Tony Dungy unfairly attacked

Raynard Jackson
Raynard Jackson

Tony Dungy unfairly attacked

By Raynard Jackson  NNPA Columnist

     The homosexual mafia has struck again. This time, however, they have picked the wrong target.  Beloved former Tampa Bay and Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy has been under a vicious assault for honestly answering a reporter’s question.

    In an interview with the Tampa Tribune, Dungy was asked if he would have drafted Michael Sam, the University of Missouri football player who has come out of the closet as a homosexual. Dungy’s replied, “I wouldn’t have taken him, not because I don’t believe Michael Sam should have a chance to play, but I wouldn’t want to deal with all of it [the media circus]… It’s not going to be totally smooth … things will happen.”

There’s nothing hate-filled or anti-homosexual about Dungy’s response. Practically everyone knows Dungy is serious about his Christian faith. But more importantly, he lives his Christian faith in his everyday life.

Dungy, the first Black head coach to win a Super Bowl (2007), was born in Jackson, Mich. to Wilbur Dungy, a science teacher at Jackson College, and Cleomae Dungy, who taught Shakespeare at Jackson High School. His father, who earned a doctorate degree, was also a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen during World War II.

With that background, I find it incredulous that White liberals began to attack Dungy for his comments and commenced to try to lecture him on civil rights and racism.  Can you imagine the arrogance it takes for a white person to lecture any Black, let alone Dungy, on anything involving race and discrimination?  For many years, Dungy was denied a head coaching job in the NFL because of his race; and he was reared by a mother and father steeped in the Civil Rights Movement. Yet, white liberals are going to lecture him about race and discrimination?

Blogger, Matt Walsh, who is white, nails this point: “Meanwhile, the inevitable hyperbole comparing gays in 2014 to Jim Crow era blacks came pouring in. As one commenter put it, Dungy’s remarks were ‘Jim Crow era awful. Yes, because racial segregation and lynching can be appropriately compared to some guy saying he wouldn’t draft another guy into the NFL. Surely, it’s impossible to find any significant difference between those two things.”

Dan Wetzel at Yahoo Sports extrapolated on this idea, employing all of the self-righteous hyperbole you might expect. He lectured Dungy about civil rights, and sermonized about how Dungy’s attitude mirrors that of whites who didn’t want to share schools or public restrooms with Black people.”

These rabid white liberals should have pointed the finger at Sam, not Tony Dungy. It was Sam who unilaterally decided that the world had a constitutional right to be made aware of his sexual preference. At Sam’s press conference, he said: “Well, heck yeah, I just wish you [the media] would just say, ‘Hey, Michael Sam, how’s football going?’ I would love to give the answer to that question. But it is what it is. I just wish you guys will see me as Michael Sam the football player, instead of as Michael Sam the gay football player.”

Well, he was Sam, the football player, when he kept his personal life personal. But when he decided to make the personal public, it was only natural that he would become known as Sam, the gay football player.

Training camp started last week and the mere fact we are talking about Sam’s homosexuality proves Dungy’s point – he is a distraction. Since Sam “only wants to play football,” let’s remember that he is the same person who signed a secret deal with Oprah Winfrey to do a reality show centered on his being drafted by the St. Louis Rams. Sam was so unprofessional that he never told the Rams about the deal.  Rams management was ticked off, to say the least, when he showed up with a trail of cameras in tow. The secret deal with Winfrey explains Sam brazenly kissing his white lover and allowing it to be videotaped by ESPN.

And he wants us to believe that he only wants to be known as Sam, the football players?

The sad part about all of this is that the NFL has declared it open season on Christianity and people of faith.  When former NFLer Tim Tebow was constantly criticized for talking about his Christian faith in interviews, Roger Goodell, commissioner of the NFL, never made any statements about the NFL being tolerant; he never said the NFL is about inclusion; he never said he was proud of Tebow’s expression of faith and nor did he applaud Tebow’s courage. Yet, the commissioner bent over backward (pardon the imagery) to publicly support Sam, the gay football player.

At the very least, those who characterize Sam’s decision to reveal his sexual orientation as courageous should summon the courage to applaud Dungy for truly being courageous – and correct.

 

About Carma Henry 24363 Articles
Carma Lynn Henry Westside Gazette Newspaper 545 N.W. 7th Terrace, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33311 Office: (954) 525-1489 Fax: (954) 525-1861

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