Note: This entry has been changed for reasons listed above.
Just before 8 a.m. this morning, someone on WPTF criticized Duke University for not hiring a black football coach1 instead of David Cutcliffe. Specifically, this person touted the candidacy of Grambling State coach Rod Broadway, former N.C. Central head coach who has worked as an assistant at several N.C. universities, saying,
In light of what happened last year at Duke, with all the racial tension, this would have been a great fit for them. (Emphasis in the original.)
Now that is just plain irresponsible. What concerns me is that those comments might represent another instance of “truth by repetition,” where the truth about the notorious rape hoax at Duke gets forgotten over time as campus leftists (who don’t have the personal integrity to apologize for their hateful hysterics) and flippant journalists return to the old, thoroughly debunked racial assumptions about it.
Now I don’t know why Duke chose David Cutcliffe over the other candidates, but I doubt race entered into the equation. And clearly there were many good reasons to tout Broadway as a candidate — he was (as noted also on WPTF) a championship-winning and award-winning coach at N.C. Central, for example, and he also was an assistant at Duke under Steve Spurrier when Duke tied for the ACC title. Race isn’t one.
And the idea that hiring a black coach would be a great way to ameliorate racial tension is even worse reasoning. Campus leftists, a cowering administration, an out-of-control prosecutor, journalists jumping to conclusions, and huckster strippers were the ones inflaming racial tension last year at Duke. No football coach could, by dint of his skin color, have done anything to stop them.
Note
1. Here is an article by sportswriter Barry Jacobs that also heavily emphasizes Broadway’s race, and I cannot help reminding readers what race-obsessed News & Observer columnist Barry Saunders said when N.C. State hired Sidney Lowe as head basketball coach, shortly after he implied the athletics director was racist for not hiring Dereck Whittenburg.
