Responsible Citizenship & Fandom [The Tuesday: Week Six]

This week, I found out that Houston Texans owner Bob McNair donated 10k to a group that’s trying to get the HERO bill voted down in Houston. HERO is an equal rights amendment that would guarantee all people equal treatment in the city of Houston — it would eliminate the ability of businesses & organizations to discriminate on the basis of race, gender-identity, sexual orientation, religious belief, etc. HERO is a good thing. HERO is a very good thing. HERO keeps Houston from being the next home of an Indiana Wedding Cake incident.

There are opponents to HERO. These opponents often use the incredibly, incredibly flawed & transphobic rhetoric of “We don’t want men in the women’s restroom.” There are millions of reasons this logic is terrible & useless & problematic, reasons that should be apparent enough that I’m going to move past them. Probably if you’re reading this & think HERO allowing a trans woman to use the women’s restroom is a bad thing, you should just stop reading & never come back & also go learn how to stop being a terrible person.

So, Bob McNair is an opponent of HERO. I’ve been a Texans fan since before the team had played an NFL game. Bob McNair owns the Texans. I am 100% opposed to McNair’s actions.

This is the space where someone responds KEEP YR POLITICS OUT OF MY FOOTBALL. I’m not willing to do that — sports is a great avenue by which to talk about social, political, & cultural issues because A) there are so many sports fans, across the whole spectrum of human experience & B) there are lots of high-profile people whose actions influence fans.

So, what to do about McNair? How to reconcile his shitty contributions with my decade+ fandom of the Texans, of a team he owns & financially benefits from?

I don’t like giving money to people who do things I’m opposed to. I’ve shopped at Hobby Lobby once since they challenged the health care law & I only went there because I couldn’t find another place with the right component I needed for a Halloween costume. I don’t buy books by authors who’ve been accused of rape. I’ve eaten at Chick-Fil-A twice, but one time was because I had a coupon for a free sandwich & the other was because my mom gave me a gift card.

I can’t boycott the Texans in a similar way because I already give them no money. I’ve been to one game & it was because my dad had free tickets. The only Texans gear I own is a hat that I bought at a gas station & is, I’m 100% sure, not official NFL merchandise. I used to have a David Carr jersey I got at Walmart, but then I lost it. The point is this: refusing to give the Texans money because Bob McNair is a shitty human being won’t work because it changes nothing: I already don’t give him money.

What, then?

This is the part of this post where I probably throw up my hands & say I don’t know. This weekend, I watched Redzone instead of the Texans game, but I still cared about the result of the game. I still spent time browsing Texans’ forums after the game. I still had opinions on Brian Hoyer. I still considered myself a fan of the Texans, though those feelings had definitely been tempered.

It’s easy to forget that the majority of NFL owners are rich, old, white men, & that they very often have political views that align with the normal views of that demographic. It’s easy to forget that many team owners probably give money to causes that many people disagree with. MsNair isn’t the only NFL owner to do questionable things. The Cowboys & Bears both put football over the safety of women in the off season. Three owners are trying to use the threat of Los Angeles as leverage to get taxpayer funded stadium deals. The NFL is built on money & greed & classism.

What to do?

I think, more than anything, writing this column each week is making me question my devotion to professional football. Other sports have issues, but they seem minuscule in comparison — hell, the NBA is far from perfect, but they pretty swiftly got rid of Donald Sterling & — well, NBA owners are probably not much different from NFL owners, so I’m just going to stop this comparison.

So, what to do?

Watch football this week. Watch it next week. Maybe at some point I’ll stop watching. Maybe one day I’ll have a handful of money & I can donate it to causes that are opposed to the causes NFL owners like McNair support. Maybe I won’t pay attention to a Texans game next week. I’ll keep watching highlights. I’ll let my attention drift.

There’s a breaking point for everything. I’m ashamed to admit that McNair’s behavior isn’t it — it’s a turning point, yes, a moment where I know the team I love is owned by someone who I can never respect, a moment where a part of me stops caring as much as I did a week ago about the Houston Texans. But there are lots of parts of me. There are years of wins & losses & the communal experiences of fandom inside of me. Maybe these other parts will follow. Maybe they won’t. I don’t know.

I do know that Bob McNair does not support equal rights for LGBT Houstonians. I do know that, while I’m still a fan of the Texans because they represent a city that I love, I have no intention of contributing any of my money to the team as long as he owns it. I know it’s a hollow gesture, because I have no money.

Maybe this is a call to action. Maybe this is where I say to the readers that, HEY. HEY. The NFL is a corrupt organization run by corrupt people who support backwards social policies & don’t support women & minorities & LGBT Americans. Maybe we shouldn’t give our money to ANY team. Maybe we shouldn’t go buy a pink Ray Rice jersey. Maybe don’t take the family to that Thanksgiving game & instead take the family to the beach. Maybe buy all your NFL merchandise, if you want to keep supporting your city, from sketchy gas stations whose proceeds just go to the sketchy gas station.

Maybe boycott giving money to the NFL. It’s a small gesture. They won’t, with their monopoly on the American public, even notice. But do it anyway.

Random Thoughts

• Michael Vick looked really bad. Landry Jones Forever. [Seriously, please don’t let Ben R return to the Steelers. Please let him never be in the NFL again.]
• Dolphins finally looking like the team I thought they’d be. It won’t last, I’m sure, but it was good to see for a week.
• What was that Colts play? SRSLY WHAT.
• Patriots 16–0 Watch?
• I don’t know. Football is stupid.