I have been thinking about how many of the African American Missouri Tigers college football players have decided to stop playing football right in the middle of the football season in order to protest prevalent racial incidents related to their university. I have been thinking on this for a little while concerning other southern schools who still practice overt racism while fielding and rooting for African/American student athletes. The inherent power of these athletes is monumental. What the African/American Missouri student/athletes are doing is what I suspected they could do all along. Force a majority of our culture to face and acknowledge racism for its vile nature. Nothing gets the attention of our society like our sports teams and our loyalty to those hallowed learning institutions that field teams. Anything like what is going on with Missouri is bound to capture the attention and the emotion of the core of our society. Our allegiance to sports is where the majority of Americans find commonality. Our sports endeavors have no boundaries when it comes to the fans they attract. If you want to get at the heart of our citizenry, just mess with their sports teams. Well, let the messing begin and it is starting with the University of Missouri. We will see how quickly this particular racially based problem is dealt with. The passion for sports too much of the time overshadows the despicable nature of inequality and unfairness in our society on whole, so linking the two now is a unique opportunity to turn that passion for sports into a genesis for upheaval in the too often accepted nefarious paradigm of racism. Other southern college sports teams will have an example to follow hopefully from this courageously stalwart Missouri break from the status quo. Societal change through sports in a way I hadn't fathomed not much more than a year ago.
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