The superintendent of schools in Onalaska, Texas, Lynn Redden, is apologizing after feeling the backlash from an old-timey racist comment he posted on the Facebook page of the Houston Chronicle. The comment referred to Sunday’s NFL game between the Houston Texans and the Tennessee Titans, and in particular to the Texans’ star quarterback, Deshaun Watson. Redden blamed the Texans’ loss on Watson’s mismanagement of the game clock:
“That may have been the most inept quarterback decision I’ve seen in the NFL,” Redden wrote in his Facebook comment. “When you need precision decision making you can’t count on a black quarterback.”
According to the Washington Post, Redden deleted his comment, but not before Houston-area resident Matthew Ericksen had screen-grabbed it.
Ericksen added that while he didn’t have children in the Onalaska district, he was concerned about what he saw as an overtly racist remark made by someone in Redden’s position. A 2016-17 Texas Academic Performance Report listed nine students out of a total of 1,026 in the district, or 0.9 percent, as African American.
Redden claims that he thought he was sending a private message, and has since told the Chronicle “I totally regret it,” revealing that he deleted the post after he realized it was “public.” The fact that he only deleted the post after he realized it could be seen by the public doesn’t say anything better about him. In fact, it means he realizes his ideas are offensive, but he couldn’t help himself from writing them onto a Facebook website in the hopes of finding a crew of like-minded dodo-heads to agree with him...privately?
The history of black athletes being pigeon-holed into certain jobs because of race is very famously symbolized by the National Football League’s refusal for decades to allow collegiate black quarterbacks to continue in their position after going pro. Frequently, these young athletes would be converted into running backs or wide receivers or defensive ends. The thinking was that black athletes were “physically gifted,” or “talented,” if you will, while their white athletic counterparts were smarter, capable of using their minds to keep up with these black phenoms. It’s the same thinking that blocked the introduction of black athletic staff and head coaches in the NFL for decades as well.
The thinking was exactly as racist as it sounds.