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When You Say My Race is ‘Disproportionately Affected’ by Something, This is What I Hear
Save the pity party for your own agenda.
When I was young, I dreamed of becoming an NFL quarterback.
My hero: Jim Zorn, of the Seattle Seahawks. The ‘Hawks were lovable losers, playing in a huge, noisy dome with cool silver helmets with the NFL’s coolest logo on the side.
My bond was fierce with this free-wheeling, floppy-haired Californian. We were both lefties. My hero was a white dude. I thought nothing of that.
Hispanics in the NFL
There weren’t many Hispanic quarterbacks in the NFL in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s (Joe Kapp, known as The Toughest Chicano, played before my time as a football fan, and Tom Flores and Jim Plunkett were with the hated Oakland Raiders.)
You could say that — at least then — that Hispanic quarterbacks were disproportionately affected by … something.
But I wish you wouldn’t.
My 5th-grade teacher, upon seeing me sketch a jersey on my math homework with my name on it, asked what it meant. I replied, “I’m going to be an NFL quarterback!”
She responded, “Yeah right!” Honestly, who knows her motivation? She never said Hispanics…
