bias that makes a person say something as stupid as Ryan said.
Unfortunately, he’s still working because he didn’t offend mainstream America. There are folks in this country that can live their entire lives without having a meaningful relationship with anyone black and that’s sad. So as long as Ryan didn’t offend anyone that they know or love. It’s okay. Stop me when I start lyin’!