The self-appointed "Justice Journalist" of the New York Daily News' sports staff, Chuck Modiano, went ballistic about white privilege in the NFL. While mentioning whites 29 times in less than flattering terms, he claims the so-called blackballing of Colin Kaepernick is due to economic racism, and says the majority of NFL owners are incompetent Trumpian clones who are selling whiteness to a white fan base.
This was all part of a lengthy expose on Saturday by Modiano on white nepotism within the NFL's coaching ranks, where alleged kinship is keeping African-Americans down. Whites are getting hired for head coaching positions, offensive and defensive coordinator and other assistant coaching positions, by white fathers and grandfathers, while blacks are getting passed over.
Modiano is blunt in his critique of white coaching connections. It's all racial:
"Part of it is economic racism. In blackballing Colin Kaepernick, NFL owners already made it crystal clear winning is not their top priority. Pleasing their overwhelmingly white fan base is. ... "
Head coach Sean McVay is the L.A. Rams' biggest name and overshadows star black players Aaron Donald, Todd Gurley and others, Modiano complains. Another problem, he says, is that most NFL owners are as incompetent as the president of the United States:
"The other part is the vast majority of NFL owners are Trumpian clones, and just as incompetent. They select their GMs (general managers) and execs with the same mindset, bias, and care that Trump selects his cabinet. And no matter how many coaches kids, Chip Kelly’s, or Belichick disciples fail, they keep picking and re-picking the same cabinet. They’re selling white fans white hope in white genius. Not only that, but they often believe in it themselves.''
The real issue to what Modiano perceives as a lack of black advancement in NFL coaching is a "blind belief in white male superiority."
Modiano says there is a lot of talk about forming pipelines for black coach advancement, "But is this really about a 'pipeline' or another 'white line'”?
Exalting himself as "a real genius," Modiano says white owners are "insane" people who meet Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same things over and over again while expecting different results.
Last year Modiano wrote an article about his own brainchild — the “Great White Hope QB Awards,” and now he's releasing his “White Genius Coach Awards.” This new award list is focused on "four other affirmative action pipelines that have largely failed spectacularly. These are the:
Nepotism Football League Awards (White Bloodline Pipeline)
Brilliant Offensive Mind Awards (Offensive Coordinator Pipeline)
College Coach Genius Awards (Whites-Only Amateur Pipeline)
The Next Belichick Awards (Proximity to White Genius Pipeline). In this category, Modiano refers to recent white NFL coaching hires like the Arizona Cardinals' Kliff Kingsbury as the "most untested, unproven, and unqualified batch of white coaches in modern NFL history."
Modiano asserts the NFL had a "Jim Crow Coaching Era" that ended in 1990 when the Raiders hired Hall of Famer Art Shell as the league's first black head coach. Modiano also writes that if teams prioritized winning over whiteness, they’d examine the mentorship methods of former Bucs' and Colts' head coach Tony Dungy. His former assistant coaches Lovie Smith, Mike Tomlin and Jim Caldwell have all been to Super Bowls, whereas Patriots' coach Bill Belichick's white former assistants have been disastrous in head coaching roles.
One final Modiano complaint: he writes that the prior performance and experience of black coaches doesn't matter nearly as much as "proximity to perceived white genius."
