Though Cleveland Browns players will have more immediate challenges on their minds when they play the Cowboys at Jerry World in Dallas, they have demonstrated beyond any doubt that their commitment to racial equality and justice for all is ever present.

If only that were also true for Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam.

The Haslams have become good citizens of and benefactors of their second city, Cleveland. Their first remains Knoxville, Tennessee. I understand and appreciate an unbreakable attachment to place as a person might detect in Football, Fast Friends, and Small Towns: A Memoir Straight from a Broken Oklahoma Heart, the raison d’etre for the stevelovewriter.com website and Browns and Other Shades of Football blog.

If the Haslams are not the most enlightened National Football League employers when it comes to diversity, they rank high among them. There is much to admire about the Haslams, who, especially of late, show a willingness to learn, grow, and change how they do business after repeated disastrous coaching and front-office decisions since they purchased the New Browns from Randy Lerner in 2012.

These qualities are why it is disheartening, though hardly surprising, to find the Haslams prominent among owners of professional sports franchises who have made contributions in the millions to political candidates. A USA Today Sports examination of federal political contributions by 183 owners from 161 teams across the professional sports spectrum found $14.6 million had been given during the 2019-20 election cycle, with the NFL’s $3.834 million second only to Major League Baseball’s $5.578 million.

Eighty-six percent of the money went to Republican candidates and causes, including $3.7 million to political action committees allied with President Donald Trump, dog whistler to white supremacists and open opponent of the Black Lives Matter movement that is broadly supported by NFL players, more than 70 percent of whom are Black.

The NFL as good as blackballed Colin Kaepernick when he took a stand for racial justice and equality by famously kneeling during the national anthem in 2016. That has not been forgotten by more recent supportive response to the concept by league and owners. Lip service is one thing. Acts are another.

At least the Haslams are not Woody Johnson, whom USA Today Sports discovered gave “just under” $2 million to Republicans and somehow wound up as ambassador to the United Kingdom, courtesy of Trump. The Haslams, writers Nancy Armour and Tom Schad point out, “made five-figure contributions to PACs benefiting Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. McConnell has stalled the progress of a police reform bill passed by the House that bears [George] Floyd’s name, a piece of legislation that has been at the center of many athletes’ lobbying efforts.” [Floyd died under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, an act that horrified the nation and led to protests.]

It is the norm, or at least not uncommon, for those in the strata of the Haslams to support the Republican Party—or what’s left of it since Trump got his hands on it—and to make contributions. It is their right. In the Haslams’ case it might even be at least in part about family. Jimmy Haslam’s younger brother, Bill, a billionaire in his own right, was the governor of Tennessee from 2011 to 2019 and before that mayor of Knoxville.

Good family and good works aside, it is difficult to understand how the Browns players can reconcile supportive words and behavior for and toward the equality and justice for all with the Haslams’ support of men such as Trump and McConnell.

As sociologist Harry Edwards told USA Today Sports: “These owners standing up and saying ‘Black Lives Matter,’ and even taking a knee, doesn’t mean they get it. What shows what they get is where they put their money.” Cha-ching.

Kicked that around before the national anthem and kickoff.

Photo by Markus Winkler from Pexels