Brett Favre, Tavaris Jackson, and the black / white issue

Tavaris Jackson 

Brett Favre has returned to the Minnesota Vikings, and everyone's happy.

Now, the talk of the Vikings as Super Bowl Contender can, and has started. TV shows like ESPN NFL Live can and have started to waste time with supposedly funny segments on the return of Brett Favre.

All of this, and Tavaris Jackson sits again, waiting his turn to start. One has to wonder if the Vikings would have pushed Favre out of the door if Quarterback Tavares Jackson were fair-haired and white, rather than black haired and black?

The idea came to this blogger after the news that three Vikings, Jared Allen, Steve Hutchinson, and Ryan Longwell, flew down to Hattiesburg, Mississippi this week to "get Favre" and coax him back to the Vikings.

The law firm of Allen, Longwell, and Hutchinson, are all friends of Favre and all white, and reportedly laid down the law to get Brett to return. The question runs: where were the black players? Why, on a team with so many African American players, did it take three white guys to go and get Brett Favre?

Before Brett Favre's turn, ESPN's John Clayton said that Vikings players said they would be fine without Brett Favre, but asked if that's the case, why Vikings players are going to get him. What Clayton either failed to see, or did not want to see, was that African American players were saying the Vikings would be fine either way, but that it was a group of white players that went to get Brett Favre.

Are the Vikings more racially divided than is addressed? Is the Brett Favre return indicative of a team that has "blacks hanging with blacks" and "whites hanging with whites?"

It's not that anyone on the Vikings is racist. No. But guys like the late Steve McNair, who was Brett Favre's fishing buddy, may not be in abundance, and may not be on this Vikings team.

Moreover, it also may be that a person like Tavaris Jackson has resigned himself to the idea that the organization doesn't value him enough to give him the team as The Green Bay Packers turned that team over to Aaron Rogers and showed Brett the door. And perhaps Jackson understands there are underlying racial issues at play.

And Packers Quarterback Aaron Rogers is white.

Perhaps that's why, according to Pro Football Talk.com, he seems indifferent to Brett's return, saying "I really don't care."   It's hard to control overriding social issues, like race and perception.

Race and The Vikings At Play

Don't be so naive as to think this isn't talked about; behind closed doors it is. It's just ignored by much of the media. This blog post isn't meant to be "race-baiting," and using the term to stop a conversation that should be had is really a cowardly act.