04/25/24
September 15, 2009
Ravens' Foxworth Is Building Home Museum to the Civil Rights Movement : With each step down his basement stairs, Domonique Foxworth descends into his own private bomb shelter. Above ground, he earns millions covering the N.F.L.'s top receivers for the Baltimore Ravens. Below it in his cellar, he seeks different company. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has a dream in the cover of an autographed memoir. Malcolm X defies a detractor in a typed letter from 1963. Rosa Parks sits, Tommie Smith clenches and Thurgood Marshall reasons in framed and signed artifacts that form Foxworth's growing museum of the civil rights movement. "Other players around the league, their basements are all jerseys of themselves and friends in the N.F.L. and the N.B.A." "I feel more comfortable with these people around me." "When this player shoots from the hip, it ain't with a Glock in a nightclub. Foxworth's passion for civil rights will inform his handling of the league's coming labor negotiations, in which he will participate as a member of the union's executive committee. "This is the Little Rock Nine," Foxworth said, pointing to an autographed print of the black students who in 1957 were blocked from attending a segregated school in Arkansas. "All this stuff is really powerful to me. It motivates me. Football and community work and just day to day. To not waste."
posted by tommytrump to culture at 10:46 AM - 10 comments
Thanks, BI.
There are no riots, threats of violence, or players demanding trades in the article, but I still thought it warranted a F.P.P.
posted by tommybiden at 11:43 AM on September 15, 2009
It's a very interesting subject, but Schwarz ought to be ashamed to draw a paycheck for the twelve minutes he apparently spent writing this piece of shit article.
"His own private bomb shelter". Really? Are you painting Foxworth as having one foot in the past and one in the present, or is he a paranoid militiaman?
"When this player shoots from the hip, it ain't with a glock in a nightclub" -- Right. As opposed to the vast majority of other professional athletes roving the countryside pillaging and marauding and terrorizing the populace. Maybe it's a good thing Foxworth has that "bomb shelter" after all.
"It was a drawing of a parachute". What the fuck, Alan? That alone would merit the loss of a letter grade in a middle school English class.
I'm not slagging your post, tommy. Foxworth sounds like a very interesting guy, and I'd had no idea of his interests. I'm glad to learn a bit about him. But man, I'd have thought the NY Times could do better than this.
posted by Ufez Jones at 12:10 PM on September 15, 2009
I agree with your point Ufez and saw the same thing but I figured it wouldn't be worth mentioning considering it was supposed to be a feel good piece.
No tommy, thank you for finding this.
posted by BornIcon at 12:13 PM on September 15, 2009
Liked it!
posted by billsaysthis at 12:23 PM on September 15, 2009
Okay, sure, it's a feel-good piece that settles somewhere on the spectrum between journalistically lazy and borderline offensive.
Like I said, I enjoyed learning a bit about Foxworth. I just wish Schwarz (or his editors) had used more of the space alloted for some context and depth instead of terrible analogies and further whipping of the now decomposed horse that are the Shocking Headlines of the Bad Boys of Professional Sports™.
Frankly, if I were Foxworth, I'd be pretty pissed off.
posted by Ufez Jones at 12:52 PM on September 15, 2009
There is a message here that should not be overlooked, and that is: history should not be forgotten. The Civil Rights Movement and the current world of sport are incredibly interconnected. Foxworthy is worth praising for his commitment to remembering those connections.
However, as some of you have aptly pointed out, it (the article) does exaggerate the criminality (glocks in nightclubs) of the present-day NFL.
posted by Spitztengle at 01:49 PM on September 15, 2009
There's a much better piece waiting to get out from that (pretty sloppy) one, which is to talk about Foxworth as part of a growing number of African-American athletes who have used their wealth to become collectors and curators of historical and cultural artifacts.
I already knew about Grant Hill's art collection; I didn't know about Art Monk, Chris Webber and others. There are clearly dealers and collectors who have begun to cater to the interests of black players, and I'd like to know about the development of that infrastructure, as well as the relationship of those private, ad hoc collections to institutional collectors of African-American art and historical items. That hint of condescension in the piece, whether deliberate or not, points to the story behind the story.
posted by etagloh at 02:09 PM on September 15, 2009
It almost appears that Schwarz is nicely illustrating the point about civil rights that Foxworth is trying to make. That is, the civil rights struggle is not over until perceptions and stereotypes are overcome. Schwarz demeans the wide majority of black athletes by using every current stereotype in his piece. There is a large number of black athletes, active and retired, who are worth listening to about many things. If this is just a look at Foxworth's hobby, it is interesting, but if Schwarz is trying to show that people should be surprised by it, he very much misses the point.
posted by Howard_T at 03:28 PM on September 15, 2009
Like I said earlier, I saw some things in the article that were off-putting but the point of the article itself made up for the lack of verbal creativity by Schwarz. It's not everyday that an article related to today's athletes is on a positive note and that's what I chose to observe but I do understand why some would choose otherwise.
posted by BornIcon at 03:49 PM on September 15, 2009
Great post tommy! It's refreshing to see an athlete taking pride in history and historical artifacts. I've always been interested in the Civil Rights Movement and the leaders of the past and would read books about that time religiously. Extremely fascinating post.