Here in Houston we a have an NFL football (American) team known as the Texans. The Texans owner is a very successful business man named Robert “Bob” Mc Nair. Mr. Bob is a billionaire, last time I remember seeing his net worth it is north of $3 billion.
Toward the later part of October at a NFL owners meeting where the discussion was about how the league office and the owners should handle the national anthem controversy, Mr. Bob made a comment that he believed was off the record. How can a man who has accumulated that much wealth believe that there is such a thing as “off the record”?
The comment had to do with the subject at hand, national anthem protests, by some players on the various teams. He referred to the situation as “inmates running the prison”, when this comment became public knowledge all hell broke loose.
The media jumped on that comment like white on rice, they were all over it. (Am I allowed to use that analogy?) For ten days straight both the sports media and general media were covering Mr. Bob’s comment, more than once I heard on local radio talk shows that it was indeed a “racist” comment. To make matters worse old Mr. Bob then started apologizing and saying that his comment was misunderstood, that he was in fact referring to the situation between the owners and the league office. Give me a break Mr. Bob, just own the comment and move on.
My question for Mr. McNair is, “why apologize when you are correct?” Just because it “offend some people” doesn’t make it incorrect. The phrase that Mr. Bob used has been used it Texas for several decades, and I suspect several countries as well. Another saying that is equally correct and probably would have been just as offensive is “the crazies running the asylum”.
So you’re probably wondering by now what makes Mr. Bob’s initial comment correct in my eyes. A person has to look no further than the judicial system for the proof. Since the 1960’s there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of law suits brought by prisoners to the courts for adjudication. These lawsuits have brought about several changes to the prison systems in Texas. To name a couple, air conditioning would be a major change and prison overcrowding is another. The courts found that incarceration in Texas without air conditioning was cruel and unusual punishment. They also found the same for overcrowding.
The inmates law suits did in fact change the prison system, thus the inmates were running the prison. Maybe not the day to day operations per say, but they were running it none the less with the help of the courts. I’m not going to cite a bunch a cases as proof of my belief, if you doubt what I am saying just go look for yourself. A good place to start is prisonlaw.com there you will find several major cases brought by inmates or on behalf of inmates to effect changes to the prisons. The even have a book titled “The Jail House Lawyers Handbook” that is free to prisoners and others so that prisoners can be better equipped to file a suit with merit.
So, Mr. Bob was correct with his analogy, he just lacked the testes to defend what he said when the cameras showed up at his door step. To make matters worse, the Texans starting rookie sensation quarterback was recently injured and is out for the season with a torn ligament. So, for the last two weeks the sports media has been shouting out loud that Mr. Bob needs to hire the person who got all this controversy started, an unemployed QB named Colin Kaepernick.
The Texans don’t need Colin Kaepernick and the baggage he brings with him, they need Mr. Bob to man up and say “move on, nothing to see here”, so far Mr. Bob is holding his ground.
I just hope for his sake he doesn’t slip up and make a comment like; “the monkeys running the zoo”.
Until next time,
