The triple nexus of race, the state, and sports is not a topic frequently appearing on LewRockwell.com. Perhaps it is for that reason that I was especially appalled by this weekend's $200,000 fine levied by the National Football League against the Detroit Lions. The alleged crime? The Lions management did not interview any "minority" candidates during its recent search for a new head coach. I use the quotes around minority since Jesse Jackson was a driving force behind this process and he is not doing this altruistically for any other underrepresented classes. What exactly the New York Times meant by "minority" was not spelled out but I doubt it included anyone in a wheelchair, overt homosexuals, or, say, recent immigrants from the Indian subcontinent, all groups grossly underrepresented in both the NFL's player and coaches ranks.
How did we arrive at this ridiculous state of affairs? Can anyone prove a connection between the number of "minority" head coaches in the NFL and bias on the part of team owners? If the sheer numbers equal a problem, should not the same standard be applied to the serious underrepresentation of whites in the ranks of running backs, wide receivers and all defensive skill positions in the same league?
Let us forget, for a moment that the term “ownership” means the exclusive right of possession and that one cannot truly possess (i.e., control) a team if one is not allowed to interview and hire those that he so desires.
Why would the NFL, or anyone for that matter, impose a ludicrous rule such as this in the first place? Perhaps it is due to misguided good intentions, a recurring theme for Rockwell fans. In this case the NFL is probably trying the hackneyed "doing something is always better than doing nothing" routine. Hence, the NFL, at the behest of racial extortionists, tries to assuage aggrieved parties by instituting the sham requirement of interviewing "minority" candidates. Given the connections between the general manager of the Lions’ organization and their new head coach, the accomplished Steve Mariucci, I suspect that none of the five minority coaches invited to interview chose to waste their time participating in a sham window dressing in order to appease either Jesse Jackson's animosity or the NFL's legal department.
Fortunately there is a solution for teams that find themselves in this lamentable predicament. Interview me. I am black. I played Division I football for four years as an undergraduate (more playing experience than many, if not most, NFL coaches). I have graduate degrees from Cornell and Rice (again, more than most NFL coaches). And finally, I played or worked for men who have experience as assistant coaches, assistant head coaches, and head coaches in the very same NFL. I am willing to fly anywhere in the world (on my own dime) to interview for an NFL head coaching job for a small fee ($100,000). Under this option both the Lions and I would have been better off by $100,000. And even more important, to people who feel they have a right to dictate hiring procedures to private organizations and individuals and thereby trample on their property rights, these worrywarts can sleep more soundly knowing that the Detroit Lions are interviewing a "minority" candidate, albeit one who is not confined to a wheelchair, is in fact heterosexual, and has never set foot anywhere on the Indian subcontinent (but would be willing to go if it would appease the right groups).
In the meantime, I would suggest that a respect for the property rights of all men (even NFL franchise owners) would necessarily include granting the owner(s) of an organization the right to discriminate against whomever they wish. At present, this right is allowed to exist selectively. If a coach goes to a topless bar, for example, he can be fired immediately. If a running back runs a 6 second 40-yard dash, he can be fired too. But interview the wrong guy (sorry, wrong person, it won't be long before someone claims sexual discrimination) and suddenly, by comparison, Fidel Castro sounds like Murray Rothbard defending the right to private association.
There is a larger issue. Many Americans believe that it is right to have the state and the government function in the role of ultimate authority. These people forget that the only authority that the state has derives from the people. Once given, the elected elite invariably uses this power in any number of harmful ways as explained by Hoppe, Rothbard and Nock, just to name a few. What is to stop politicians from serving the interests of vocal groups of influential voters at the expense of the rest of us silent types who just want to be left alone? Nothing at all, that's what. If Jesse Jackson screams loudly enough, should teams in the NFL be forced to waste resources conducting sham interviews? If the Bush administration thinks that it can gain a competitive advantage garnering votes in 2004, should we all suffer from wrongheaded immigration policies resulting in a foolish amnesty program and porous southern border? The answer to these last two questions is no. This is the unfortunate reality, however, regardless of what should or should not be. The willful ignorance of many Americans (see polling data regarding how many Americans believed our president would not lie about WMDs) is perhaps the saddest aspect of our present situation.
I fully expect to see more inane scenarios like the one the Lions are now paying for. In a society that continues to worship the likes of the tyrannical Abraham Lincoln, blindly cheers the slaughter of civilians at the hands of our military machine (Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, countless villages in Vietnam, and now Iraq), and probably spends a per capita average of less than 8 hours per year reading anything of substance, the destruction of liberty and property rights doesn't even merit a mention.
July 29, 2003
