Mike Ditka is perfectly comfortable talking about football. But when the conversation turns elsewhere: Look out.
The former Chicago Bears coach and Pro Football Hall of Famer joined Westwood One’s “Monday Night Football” pregame show for an interview with host Jim Gray, and the conversation inevitably turned to national anthem protests. For starters, Ditka believes players should stand during the national anthem.
“I don’t care who you are, how much money you make,” Ditka told Gray, as transcribed by the Chicago Sun-Times. “If you don’t respect our country, then you shouldn’t be in this country playing football. Go to another country and play football. If you had to go somewhere else and try to play the sport, you wouldn’t have a job.”
You can disagree with Ditka, but he’s entitled to that opinion. When asked about athletes like Muhammad Ali and Jesse Owens protesting social injustice, though, the 77-year-old gave a head-scratching reply.
“I don’t know what social injustices (there) have been,” Ditka said. “Muhammad Ali rose to the top. Jesse Owens is one of the classiest individuals that ever lived. Is everything based on color? I don’t see it that way. You have to be colorblind in this country. You have to look at a person for what he is and what he stands for and how he produces — not by the color of his skin. That has never had anything to do with anything.
“But, all of a sudden, it has become a big deal now — about oppression. There has been no oppression in the last 100 years that I know of.
“Now, maybe I’m not watching it as carefully as other people. I think the opportunity is there for everybody — race, religion, creed, color, nationality. If you want to work, if you want to try, if you want to put effort in, you can accomplish anything. And we have watched that throughout our history of our country.”
To recap: Ditka apparently thinks Americans of all races and creeds have gotten along swimmingly over the past century.
Ironically, Ditka actually played through the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, when African Americans took a stand against the very oppression of which Ditka is blissfully unaware. Of course, Ditka is a white male who never has (and never will) experienced discrimination based on his gender or skin color, so it’s unfortunately not surprising he holds such a narrow worldview.
Thumbnail photo via Adam Hunger/USA TODAY Sports Images
