Reggie White was a great football player; there is no denying it. There is also no denying that he attempted good works off the field.
But in the rush to praise White’s conduct off the field, the local media made him more saint than human. And, like most of us, Reggie was a good man, but one who was deeply flawed.
All of the coverage made sure to mention White’s deeply held religious beliefs, but no mention was made about how those views sometimes narrowed his world. To be sure, the dark side of White’s beliefs mirrored the dark side of the Christian Right in America today.
With the political ascendancy of the religious Right, most strongly felt during the recent presidential election, it is as important to understand the dark side as it is to understand that side which is represented by the charitable works and spiritual strength. Reggie White exemplified how strong beliefs can sometimes cut both ways.
I am not questioning White’s tremendous leadership qualities, which made him a positive force in the locker room. I am not questioning that he accomplished much good in raising money for charitable undertakings. But nowhere amid the effusive praise did I see it mentioned that in 1996, after the Inner City Church in Knoxville, Tenn., burned to the ground, White raised $250,000, ostensibly to rebuild that church. However, the church was never rebuilt.
And then there were the hurtful stereotypes that filled Reggie White’s world.
Prior to his final season in Green Bay, White was honored before the Wisconsin state legislature. Normally the person receiving such an honor utters a brief thanks and sits down. But Reggie turned a happy occasion into an attack on homosexuality that lasted over an hour before a reportedly stunned group of legislators.
Among White’s embarrassing statements was that homosexuality is a conscious decision and "one of the biggest sins in the Bible." Reggie charged that being gay was a "malicious" lifestyle. He expressed outrage that the discrimination suffered by homosexuals in any way approximated that which blacks dealt with in winning their civil rights.
As if that weren’t enough, White went on to claim that God created different races for different reasons. It was apparent from Reggie’s description of God’s plan that he lived in a world of ethnic and racial stereotypes. Whites, particularly Jews, had a talent for tapping into money; Hispanics could squeeze 20 or 30 people into a house; Native Americans know how to sneak up on people; and Asians could turn a television set into a watch with their technical skill.
This is the stuff that got Al Campanis and Jimmy the Greek into career-ending trouble, and Reggie took some heat for his comments too.
Predictably, White blamed the media for blowing his comments out of proportion and for costing him a lucrative contract as a network football commentator. But White never apologized for the substance of his comments. In fact, he went on to film several anti-gay TV ads while wearing a Green Bay Packers uniform. The Packers organization warned him never to do it again.
White became the guy you never wanted to invite as your after-dinner speaker unless you were the Christian Council of Churches or Bob Jones University.
Yet I failed to find mention of any of this in the extensive local coverage eulogizing White in the last couple of weeks, unless you count one columnist’s descriptions of the controversy dogging Reggie off the field as some "politically incorrect" statements. The comments were more than politically incorrect; if any of us uttered those same remarks, we would be called bigots.
Reggie White was a good man, but he had some bigoted views. To report on his life without mentioning his limitations would be like eulogizing Charles Lindbergh for his courage without mentioning that he was a virulent anti-Semite.
We live in a country where today there is a serious attempt to amend the United States Constitution to institutionalize bigotry against gays and justify it by pointing to isolated passages in the Bible. Some believe in a religion that preaches love but also practices intolerance. This is the kind of intolerance that has led to people being tortured and killed, yes, because of their race, but also at times because of their sexual orientation.
You can’t shrug off intolerance as "political incorrectness." Hurtful words become law, and law creates the kind of hatred that demeans the American dream.
That’s why we can praise Reggie White without endorsing everything he stood for.
