Should Tony Romo be fired for almost using a racial slur (maybe)?

It’s entirely possible Tony Romo was about to drop a racial slur during Sunday’s AFC championship game. Shannon Sharpe certainly thinks so.

It’s 📺. You get hyped and 4get sometimes where you are. https://t.co/t8Dp3VtA1d

— shannon sharpe (@ShannonSharpe) January 30, 2023

Sharpe is the NFL Hall of Fame tight end, primarily with the Denver Broncos. He’s also the guy who got into a shouting match with several members of the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies last week–an act that probably would’ve gotten almost anyone else removed from the arena.

Sharpe’s not alone in his assessment. If you listen to the clip, it’s entirely possible Tony Romo was about to say the n-word. In fairness, he seemed to have said the word before.

Romo was once the golden child of NFL analysts. He seemed to read the future with his predictions of what would come next. His fortunes–and performance–have slid this year.

None of that would’ve been relevant if Romo were to actually use the slur Sunday. He didn’t. He said a single syllable that may or may not have been the beginning of that word. Only he knows for sure.

That hasn’t stopped a small, but vocal minority from calling for his removal.

That probably won’t happen. CBS doesn’t have the Super Bowl this year, meaning Romo’s called his last game for the year. By next football season someone’s sure to have done something to take Romo’s place.

It begs the question, however, if that’s enough to fire someone. On a related note, highly rated quarterback recruit Marcus Stokes lost his scholarship to the University of Florida after a Tik Tok video emerged of him rapping song lyrics that included the N-word. Albany State University in Georgia extended, then revoked, its scholarship offer to Stokes, who’s still looking for a college. (Albany State is a historically black college.)

This isn’t a free speech issue. Romo is employed by CBS and is subject to whatever they decide to do, within the limitations of his contract. No college is required to extend any type of offer to Marcus Stokes. Nor should they be.

If you find yourself thinking Stokes is a victim, what would you think if he, say, urinated on a Bible?

The question is whether redemption is possible for some things. Is it enough that Romo was maybe starting to say that word? Does the hurt extended to the black community go away because he didn’t actually follow through?

Should anyone give Marcus Stokes a chance?

Are there degrees of severity? Is his offense, singing a song that includes the word, the same as, say, attending a white supremacist meeting?

They’re thorny questions that result in knee-jerk responses, depending your viewpoint. Zero tolerance seems to be the guiding principle, one way or the other.

The black community is still reeling from yet another police-involved murder of what appeared to be an innocent man. In their position, I’m not sure I’d be eager to extend the benefit of the doubt.

But there has to be a line. There has to be context.

Mark Twain was no racist. Neither was Mel Brooks. But some people are. Do we believe in redemption for them? Can we hold out the possibility of change?

I don’t know Tony Romo or Marcus Stokes. Maybe they’re both racist assholes. Stokes has apologized. Maybe he means it, and maybe he’s doing what’s required to find a place to land. Romo, at least to this point, has said nothing.

Meanwhile, we’re still trying to figure out how to navigate these waters.

Jesus doesn’t demand a loyalty oath to approach him

If you attend the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, and you want to continue attending, you must sign the following pledge:

“As a member of First Baptist Church, I believe that God creates people in his image as either male or female, and that this creation is a fixed matter of human biology, not individual choice. I believe marriage is instituted by God, not government, is between one man and one woman, and is the only context for sexual desire and expression.”

The church mailed the statement to all members. If you don’t sign and return it by March 19, you’re not a church member. In spite of this, the church’s website says it reaches all of Jacksonville with all of Jesus for all of life.

In an article on the Firstcoast news website, senior pastor Heath Lambert says, “It’s right that every member agree to such a statement before they join us to receive our care.”

Ironically, Jesus, the guy Rev. Lambert says he follows, didn’t require the woman at the well–the one who’d been married five times and was shacked up–to sign a pledge before he ministered to her. Nor did he require the adulteress to sign a pledge before he talked down the crowd ready to stone her for her sexual sin.

Lambert says many members of his congregation have struggled with gender and sexuality issue. He also says the new policy is meant to “rule out pornography and polygamy and fornication and adultery and homosexuality.”

If you struggle with things, you need more of Jesus, not a talk to the hand approach from a guy who professes to represent Him.

Religion is increasingly out of vogue, in favor of spirituality. Christians bemoan this as being intellectually lazy. Many of those same Christians expect followers to crawl through an obstacle course to prove their devotion, when all they really want is support and love.

Jesus’ message should be the easiest thing in this world to sell–it’s a message of love that’s based on love, not on performance. If we had to perform to earn salvation, there’s no reason for Jesus to come join us or let us kill him.

Our inability to convince people says more about us than about Jesus or about the people we’re trying to convince.

I know I haven’t earned God’s love. I know I can’t earn God’s love. My standing before him is based solely on his overwhelming love for me.

The First Baptist Church is wrong. It’s pushing people away from its church–and all other Christian churches.

“Conservative” parents are too damned lazy

American conservatives apparently have no control over their children, so they’re demanding library boards, business establishments, and even the government do their jobs for them–removing anything they don’t want their kids exposed to.

They don’t want them to read Gender Queer. They don’t want their kids at drag queen events, so they bully libraries and businesses and even propose laws to restrict these events. Rather enforcing these rules for their kids, they demand the rules be enforced for all children.

In asserting their rights to raise their children according to their values, they’re demanding all children be raised according to their values. In short, they’re outsourcing their parenting to noisy crowds who threaten librarians and to the government they claim not to trust. And they want to force you to jump on board.

There are parents who don’t mind, who even want their kids attend drag queen events. There are parents who want their kid to check out Gender Queer. These rights must be sacrificed so conservative parents can relive themselves of the responsibility for controlling what their kids consume.

Raising kids is hard. They constantly test your boundaries. It can be maddening, exhausting work. That’s no excuse to demand the government enforce the limits you think are best.

If this were truly and only about saving kids from pedophilia, it would include proposals for churches to do a better job vetting their clergy. There aren’t a lot of drag queen organizations selling off their property to pay sexual abuse settlements.

It’s about wielding the mighty hammer of justice. When you wield your hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Or, in this case, a threat.

Sure, your kid can’t check Gender Queer out of the library, but it’s available on Amazon. It’s on the shelf at Barnes & Noble. According to emerging conservative viewpoints, those companies are helping groom kids. Will bookstore workers be the next to face threats and intimidation?

If it’s fair to demand that the libraries, schools, and the government do my parenting for me, why should global businesses be any different?

And since Louisiana has saw fit to require government ID to view what they consider porn online, why not require that to buy specific books, or even to read them on your Kindle app?

In the old days, we had a saying for situations like this: mind your business. In the old days, conservatives wanted to be free of unnecessary government intrusion, not use government to enforce my moral standards on everyone (or else).

My wife and I managed to filter what our kids saw. We did it in the Internet age and we did it without threatening people, bullying people, or getting the government to step in and handle the situation for us.

It’s called parenting. It’s hard.

Conservatives might want to try it sometime, rather than expecting or forcing third parties to do it for them.

I’ve never had to worry about running at night, or anyone’s violent reaction to it

If you saw a black man running at 4:45 am, would your first thought be What a freak? He ought to be home sleeping like normal people. Would you wonder if he were maybe fleeing someone or fleeing with something.

I’m a runner who often runs that early (in Florida, eight months out of the year, you kind of have to). I’d probably assume he’s also a runner.

But I’m a white guy. I’m comfortable running in the dark, alone, very early in the morning. No one’s likely to hassle me. And no one’s going to think I must be fleeing from someone or with someone’s stuff.

I’m not accusing a neighbor or the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office of having it in for black people. The overwhelming majority of the people around me are decent–if you define decent as not decided to kick the crap out of a person for running very early in the morning as a black man.

It only takes one for the narrative to flip to a place I (were I a black man) might not come back from. If I were exactly as I am, but black, I probably wouldn’t run so early in the morning.

When my employer held a series of conversations around these topics after George Floyd, I was stunned by the number of my colleagues who had a talk with their kids–their sons, in particular–about how to act around cops.

We had the talk with our son, too. It consisted of “Keep your hands at ten and two until you’re asked to get the license or you ask permission and don’t be a smart ass.” There was eye rolling.

I’ve never worried that my son could be killed by the police. He doesn’t look like Philando Castile, Ahmaud Arbery, or Tyre Nichols. I’ve never worried if he’d be shot to death by a careless cop while sitting in his apartment in Texas eating ice cream.

For the record, I’m a moderately conservative white guy, and since the silence from us people is said to be deafening, the video of Tyre Nichols’ execution, for that’s what it was, is sickening.

The men who killed him used the badge as a justification for dispensing what they perceived as justice. They betrayed the community they’re supposed to protect, as well as the criminal justice system they represent. People will live in fear because of them. Other people will use their actions as a catalyst to overreact, resulting in more victims, typically of color, because of extreme course corrections. They murdered an innocent man and damaged the community and the country.

If your reaction to the video of Nichols’ murder placed blame on him, you’re part of the problem. Whether it’s him, Philando Castile, or Botham Jean, they did nothing to merit their death. There are no excuses to be made for their murderers, especially since they wore a bad.

I don’t have to worry about that justice being dispensed on me. Or my son.

No one should.

Until we solve that problem, we should all be disturbed and angry.

Why I post my workout information

Within the past couple weeks, I ran across an article that says it’s time to stop posting about your workouts to social media. It’s ableist and it perpetuates body stereotypes and thin privilege.

Though I’ve been posting pictures of my Garmin stats for workouts lately, after reading the article, I seriously considered stopping. Outside me, no one needs to know that I hauled my ass out of bed at 4:30 to run six miles (and how dare I think there’s some sort of intrinsic merit in doing that).

I know what it’s like to sit inside and watch while others are able to go out and accomplish things–and know that I’m physically unable to do that. I’m not talking about the few weeks after I got the Covid or when I got a bad cold those countless number of times. I’m talking about times when I was pretty sure I’d never run another step again. Times when I piled on the weight and felt essentially useless.

Knowing how that feels adds weight and responsibility. It means I have to take that into account in how I act. And though I felt less-than when I saw people running while I couldn’t, I also understood why they run and why they talk about running.

The simple fact is that I wouldn’t be running if it weren’t for the runners around me. I wouldn’t be trying to improve my pace and form if they weren’t improving their results. I wouldn’t think running a marathon was even possible for me if I didn’t have people around me who’ve actually done it. Their posts spur me on to make sure I get my work in.

Exactly one person has complained about my posting exercise information since I’ve been doing it. The same person objected to my gratitude posts, as well. For that person, all of it seemed like I was taking a victory lap. For a lot of reasons, I’m no longer acquainted with that person–something I also carry with me to test my intent.

A lot of other people have been inspired by the posts. I’ve been to the dumps. I’ve struggled to walk up stairs because my knees hurt too much from the weight I was carrying. I’ve struggled to cross a room or to sit at a desk and work.

I recognize that not everyone can come back from those things. At the time, I figured I couldn’t. So I have deep respect for the people who want to, but can’t.

There’s no malice intended for those who can’t or don’t. And people aren’t intrinsically better if they exercise than if they don’t.

But I’m better. I recognize my worth more. I realize what hard work can do for me. I see more possibility in life.

There’s a hypothetical group of people out there who might be offended by what I post–who might be deeply hurt by my content. There are people who have contacted me who said my posts help them.

Those who object would have me assume that anyone who isn’t vocal in supporting posts like mine could possibly be hurt by them. Their theoretical objection outweighs the tangible responses I’ve gotten.

I spent 70 minutes on the elliptical this morning. I ran 12 miles Saturday. I have a half marathon in a week and a half. I worked to achieve those things and I’m proud of them.

I shouldn’t have to be ashamed of those things or hide them because someone might theoretically object.

Tony Dungy, homosexuality, and Jesus

Tony Dungy has come under fire this week for a number of things he’s done. The catalyst was a Twitter post repeating a right-wing trope that schools are providing litter boxes for kids who identify as cats (they aren’t). It was a bone-headed move by Dungy.

His apology–which was issued by his lawyer hours after the post was deleted–seemed like the pro-forma required apology to make the heat go away. If you’re really sorry for something you apologize yourself and you indicate ways you’ll make up for what you’ve done.

In response to Dungy’s statements and apology, USA Today columnist Nancy Armour takes Dungy to task for anti-LGBTQIA2S+ statements, saying they make him a hypocrite because he’s going directly against Jesus, who said to love everyone and never said anything about homosexuality.

What Ms. Armour says is technically true, but not complete. It’s true that Jesus doesn’t say anything about homosexuality and he’s pretty clear that you’re supposed to love your neighbor. But the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments does address homosexuality. You can’t say Christian teaching endorses homosexuality.

The truth is far more nuanced.

As a Christian, I believe the Bible to be divinely inspired. Like everything else, it’s also a product of its time and culture. If the Israelites were wandering the desert for a long time, keeping their numbers up would be important. You can’t do that by putting your swimmers places babies can’t be made. Culturally, it would have made sense to encourage heterosexual sex.

Ms. Armour is right to say that Jesus says to love our neighbors. Based on his reaction to the woman at the well and to the adulteress who wasn’t stoned, that should extend to sex-related matters as well. But many of the same people who stop at saying Jesus should love everyone–and accept everything–are the same people who turn around and debate his very existence, or quote Matthew 6:6 (go to your room and shut the door) to somehow assert that Christian faith should never be spoken of in public.

Discernment is the process of trying to determine the true meaning of the Bible. I believe that if you do everything right–if you do your best to be decent to people and to love God, He won’t to throw you into the fires of hell on a technicality.

“Well, you loved me and your neighbor, you were charitable. You did all the Matthew 25 stuff and raised kids in a loving home. This all looks good. Oh, but wait, our records say you had sex in a committed relationship with someone of the same sex and truly loved that person. I’m sorry, but you must fry for eternity in a sea of fire that burns but never consumes.”

If it works that way, a lot of us are screwed for a lot of things.

If God is the father who waits for his prodigal children and runs to them when they come home–antithetical to cultural norms at the time–he’s looking for ways to include us, not exclude us. That’s the whole point of Emmanuel, God with us. He came to us.

I can’t claim to know Tony Dungy’s heart. I do know that good people can get caught up in harmful ideas and that everyone’s on a journey. That doesn’t give Tony Dungy the right to harm other people or spread ridiculous lies about cat boxes in school bathrooms.

It also doesn’t mean, as Keith Olbermann demands, that he should be fired simply for speaking at the March for Life. That’s ridiculous.

It’s not my job to judge other people based on their choice of consenting adults. I have a lush forest full of logs in my eye. Far be it from me to complain about the spec in yours.

God gives me undeserved love every day. My job is to extend that love to others. In executing that job, I will–and I have–screwed up royally. If you investigated all I’ve said and posted over the years, you’d find ample evidence of that.

I disagree with Tony Dungy on the cat box thing–and I think his apology is weak stream. And while I disagree with his stance on people who aren’t straight, Mr. Armour’s condemnation is picking and choosing–something she claims he’s doing.

Telling that dark voice to go screw off

I’m not a young man, but I ran ten miles yesterday and followed it up with six more this morning. Today’s run featured a sub-ten-minute pace. I excel in a difficult job and through an awful lot of hard work, I’ve changed myself. I’ve gone from a scared little man who lashes out at people because he feels cornered to someone you can depend on to work through difficult things.

I’ve not only survived, but thrived in spite of a health problem that essentially made me house-bound for the better part of a year. I’m in decent shape to finish two half marathons in spite of Fibromyalgia. I’ve won multiple writing awards.

I could go on, but you get the idea. It’s taken a lot of work to get here, but I’m a decent human being. When I croak, there’s a decent chance God will say “Well done my good and faithful servant. Enter into your master’s joy.”

And yet, too often I still let myself be engulfed from the shadows of the old life.

Even if you don’t believe in Satan, you have to acknowledge the dark presence that can trip any of us up. Maybe it’s an accuser who roams the earth, looking for ways to inject misery. Maybe it’s just our animal minds rebelling against our better selves. Either way, that dark presence is there and I’m not the only one to experience it.

The dark voice that spits accusations like machine gun fire is smart. It waits until we’re not quite where we want to be before launching its offensive. It makes us feel like we’re alone and unworthy of anything more than that. It blows up our flaws and says we’re not worth reaching beyond them. The times we listen to that voice and let it drown out the others are the times when we descend deeper into the darkness–when our baser selves get freer reign and give that dark voice more material for the next time.

According to Christian theology, that voice can’t actually hurt us. If we tell it to go away, it will. But it’s so relentless sometimes, so hard to push back against. Sometimes, we’re weak and we feel like we can’t push back anymore.

That voice is a liar.

In my case, I’m a guy of my age who ran ten miles yesterday. I’ve accomplished all the things listed above. I’m not a loser.

Based on my belief system, I’m someone God cared enough about to come here and endure crappy footwear, bad food, and no climate control before allowing us to torture him to death.

It’s hard to push back against that dark voice. But it’s necessary. It’s worthwhile.

The hardest part about a long run is mental. It’s continuing even when the distance to the end seems impossibly long. That’s where courage lies.

I’m worth that courage. You, too.

You’re not a loser.

The dark voice is a liar.

Grateful to run

Eight years ago, give or take a month, I did a workout that was difficult, but not physically taxing. I had to stop because I was nauseated from the effort. At the time, it was an easy workout. Something was wrong. As it turns out, it was seriously wrong.

Before things evened out, I got to the point where I had to stop and rest while I walked across the living room and I eventually wound up working from bed.

Although I was eventually diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (better known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), I still don’t know for sure what was wrong with me. Eventually, at the urging of someone in my employer’s HR department, I went on partial disability–and promptly had the insurance company deny my claim. We had one kid in college; one on the way–and I had no way to earn more than half my income. It was a bad year.

I wasn’t suicidal at that point, but if death came knocking, I wouldn’t have worked to beat it at Battleship.

This morning, I ran ten miles for the second time since baseball season ended.

Once, after a long run, someone commented it would take them hours to be able to run that far. I responded that it took me months. A ten-mile run doesn’t leave you prepared for a marathon, but it’s a long distance. You get there by running a lot for quite a few weeks.

The me of 2015 wouldn’t believe that eight years later, he’s be running double-digit miles as he trained for a couple of half marathons.

A lot of runners have a love-hate relationship with running. They procrastinate when it’s time to run, delaying as long as they can before giving in. Once they start, everything falls into place and they’re good to go. I go through that exercise every day.

It would be a reach to say I love to run. I love finishing my run. I love having run. I adore looking at my watch and seeing a five-digit figure for the number of steps I’ve taken today.

For me, running is an obligation. It’s also a privilege. Every stride is a blessing, whether it’s cold out and I’m comfortable, or it’s Florida out and I can feel the sweat running down my legs.

God blessed me with the motivation to run. He blessed me again to give me the ability.

As a people, we tend to be remarkably blessed. Through history, the majority of humanity would kill to have to deal with our worst things. We don’t have to hunt, kill, and prepare what we eat. We don’t even have to go to the supermarket to get it if we don’t want to.

Though most of the people I treasure most live in other states, I can contact them at will without having to wait until after 5 or the weekend because the rates go down. I can watch any episode of Magnum, P. I. on demand. I can warm a piece of pizza or thaw a bagel in seconds.

And I can run.

I’m lucky. I’m blessed. That means I need to be grateful.

It’s something I work at remembering when the day is a steaming pile that seems like it might bury me. (Hint: it never does.)

Celebrating a difficult run

I knew this morning’s run would be hard half a mile in. My legs felt dead and nothing came easily. After yesterday’s seven-mile dream run, I should’ve expected a little regression.

My goal was six miles, but about three-quarters of the way there, I needed to stop and collect myself a little. Then I heard voices nearby–uncommon the time of day I run.

The neighborhood running ladies were behind me and I’d be damned if I was stopping while they were there. I pressed onward.

Most mornings, I’d have done four miles, called it a win and moved on. Why torture yourself?

But I have a half marathon coming up the first weekend of February. I have to get the work in or I’ll regret it. The six miles had to happen.

The last mile was all guts. The gas tank was empty. I only hit my goal because I decided I’d hit it. As I showered after, it dawned on me that might be a taste of what running a marathon’s like. It’s not just the physical endurance. There probably comes a time when you decide you’re going to finish even as your body rebels.

It’s pushing on when your legs betray you because someone filled them with lead and you have too many miles left. I did a mile on fumes and guts–a marathon must seem like an eternity under those same conditions.

I’m grateful this morning’s run was hard. I’m grateful for that shadow of understanding of what a marathon’s probably like. I’ve got a milestone birthday this fall and a marathon seems like a good way to celebrate. I know I can do the half marathon. It might be ugly, but I’ll finish both of them.

I’m not sure I can do the full marathon–and that’s the attraction. Success means more when failure’s a real possibility.

I got this morning’s run done because that’s what you do. I could curse my legs for their weakness, or I could try to find value in the experience.

I really want to run and finish a marathon. I want to know what it feels like the moment you cross the finish line having accomplished that. This morning’s run helped me understand part of the more subtle aspects of accomplishing that goal.

It’s a good way to start the day.

DeSantis wants a ministry of propaganda, not real education

I never learned about the Tulsa race massacre. No one ever told me that people of color routinely train their kids how to not provoke cops, lest they get shot. And none of my professors ever told me or implied that I needed to adopt their way of thinking, lest I fail their course.

That was a long time ago and if conservative news outlets are telling the truth, that last thing might not be true anymore. Conservatives have long complained–often with validity–about the lack of diversity of thought in higher education.

Now that they have power, they’re doing something about it: running the same power plays, but for their advantage.

Governor Ron DeSantis started his second term as Florida Governor by doing what conservatives has accused liberals of since I went to college. He took steps to eliminate diversity of thought in favor of creating a school that covers only his viewpoints.

DeSantis appointed six new members to the board at New College, just south of Tampa. A part of the public higher-ed system in Florida, New College was ranked fifth in top public schools, by US News & World Report. The problem, at least to DeSantis, is encapsulated in the header to a Washington Post article about DeSantis’s actions: the college is considered progressive.

DeSantis is creating a political brand based on seeking out and destroying anything his base might consider woke, and that includes New College, a small, liberal Liberal Arts school in Sarasota.

James Uthmeier, DeSantis’s chief of staff, said the governor hopes to turn the school into the Hillsdale College of the South. Hillsdale is a small Christian school in Michigan, well-known among conservatives. One of the six board members is Matthew Spalding, a government professor and dean at Hillsdale.

There’s nothing wrong with providing a balanced look at world history and this country’s place in it. While we’ve had our issues–and they’re certainly material–we also fought a civil war in part over slavery. The Civil Rights movement isn’t nothing. And while not everyone may have the same experience I do as a white guy, our country also has a long history of trying to do better–a history that needs to be equally proclaimed with our country’s sins.

The problem seems to be no one wants to strike the balance. Conservatives are either creating boogiemen that don’t exist in their fight or they’re insisting on replacing one set of rigid beliefs–with penalties for those who don’t fall in line–with a their set. Instead of replacing names on schools for not being anti-racist enough, we’ll soon be renaming schools for people who weren’t sufficiently American–whatever that’ll mean at the time.

Our history is messy. At times, it’s ugly and breathtakingly evil. But there’s a reason America is still thought of as an idea, as well as a country. We need to know about our sins, so we can do better. We shouldn’t be looking for the worse interpretation of every American action. We shouldn’t erase our history, warts and all, but neither should we glorify those warts.

Governor DeSantis is engaging in the exact conduct he accuses his woke critics of embracing. It’s okay when he does it because it’s his views that are being laid down as intellectual law. And as the leader of the free state of Florida, if you don’t toe the line on what you believe, you’ll pay the price. Freedom means you can think anything he doesn’t consider woke (whatever that happens to be today).

It’s no more okay for Ron DeSantis to say “believe these things or fail” than it was for the guy in the political science department that Tucker Carlson highlighted that one time (and the other time and the other time…).

Higher education needs to go where it will. It needs to challenge students’ preconceived notions–and allow students to challenge their professors’. That’s education.

Anything less, whether work or anti-woke, is simply a ministry of propaganda.