I think it’s reasonable to acknowledge that the majority of us—NFL fans, generally, and Pittsburgh Steelers fans in particular—are not of a broadly marginalized class. Going out on a limb, my expectation is that the vast majority of our contributors, and regular commenters, are straight cis white men, including myself.
In that, we never grew up experiencing the same sort of systemic racism, whether passive or otherwise, that we continue to see in practice today, and which defined the adolescence and young adult experiences of many African-Americans and people of color.
This is an important conversation to have because it’s one that affects a great deal of the population of players of the National Football League.