Everyone knows the story of Jackie Robinson, the preternaturally talented black ballplayer who bravely desegregated Major League Baseball in 1947, stoically enduring racist abuse while letting his play do the talking; Robinson was named Rookie of the Year and National League MVP and starred in six World Series with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Everyone knows the story of Jackie Robinson, the preternaturally talented black ballplayer who bravely desegregated Major League Baseball in 1947, stoically enduring racist abuse while letting his play do the talking; Robinson was named Rookie of the Year and National League MVP and starred in six World Series with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
But his comments resonated with a certain segment of the NFL fan base, which sympathized with his suggestion that the recent proliferation of black quarterbacks was somehow a product of "political correctness."
Even as African-Americans came to form a majority of the NFL population, certain positions on the football field—especially the most important and prestigious position, quarterback—continued to be filled mostly by whites.
Many of the modern NFL's most contentious issues regarding race have derived from the seeming existence of informal patterns of positional segregation within ostensibly integrated football teams.
Created on Tue Dec 01 10:17:32 EST 2009
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