Packers Shareholder Wants to Know Why Green Bay Only Drafted Black Players
Green Bay Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy has a monthly column on the team website where he answers questions from fans and shareholders. It generally appears to be softball questions like any fun events planned for the shareholders meeting and the Paul McCartney concert was awesome, but for some reason this month's edition also featured an absolutely wild letter from a shareholder named Marilyn. She does not waste time getting to her point. Via Packers.com:
A question from Marilyn, a longtime Packer fan and shareholder
Out of the 11 players drafted by the Packers in the 2022 NFL Draft none are white. I also looked at the first two rounds of 64 and found that only 11 players drafted by all the teams were white. When I Googled the question of how many white overall were drafted, Google wouldn't answer it. I wonder why. I sure hope we aren't going to have to hear all the whining about equity, justice and all the markings on hats and shoes and all else. I suggest the NFL is actually racist for always choosing and highlighting black players. I am sure that is why you chose Love for a QB when he never should have been chosen. I hope the Packers will play the National Anthem and fly the flag high with the planes going over as they always have. Anyone who doesn't respect and honor our flag and our military heroes does not belong on the Packer roster. So for the 2022-2023 season, let's just play football and leave all the politics and racism out of the stadium.
That's just an incredible number of rightwing talking points in a single paragraph. If this were a letter-to-the-editor in a local newspaper you would laugh at how ridiculous it is. And yet the Packers not only published it on their official website, but took the time to have the general manager respond like it was a legitimate concern form a shareholder. We all know that's just a honorary title with the Packers, but they're the ones who printed this and they're the ones who want to call these people shareholders. So imagine a minority owner of any other franchise saying any one of those things out loud in 2022.
We know people who think like this still exist, but why does the Packers general manager think he needs to give them the time of day? Were there many people wondering where all the white people were? Or just a lot of lingering questions about Disrespecting the Flag six years after Colin Kaepernick first kneeled and five years after he last played?
Who was this for?