I stumbled across this article
while on Facebook. Recently, a football player named Michael Sam came out as
being gay, which makes him the first NFL player that has been openly gay. Sam
was named “best defensive player” in the Southeastern Conference and made the
decision to announce his sexuality before draft picks. You would think that this
wouldn’t affect his chances of being drafted because the game of football is
about athletic abilities and not sexual preferences, right? Unfortunately this
article highlights other male athletes that have come out. NBA player, Jason
Collins came out as a homosexual man and was never drafted back into the NBA.
The sad truth is that our society still holds on to racial stereotypes. When an
athlete defies the norm of the stereotype, society rejects them.
This
article reminded me of the article we read in class by Dixon. Dixon was a
homosexual black male that faced more than one stereotype. Dixon says that
sorrow is linked to being a gay professional guy in today’s society. We will have to wait and see the fate of
Michael Sam but we should hold onto the fundamental restated idea that “all men
are created equal” (Dixon 3).
I really liked this article and actually came across something similar to it a couple days ago regarding Michael Sam. It talked about how Westboro Baptist Church came and picketed at Mizzou claiming that all "fags are going to hell" specifically targeting Sam. It was amazing to see a large group of students who made a human "wall of love" in support of Sam, so it is really upsetting to see that professional organizations like the NFL take sexual preference into something that has nothing to do with it.
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