Framing an Appropriate Research Question 6b9b26d93da94caf993c038d9efcdedb.pdf
Racism
1. Early Day Racism With how the league deals with Racism in today’s game
Between 1920-1926 the league only had
9 black players suiting up for the season.
It became common due to the talent of
the players coming from the Carlisle
Indian School’s football team which was
for teams (both inside the NFL and
outside the NFL) this was an open market
for Native Americans. In 1922 the
Oorang Indians had a whole team of
Native American players.
The beginning..
Today
The Dayton Triangles were the
first team to have Asian-
American players in running
back Walter Achiu and
Quarterback Arthur Matsu, the
two joined the league in 1927
and 1928. Ignacio Molinet and
Jess Rodriguez were the first
two Hispanic players to appear
in the NFL. Both would only
play one season each one in
1927 and the other in 1929.
Over a 4-year space between 1928-1932
not more than one black player was
found on any team that played in the
league and none would play above 2
seasons. In 1933 there was two players
Joe Lillard and Ray Kemp. Lillard’s career
would end a in negative way as he was
kicked off the Cardinals for fighting but
Kemp would continue down a path that
led him to a very successful coaching
career. These moves left the league in an
all-white situation creating an issue of
the league becoming racist and fast.
World War II would stop the league and
meant when it returned after the war it
remained racist because it was still all
white players.
By 1960’s the rival American Football League
had begun openly recruiting black players to
the teams all from smaller colleges that mainly
had black students, these were colleges that
had been completely ignored by the NFL
meaning talent was been wasted away. The
early AFL teams were now completely
dominating the NFL in terms of equality of
player color.
In 1918 Carlisle had shut
and the number of Native
Americans dropped to
none, at the same time
black players had been
completely kicked out of
the sport including the
future hall of fame legend
Fritz Pollard.
By 1969 a comparison between the two leagues was recorded by photograph in
the Super Bowl between the Kanas City Chiefs and the Minnesota Vikings.. The
picture would show the chiefs team having 23 players of the 51-man team been
black (45%) while the Vikings team only had 11 black players in their 42-man
team (26%). Chiefs players have been quoted to have said that their motive for
winning was the fact they had a diverse squad hence why they won Super Bowl
IV.
In recent years surveys have shown the post-merger NFL is now 67-71%
nonwhite players. Positions have also starting becoming dominated by black
players. Running back and corner back are now mainly black players playing
Racism is still floating around in all sports across the
planet and the NFL is mainly black players which does
create a bigger chance for racism to occur. Players
have spoken out about wanting equal rights and in the
wake up George Floyd’s death the NFL stepped efforts
up after star players made a video asking what would
have happened if that been them in that situation.
The big story occurred in 2016 when 49ers
quarterback Colin Kaepernick sat during the national
anthem which then became a kneel and it divided the
country with then president Donald trump saying if he
doesn’t respect the flag he shouldn’t play football and
in August 2017 Kaepernick played his final game after
taking the knee once more before kickoff against
Seattle.
RACISM IS NEVER OKAY
AND SHOULD NOT BE IN
SPORTS.