FIGHT FOR OLD DIXIE: A BRIEF RACIAL HISTORY OF THE WASHINGTON REDSKINS
It’s Week 6 of the NFL season, and the Washington Redskins play host to the Minnesota Vikings, who bring a promising second-year quarterback in Christian Ponder, a defense led by aging sackmaster Jared Allen, and a rejuvenated Adrian Peterson, who tore his ACL and MCL less than a year ago on this selfsame FedExField turf.
Coming into the game, Griffin leads the entire league in completion percentage, hitting on an astonishing 69.1 percent of his passes—which is partly a testament to his own accuracy and partly to Kyle Shanahan’s shrewd and efficient play calling. Shanahan has called short passes and utilized play-action passes as Washington’s run game—led in part by Griffin—has made defenses commit more defenders in the box.
Concussed a week ago versus the Falcons, Griffin claims to be “free of all symptoms” and is in uniform and cleared to play. He’s not only cleared to play; he has 63 rushing yards and has taken numerous hits by the time the Redskins are trying to salt away the game in the fourth quarter. And his rushing yards—the majority of them anyway—have come on designed runs, meaning that Griffin isn’t just breaking the pocket and scrambling. The team is treating him like another running back, often sending him between the tackles like they would Alfred Morris. It’s a risky strategy designed to take advantage of Griffin’s prodigious gifts, but also a strategy that figures to take weeks, and maybe years, off his football life.
“When Robert gets in top gear, it’s like watching a track meet,” said Santana Moss afterward. “And he ain’t coming in second.”1
With 2:56 remaining until the Redskins secure their first home victory in eight long games, Griffin approaches the line of scrimmage. After receiving the snap, he is flushed from the pocket, breaking to his left. Unlike the designed runs before, this play is an unplanned scramble that sends him to the second level of the Vikings defense. There, he simply uses long strides and track speed to outrace safety Harrison Smith—who has an angle—76 yards into the end zone as the crowd chants, “RG3! RG3!” at an ear-splitting decibel. Tight ends coach Sean McVay later told Griffin that he felt a “gust of wind” as Griffin sped by him. “I took off running and got to the sideline, thought about running out of bounds—because everyone’s been telling me that lately,” Griffin later told the media with a big smile. “I felt like I had the guy outflanked, and then I just took off running. And the rest is history.”2
When he finishes the run, Griffin glides into the back of the end zone and leaps, Lambeau-style, into the waiting arms of a group of ecstatic Redskins fans—the two grabbiest of whom happen to be young white women. The camera lingers.
The Washington Redskins were the last NFL team to integrate, doing so in 1962 when they were threatened by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall. Referring to the Redskins as the “Paleskins,” Udall let owner George Preston Marshall know that unless the Redskins signed a black player, they would no longer have use of D.C. Stadium, which happened to be publicly financed and managed by the parks system.
The 1960 Redskins were dreadful at 1-9-2, and by the mid-1950s, they were the only team in the NFL without a black player. At the close of 1960, there was an average of six black players per team, and many more in the rival American Football League.
George Preston Marshall, Washington’s owner, was savaged in the local press for his “white supremacist policies” that were meant to appease a predominantly Southern radio and television audience. For many years the Redskins were the NFL’s southernmost franchise; and to that point, the Redskins had passed on drafting such black stars as Jim Brown, Jim Parker, Roosevelt Grier, Roosevelt Brown, and Bobby Mitchell, just to name a few. In the 1960 draft alone, they shunned Elijah Pitts and Irv Cross, opting instead to draft Wake Forest quarterback Norm Snead along with seven other white players. Wrote Tex Maule in Sports Illustrated, “Snead faces the blackest future and the whitest huddle in the league.”3
We live in an era of rampant media overcoverage of everything—from the fact that Robert Griffin III has the Redskins in playoff contention, to the fact that Robert Griffin III allegedly bought a brand-new Bentley for his white fiancée, as reported in a headline by BlackSportsOnline.4 Perhaps more than any other single item, the kind of scrutiny that Griffin lives with (the car he bought his girl) has given me great sympathy for him. Not surprisingly, he has become an object of fascination, hope, and in some cases disappointment for the black community.
ESPN analyst Rob Parker—albeit an “analyst” for one of ESPN’s third- or fourth-tier, sportswriters-screaming-at-each-other daytime programs—raised the question, “Is [RG3] a brother, or is he a cornball brother?” To which his cohosts asked the obvious and helpful question, “What does that mean?” Parker then went on to explain that a “cornball brother” is, “He’s black . . . but he’s not really down with the cause. He’s not one of us.”5
Note: Have these shows ever brought you even a modicum of joy, happiness, or insight when it comes to your sport or team? Does the existence of these shows, droning on day after day after day, suck some of the joy out of football—the joy that used to come with waiting a week to see your stars on television? I used to love seeing Walter Payton play on a Sunday afternoon, knowing I would basically have to wait an entire week to see him again. I miss this. Also, I’m getting too old for all of this, I think, because I simply don’t care what kind of car Robert Griffin III buys for his girl.
Caveat: I’m white and therefore will never fully understand the importance and nuance of a discussion like this, but I’m going to make my best effort anyway.
Parker went on to say in his segment—which, by the way, quickly devolved into the kind of situation in which you’re literally cringing in embarrassment for the person who’s speaking, hopeful that they will see the error in their ways and shut up as soon as possible—that “he’s not one of us. He’s kind of black, but he’s not really, like, the guy you want to hang out with. . . . I keep hearing these things. We all know he has a white fiancée and there’s all this talk about, he’s a Republican, which there’s no information at all. I’m just trying to dig deeper into why he has an issue.”6
I’m just trying to understand Parker’s logic here and trying to define what it means to “have an issue.” Apparently, to Parker, having a white fiancée and allegedly (albeit with no “information”) being a Republican constitute “having an issue” and not being “loyal to the cause.” Also, if I’m understanding Parker correctly, being the kind of guy that Parker wants to “hang out with” means not having “an issue.”
These are strange times indeed.
In 1962, amid protests from fans and pressure from the Kennedy Administration, the Washington Redskins signed black halfback Bobby Mitchell to a $20,000 contract—at that point the richest in team history. In the opening game of the 1962 season at Dallas, Mitchell ran a kickoff back 92 yards for a score and caught 2 touchdown passes. The Redskins opened the season 4-0-2. They would never again refuse to draft or sign black players. A four-time Pro Bowler, Mitchell was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1983.
Ironically, the team that had excluded black players for decades won the first Super Bowl quarterbacked by a black player. In January 1988, led by Doug Williams and running back Timmy Smith, the Redskins dominated the Denver Broncos in a 42-10 blowout, forever putting to rest the ridiculous notion that black quarterbacks didn’t have the intellectual makeup for on-field leadership.7 Williams had the hopes and dreams of an entire race on his broad shoulders that afternoon as the game became much more than a game. At media day, before the game, Williams was asked, “How long have you been a black quarterback?”
“They didn’t call me and say, ‘We’re signing you for Black America,’” Williams explained when he signed with Washington. “They said, ‘We’re signing you for the Washington Redskins.’”8
Griffin may or may not be a Republican, and ultimately it doesn’t matter, but I do know that he has deftly sidestepped the political question in much the same way that Michael Jordan did. Michael Jordan’s “cause” was always Michael Jordan, and there was an odd sort of purity in that. There was a simplicity in knowing Jordan was always looking out for the best interests of Jordan, that he wasn’t trying to be a symbol for anything, and that he wasn’t throwing his support behind either political candidate.
At one point in the aforementioned ESPN analysis-gone-wrong, cohost Skip Bayless asked, with a straight face, “What do RG3’s braids say to you?” Seriously, I couldn’t make this stuff up. To which Parker replied, “To me that’s very urban. . . . Wearing braids is . . . you’re a brother. You’re a brother if you’ve got braids.”
To which Stephen A. Smith (also African American, also super entertaining, and in my opinion the king of Daytime Talking Heads) replied, “I’m uncomfortable with where we just went.” You know it’s gotten bad when a personality like Stephen A. Smith is the calm voice of reason.
I knew the “How Black Is Robert Griffin?” story would surface. Knew it. I would have bet the contents of my bank account on it, because it surfaced with guys like Tiger Woods (didn’t want race to define him, was decried for “acting white”), Allen Iverson (probably the least whiteacting black athlete in the history of black athletes), and Mike Vick.
Griffin’s father, RG2, was vocal in support of his son, telling USA Today that he was “baffled” by Parker’s comments. “He needs to define what ‘one of us’ is,” he said. “I wouldn’t say it’s racism. I would just say some people put things out there about people so they can stir things up.”9
Stirring things up, it seems, is what ratings are made of. ESPN released a statement saying that Parker’s comments were “inappropriate,” and that they are “evaluating” what to do next. To his credit, he publicly apologized to Griffin for the comments. Either way, if Parker is fired, ESPN can pick from an almost limitless supply of bombastic talking heads who are willing to say anything for fifteen minutes of fame. Parker’s greatest mistake in all of this was believing that he mattered to ESPN or the viewing and listening public. Much like the athletes he covers, he is completely disposable and expendable. For a day he was useful for a ratings and publicity spike. Tomorrow he will be discarded. Or, if they choose to do nothing, the story will more than likely go away and be replaced by something different and more sensational tomorrow. Even Griffin’s Heisman Trophy win has taken on a transitory feel, as he was succeeded in Heisman victory by an equally sensational player (Johnny Manziel), who plays the same position, comes from the same state (Texas), and is a freshman to boot (making him historical).
The fact of the matter is that Robert Griffin III is walking a very fine line that includes the expectations of his team, his fan base, Madison Avenue, and black America. Griffin, essentially, needs to be “black enough” to pacify the people who want or need him to be black, but “white enough” to not alienate the legions of white people who are happy to buy Adidas shoes, season ticket packages, and Subway sandwiches from a black athlete whose braids really aren’t all that intimidating because of what a good kid he seems to be. In the midst of all of this, he has to lead his teammates, watch film, memorize a playbook, read defenses, play through pain, and maintain relationships.
We are in awe of his talent and envious of his opportunities. But for the first time, do we feel sorry for Robert Griffin III?