By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney should get credit for invoking the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this week at a press conference. That showed leadership. But he’s got a little work to do to flesh out the message.
Swinney, asked about NFL players who don’t stand for the national anthem as a protest of racial injustice, said everyone had the right to express themselves but he would prefer that it be done in a way not to hurt the team. He suggested other methods, such as calling press conferences.
And then he brought up King and his nonviolent movement to change America during the civil rights era.
“I hate to see what’s going on in our country,” the coach said. “I really do. I think this is a good world. I think this is a great country. It’s just that things get painted with a broad brush in this world these days.
“There’s more good than bad in this world. With Martin Luther King, I don’t know that there’s ever been a better man or better leader. To me, he changed the world. He changed the world through love in the face of hate. He changed the world through peace in the face of violence. He changed the world through education in the face of ignorance. And he changed the world through Jesus. Boy, that’s politically incorrect. That’s what he did. It’s amazing when we don’t learn from our past how you can repeat your mistakes.”
All good. But Swinney’s message is a little off the rails in suggesting that nonviolent protest should be channeled to appropriate times and venues.
King, critics say, didn’t equate non-violent protest with comfort. He favored non-violent direct action to push change — just the kind of direct action taken by NFL players who sit or take a knee during a game.
“Dr. King sacrificed his life for social justice and racial equality,” Greenville News columnist Mandrallius Robinson wrote Thursday on the sports page. “Unfortunately, through the 48 years since his death, his philosophies on nonviolent protest have been conveniently diluted as passive. Thus he has been opportunely, but erroneously, acclaimed as the standard for non-confrontational protest in contrast of disorderly unrest.”
Clemson communications professor Chenjerai Kumanyika wrote an open letter to Swinney on TheGrio.com, a popular website for black-oriented news and views. In it, he suggested for Swinney to read King’s “Letter from a Birmingham jail.”
“In the face of the injustices in his own time, Dr. King called for direct action, not press conferences,” Kumanyika wrote. “He and those that fought with him brought the struggle to buses, games, counters, workplaces and other places that were deeply inconvenient and often illegal. Dr. King points out that none of these direct action efforts were ‘well timed’ in the eyes of his vocally supportive but privileged and paternalistic critics.”
These are reasonable criticisms of Swinney’s message. But in the larger context outside what NFL players are doing, Swinney deserves a lot of credit for focusing more attention on King’s overarching theme as forces in our society today tear at the country’s fabric.
“I think the answer to our problems is exactly what they were for Martin Luther King when he changed the world — love, peace, education, tolerance of others, Jesus,” Swinney said. “A lot of these things in this world were only a dream for Martin Luther King. Not a one-term, but a two-term African-American president. And this is a terrible country? There are interracial marriages. I go to a church that’s an interracial church.
“Those were only dreams for Martin Luther King. Black head coaches. Black quarterbacks. Quarterbacks at places like Georgia and Alabama and Clemson. For Martin Luther King, that was just a dream. Black CEOs, NBA owners, you name it. Unbelievable.
“Now, does that mean that there’s not still problems? Yes. Where there’s people, whether they’re black, green, yellow, orange or white, there is going to be sin, greed, hate, jealousy, deceitfulness. There’s going to be that. That’s always going to be there. But attitude, work ethic, love, respect for others, that doesn’t know any color.”
Thanks, coach. Do a little more homework, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction.
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