Quick Hits – December 13, 2022

We’re gonna tackle some national issues today simply because I’ve been thinking quite a bit about them lately!

“Proper stupidity is fascinating.” – Ricky Gervais

Look! I’m thrilled Brittney Griner is finally home if for no other reason than her wife and family, through no fault of their own, were forced to endure this hellish Russian political theatrical of the absurd. But if I were President Biden and that greater good wasn’t part of the equation, I would’ve let her rot in that gulag as a deterrent to other stupid people.

And my fit of pique in this regard has nothing to do with who was traded for whom. It’s that this country seems to have finally settled on a sad nadir where stupidity is rewarded every step of the way. The greater the degree of imbecility, the greater the reward, too. Please consider the semi-charmed kind of life the Grand Cheeto has led as a prime example.

It isn’t the trace amount of drugs she was carrying in a country that’s not exactly regaled for their tolerance for Americans that perturbs me. It’s that Ms. Griner patently refused to get the heck out of Dodge when pre-Ukrainian war relations between the U.S. and Russia were deteriorating even faster than Kanye and Kim’s.

Don’t tell me her friends and family didn’t warn her against flying back to Yekaterinburg, because anyone with a quarter of a brain knew that a high-profile gay black female athlete would have Vlad salivating over the prisoner exchange possibilities.

Even though a remedial CPS sixth grader could’ve come up with that end game, Griner flew to Russia to rejoin her basketball team with the imminent invasion three days off only to be arrested before she could leave the airport. The illegal drugs was just the icing on the abysmally low IQ cake. I suppose there’s something to be said for the equity of a female professional athlete being just as stupid as the male variety.

So, not only would I have let the Russians have her, but my approach to this entire rinse, lather and repeat scenario would be vastly different than the President’s.

Despite my frequent entreaties for a similar “home field advantage,” to their rare credit, the Tri-Cities Soccer Association refused to “encourage” their referees to skew their calls like all the other soccer clubs did. In the same vein, this country doesn’t just pick up foreign nationals whenever they’re looking for political leverage.

Though there’s certainly something to be said for being a nation of laws, but this ain’t kids’ soccer. Since the only thing a pathologic bully like Vladimir Putin understands is brute force, my response to Griner’s arrest would’ve been to round up every last major Russian national in this country – and there are exponentially more of them than high-level Americans in Russia.

That would be the last time Putin, or any other international despot, would mess with the U.S. in this insipid hostage taking regard.

So, now Deion Sanders isn’t black enough?

Given my affinity for those intrepid souls we call NFL punt return men, whether he was playing for the Cowboys, the Reds, or analyzing football and baseball on TV, I’ve always enjoyed watching Deion Sanders ply his trade. Not to mention that his classic AFLAC commercials with Alabama Coach Nick Saban always make laugh out loud.

But now, after accomplishing more in his 55-year-old lifetime than most of us will get to in the next five, “Prime Time” suddenly ain’t nearly black enough for some folks, which is kind of odd when you consider it’s one of the few things he didn’t have to pursue.

What was Deion’s original racial sin? He has the temerity to leave the head football coaching job at Mississippi’s historically black Jackson State College to take the helm of the traditionally white University of Colorado at Boulder program.

To a lesser degree, there’s a sense that Jackson State gave him a shot when he had no collegiate coaching experience only to watch him leave three short years later. But my response to those quibblers would be that all major sports coaches are hired to be fired, so they have to make hay while the sun shines.

Truth be told, I’ve never understood this kind of strange jealousy and bizarre sense of entitlement. C’mon! Jackson State may be a highly regarded bastion of higher education, but it’s not like they handed Sanders the reins to the University of Georgia team.

To some of his critics’ credit, Sanders did make all sorts of grandiose promises about changing the culture at historically black colleges (HBCs) and putting those halcyon institutions on the map. But despite Neon Deion’s propensity for hyperbole, he did more for JSU sports in three short years than any other coach could do in ten.

Sanders went 26 – 5, winning the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship over Southern University this year. The school was featured on ESPN’s First Take, Good Morning America, in a Pepsi ad, and showcased during the 2021 NBA All-Star game. Then Sanders donated half of his salary towards completing renovations to the school’s football stadium.

I’m not sure what more you could ask of any human being of any color. To say he set the table for his successor would be the mildest of understatements.

I understand that leaving a predominantly black college for a 67 percent Caucasian university would leave a bad taste in some folk’s mouths, but that’s just another insidious form of reverse racism. Better yet, as Sanders’ stature increases, so will his capacity to raise awareness of HBCs, and there’s absolutely no reason he can’t lobby the NCAA and public on their behalf from those Colorado mountain tops.

You’d think his black detractors would be proud of all Sanders has achieved, but this strange reverse schadenfreude belies exactly what can happen whenever a victim culture and mentality is allowed to ferment. Then it inevitably become a self-perpetuating feedback loop such that, no matter what the scenario, the “offended” group will figure out a way to paint themselves as such.

In light of how many former star athletes find it difficult to navigate this existence after they retire, I’m thrilled by Sanders continuing success and I look forward to seeing what he can do in Colorado.

Does that make me too white?