I thought that Boomer taking out Washington on purpose was one of the key events of this book. When you first read this book, you may think that this is a one time event that rarely ever happens in football. But that really isn't what happens, this happens all of the time in every level of football. As well as in other sports as well. Just this year, there were allegations that the Green Bay Packers defensive line was purposely trying to take Adrian Petersen of the Minnesota Vikings, out of the game. Adrian Petersen did get hurt, but it wasn't by the defensive line. They never got in trouble, but the allegations remained, and for a couple of weeks, some of the achievements were up in the air. These allegations were similar to the cheating scandal with the New England Patriots at the beginning of this past football season. This all boils down to the fact that isolated incidents like this aren't that out of the norm and I think that Louie was overreacting in this incident.
My initial reactions to this event, were in fact, very similar to the reactions of Louie Banks. I thought that this was an incredibly low, cheap shot, that shouldn't be tolerated. But then I started to realize some of the things that I mentioned in the post above and it all seemed to look better in my eyes. The fact that the Washington is black just adds to the significance of this issue. But in the reality it wasn't really about whether or not he was black, it was about that fact that he is a darn good athlete and they don't want to have to play him. The fact that he is black just made it easier for Lednecky to convince his players that they should hurt. He was using a quite clever technique of persuasion, building on the prejudice towards blacks that often the kids parents had and a lot of times were shared by the kids. This is very similar to techniques used by Hitler during the Holocaust when he capitalized on the prejudiced that he had spread throughout his country to persuade his people to kill Jewish people. So in conclusion, I think that while this incident is bad, it isn't really as bad as Louie makes it out to be.
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2 comments:
I agree, I think that just because Washington is black shouldn't necesesarily make it racist if he is taken down, he was taken down because he was very good athlete. It was racist because of the comments made such as, "Kill that jungle bunny!" by Boomer
True, I don't think that Lednecky wanted Washington taken out because he a good athlete. I think that I mentioned this in my blog but he just used racism as motivation or more an excuse. Boomer just took that, ran with it, and used it to fuel his take out tackle against Washington. I don't think that Louie interpreted it as racism either.
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