Wholly and without reservation I have decided to accept Reggie White’s apology.
As was the case with White himself, I speak only for me and not for any group, nor for any others identified by White’s absorbing intellect and ethnic sorting system, although I cannot help wishing White had it right about white people being able to tap into money. My accountant and heirs would be much relieved.
White’s credentials as a social scientist and human behaviorist are, after all, well established since he earns a living in Green Bay as a hands-on collector of society’s most admired specimen, the professional football quarterback.
This is a limited field but one in which White has pretty much dominated for some time.
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Naturally, White’s views on the world would be sought by politicians and others, especially were he to agree to pose for pictures later.
So in an address to the Wisconsin Legislature, White explained how we all fit into one grand divine plan, how all of God’s children have special and worthwhile gifts, excluding gays and lesbians, of course.
Among his observations were heartfelt acknowledgment and appreciation of the full Hispanic home, the Asian ability to miniaturize and the American Indian’s natural stealth.
The speech was widely reported, carried on the Fuzzy Zoeller-Al Campanis-Jimmy the Greek-Ben Wright wire, a special service for misspeakers and those afflicted with the ailment known as foot-in-mouth disease.
In his subsequent apology and clarification, White would marvel at how quickly the system works and point out that had he been dull and cautious–had he lied, in other words–nobody would have paid a bit of attention.
“Why is good news so minimally reported while bad news is amplified and dispersed at lightning speed?” White wondered in the statement he sent to his local newspaper in Wisconsin, not that all newspapers in Wisconsin aren’t local.
White deserves an answer and it is this: for the same reason polite defensive ends don’t make All-Pro.
Not that White has had any of his commercial endorsements withdrawn to date. This happened to Zoeller and the others lost their jobs, but CBS has yet to get back to White on his audition as football analyst.
CBS would be missing a bet if it did not take full advantage of White’s impressive reach, for he has a way of touching all demographics.
Take his position on homosexuality being condemned in the Bible. He wasn’t just picking on gay people. No, sir. There are plenty of other sins and sinners he just did not get around to.
This is what comes of allowing athletes to speak, after all. It is easier to forgive White than anyone who ever (1) put a microphone in front of him or (2) knew how to work the volume.
There is much to recommend a Steve Carlton or an Albert Belle, silent and distant, with nothing to say and no one to hear it, or Mike Tyson, sullen and bitter, over George Foreman, gabby and shrewd.
The world may be better off with Dennis Rodman, who is just so thoroughly trivial and goofy that nothing he says nor anything he does could hurt or offend a soul, Mormons excepted.
The most glib and accommodating athlete of our time was, and probably still is, O.J. Simpson.
White acknowledges that his examples of how the races differ were “clumsy and inappropriate.” And that’s good enough for me.
“I must be the first to admit,” White wrote, “that I gave some of the media some intriguing one-liners.”
Apology accepted. And thanks.