Southeastern VFL
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I applaud our university recognizing the importance of fair and impartial treatment to all people, regardless of skin color or family background or ethnic group.
At the same time, I regret that we continue to emphasize the things that divide us into groups and (potentially, though without intending to) pit us against each other.
What do I mean? Simple. Don't celebrate "whiteness" or "blackness" or "brownness" or "yellowness." Instead, celebrate key individual accomplishments and proven team excellence.
One quick example: number 42. We celebrate Jackie Robinson for having the courage and tenacity to break barriers in American sport. Some mistake that as celebrating his color. But for many folks, it's not about his skin color: it's about his values and his heart and his energy in SPITE of people throwing obstacles in his path (because of his color). We celebrate his individual excellence as a trailblazer, his character and courage and commitment. Not his membership in one sub-section of society or another. The latter is identity politics, and is wholly divisive.
That's a fine distinction, maybe. Some people won't get it. That's fine.
All I know is, we gotta start following Dr. King's dream, judging each other by the quality of our character rather than the color of our skin. We gotta stop highlighting differences, stop dividing ourselves into groups. Because the latter causes those groups to start competing...and eventually fighting.
Let's look instead for the things that bring us together.
Go Vols!
Yes and statues are all the same color. So kind of weird way to honor them because of their colorI applaud our university recognizing the importance of fair and impartial treatment to all people, regardless of skin color or family background or ethnic group.
At the same time, I regret that we continue to emphasize the things that divide us into groups and (potentially, though without intending to) pit us against each other.
What do I mean? Simple. Don't celebrate "whiteness" or "blackness" or "brownness" or "yellowness." Instead, celebrate key individual accomplishments and proven team excellence.
One quick example: number 42. We celebrate Jackie Robinson for having the courage and tenacity to break barriers in American sport. Some mistake that as celebrating his color. But for many folks, it's not about his skin color: it's about his values and his heart and his energy in SPITE of people throwing obstacles in his path (because of his color). We celebrate his individual excellence as a trailblazer, his character and courage and commitment. Not his membership in one sub-section of society or another. The latter is identity politics, and is wholly divisive.
That's a fine distinction, maybe. Some people won't get it. That's fine.
All I know is, we gotta start following Dr. King's dream, judging each other by the quality of our character rather than the color of our skin. We gotta stop highlighting differences, stop dividing ourselves into groups. Because the latter causes those groups to start competing...and eventually fighting.
Let's look instead for the things that bring us together.
Go Vols!
I understand that lowering ourselves to racial pandering in the name of some purely theoretical goal like recruiting success does not bother you whatsoever, but you aren't exactly selling the idea that they "encompassed both objectives" when you acknowledge that no hypothetical recruit is going to know what these men did for UT football without reducing their contributions to some narrative about their race.
I think that Jackie Walker was listed as the first black All-American from the SEC.First black player at UT and second in the SEC
First black quarterback in the SEC
First black team captain in the SEC
First black quarterback to win a national championship from the SEC
It's honestly pretty noteworthy/cool that Tennessee can be proud of these players.
Likewise, if we're putting up statutes, at least they are meaningful historically, unlike a place like A&M who just put up random statutes that relate to their "traditions" all around the stadium after joining the conference, in what I believe was the most new money display I've ever seen.