Scientific American was sacked online for attempting to move the goalposts in the discussion about the horrific injury suffered by NFL player Damar Hamlin. A recent opinion piece in the science magazine founded in 1845 argued that the Buffalo Bills safety experiencing cardiac arrest during a Monday Night Football game exemplified the "violence black men experience in football." However, Scientific American was blitzed for attempting to exploit Hamlin's injury to label the NFL as racist.
The opinion piece in Scientific American was written by Tracie Canada – an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology. She is affiliated with the Sports & Race Project that "critically studies race and sports at Duke."
Canada's bio reads: "Her research uses sport to theorize race, kinship, care, gender and the performing body, and she is currently working on a book project about the experiences of black college football players."
She previously wrote an article for Scientific American titled: "The NFL’s Racist ‘Race Norming’ Is an Afterlife of Slavery."
Canada boasted that she spent 10 years "learning how black college football players navigate the exploitation, racism, and anti-blackness that are fundamental to its current system."
In Canada's latest article for Scientific American, she expressed that violence is part of football, "but black players are disproportionately affected."
Canada argued, "While black men are severely underrepresented in positions of power across football organizations, such as coaching and management, they are overrepresented on the gridiron."
In 2021, approximately 71% of NFL players were people of color, according to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
In 2017, the average NFL salary was $2.7 million.
The writer said the violent aspect of the NFL has been "normalized," but "Hamlin's injury demonstrates that ordinary violence has potentially deadly consequences, and highlights how black men's athletic labor sustains this brutal system."
However, only one NFL player has ever died on the field. Detroit Lions wide receiver Chuck Hughes – who was white – died from a heart attack during an NFL game in 1971.
Damar Hamlin has made a miraculous recovery from his disturbing injury.
Canada declared, "The NFL gains both culturally and financially from black athletic performance. It is the most popular sports league in the United States and the most valuable professional sports league in the world. It is also a league that has exploited its black players for decades."
She accused the NFL of practicing "persistent anti-black practices."
Canada continued, "Further, to dismiss the almost certain breaking down of their bodies as just part of the game is a process of objectification and commodification that prioritizes the player over the person in a way that black feminist scholar Bell Hooks says calls to mind 'the history of slavery and the plantation economy.' The anti-blackness of the system is inescapable."
Twitter reactions blitzed Scientific American for the fumbled attempt at shoehorning race into a football player's unfortunate injury.
BlazeTV "Fearless" hostJason Whitlock: "The 'terrifyingly ordinary' stupidity of Twitter disproportionately affects the 'Scientific' American feed."
BlazeTV contributor T.J. Moe: "Let me assure you that there are white people lined up miles long to get into this league. To the degree that it’s 'disproportionately affecting black men,' it would only be because the black men earned the roster spot the white guys also wanted. This article is pure garbage."
Former Super Bowl-winning coach Tony Dungy: "As a black man and former NFL player I can say this article is absolutely ridiculous."
Author Christina Sommers: "Another absurd & incoherent article in the once-serious Scientific American."
Writer Dan McLaughlin: "Literally just an argument that NFL teams employ too many black players."
Podcast host Eric Weinstein: "Scientific American, ladies and gentlemen."
Singer Phil Labonte: "Football injuries are racist."
In the past, Scientific American published articles by more than 200 Nobel Prize winners. The science magazine featured brilliant minds such as Hans Bethe, James D. Watson, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Linus Pauling, and Albert Einstein.
However, the magazine has made a recent effort to promote woke ideology. Scientific American admits that it is committed to "advancing social justice."
In 2021, Scientific American complained that the Jedi in the fictional "Star Wars" universe are problematic white saviors steeped in toxic masculinity.
Last August, Scientific American accused Western science of creating the concept of two sexes in a concerted effort to "reinforce gender and racial divisions."
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