They coming for Tom Brady

Tom Brady on Monday avoided directly answering when asked if he thought he had avoided harm to his career for supporting Trump because he is a white athlete.

Former NFL star and sports commentator Shannon Sharpe lobbed criticism at Brady last week for his apparent support of Trump, reports USA Today. Brady had voiced some support for Trump when he first campaigned in 2016, and was once seen with a MAGA hat in his locker.

Although he has since avoided politically-oriented questions, Sharpe opined that Brady had avoided damage to his career because he is white.
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"Let’s just say for sake of argument, LeBron James says, 'My friend is Minister (Louis) Farrakhan,'" Sharpe said on Fox Sports, referencing the Nation of Islam leader who has been accused of spreading anti-Semitic rhetoric. “How would America react? Blacks have always had to be very, very quiet about who our friends are ... a prominent black athlete can never say, 'Minister Farrakhan is just my friend.' They’d try to cancel anybody with the just mere mention of Mister Farrakhan’s name."

"I'm not sure how to respond to [a] hypothetical like that," Brady said when asked about the criticism during a Super Bowl media availability on Monday. "I hope everyone can — we're in this position like I am to, again, try to be the best I can be every day as an athlete, as a player, as a person in my community, for my team and so forth, so yeah, I'm not sure what else."

Tom Brady’s politics aren’t the problem. It’s his refusal to recognize that his ability to enter and exit the debate when he chooses, to shield himself from accountability, is a privilege that Black and brown athletes don’t have. https://t.co/pb9PEhvgn0

— Nancy Armour (@nrarmour) February 2, 2021

Patrick Mahomes was asked at last year’s Super Bowl about being biracial. This year he’s been asked about speaking out in the wake of George Floyd, the Black man whose death at the knee of a white police officer sparked protests across the country.

Yet no one has asked Brady about the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, even though almost all of those who attempted the violent overthrow of our government were white, just as he is, and were incited by the man Brady has described as his friend.

“Tom Brady is speaking up as Tom Brady. He’s not asked to speak for white America,” said [David Leonard, author of “Playing While White: Privilege and Power on and off the Field”], who is also a professor of comparative ethnic studies and American studies and culture at Washington State.

“The follow-up question of, ‘I’m here just to play football,’ is ‘Well, who’s afforded that luxury? Who’s allowed to see sports as this apolitical space of distraction, of pleasure, of fun?’ ” Leonard said. “Seeing sports and living sports as an uncontested space is the privilege of whiteness. It’s the privilege of being a man. It’s the privilege of being a heterosexual athlete. LINK LINK