Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay wasn’t caught on a hot mic. He was not secretly recorded without his permission. He wasn’t tricked. During his interview on HBO’s “Real Sports,” Irsay knew the cameras were rolling and he wanted to tell the world how he really felt.
The show took a critical look at Irsay’s life, touching on his wealthy but tough upbringing, the sister he lost in a car accident, his penchant for expensive collectibles, and the pressures of becoming an NFL general manager at 24 and an owner at 37 But perhaps the most remarkable and powerful part of the interview was when Irsay spoke about his bouts of drug and alcohol addiction, during which he publicly admitted for the first time that he had overdosed and almost died.
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It made me think about how much energy it took, even for a billionaire, to discuss what rock bottom felt like. People’s lives can be touched, changed and saved when they see an influential person acknowledge their own struggles and admit that although life is hard at times, there is still much joy and wholeness if we are willing to to fight for it.
I will always respect Irsay’s willingness to speak out on this because addiction doesn’t care if you are rich or poor or black or white. It is not picky and shows no mercy.
But what I can’t respect is Irsay’s reasoning when he denied charges of driving while intoxicated in 2014, which he pleaded guilty to. A toxicology report revealed that Irsay had oxycodone, hydrocodone and alprazolam in his system when he was arrested by police. There is also video footage of a shaking Irsay being asked to perform a field sobriety test.
But during the “Real Sports” interview, Irsay still called the arrest “wrong,” adding that he “just had hip surgery and was in the car for 45 minutes” so he couldn’t walk straight. When asked by award-winning sports journalist Andrea Kremer why he disagreed, Irsay quickly snuffed out any empathy he had evoked about his struggles with addiction with a tone-deaf and fiery response.
“I’m prejudiced because I’m a rich, white billionaire,” Irsay said, criticizing police in Carmel, Indiana. “If I’m just the average guy in the neighborhood, of course they won’t drag me in.”
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Colts owner Jim Irsay says police profiled him when he was arrested in 2014 because he was “a rich, white billionaire.”
Kremer asked Irsay if he understood how ridiculous it would sound if he said the police were “biased against a rich, white billionaire.” She had kindly offered Irsay a way out, a chance to clarify his words. Instead, he doubled his bet.
“I don’t care how it sounds,” Irsay said. “It’s the truth. Andrea, I don’t give a fuck what people think or how something sounds or sounds. The truth is the truth and I know the truth.”
When I first heard these comments, it was the defiance that really struck me. Irsay’s inability to admit that he may have made mistakes nearly a decade ago is on him. But the parts I couldn’t get past is how he compared the life of a “rich, white billionaire” to the life of an “average guy in the neighborhood” and claimed that the police treat the former worse than the latter. In the world I live in, with the experiences I had as a young black man, the police still treat you very differently, and at a fraction of the price.
The police can’t tell how much money you make from your car windows, but they can tell what you look like.
Before I had the chance to work in the NFL and NBA and sit in the same room as a “rich white billionaire,” I was a black high school sports reporter in northwest Indiana. A few years ago, while driving home one night on vacation from a girls’ basketball tournament, I was pulled over. When I rolled down my window to talk to the white police officer, he asked me if I knew why he had pulled me over. I wasn’t sure, so I told him, “I don’t know.” His answer? “Well, you weren’t speeding. You were just quick enough to get my attention.”
How would you feel if that happened to you?
I hadn’t done anything wrong, but this officer still wanted to see my driver’s license and registration. I was still living in Illinois at the time, and only then did he relax after explaining that I had a college degree and my first full-time job as a journalist. After a few minutes of looking over my information and shining his light on my car, he told me, “You’re a long way from home,” before handing me back my belongings and sending me on my way.
No traffic violation.
No ticket.
No reason to stop me.
I will never forget feeling racist for driving my own car that I saved up for while working thousands of hours in college. And that’s just one of many stories. There is no point in even sharing it to arouse pity or sympathy. It is not intended to make it seem like all police officers are bad, racist or prejudiced. It aims to introduce a different perspective and a different world, one in which a darker skin tone is much more likely to encounter prejudice and injustice. I don’t know if Irsay has ever been in my world. But I know some who have done that – NFL players. And even better: his players.
According to the Washington Post, in a 2020 story, nearly 60 percent of NFL players are Black, and it’s fair to wonder how Irsay’s comments were received in the West 56th Street locker room after his thoughts became public on Tuesday.
Not that I would ask her. That wouldn’t be fair to them. No matter how they feel, he is still their boss. He signs their checks. They’re just trying to maximize careers that they know can be taken away from them at any time. But the reason I’m so confident that Irsay’s comments about police profiling could be viewed as short-sighted by attendees is because of the difficult conversations that were taking place off the field just a few years ago.
The entire world – both mine and Irsay’s – watched as a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on the neck of a Black man, George Floyd, for several minutes in May 2020. When Chauvin finally left Floyd, there was no life left in him. Chauvin was later convicted of second-degree murder, a decision that was upheld Monday when the Supreme Court rejected Chauvin’s appeal.
The video of the murder sparked a global debate about the intersectionality of prejudice, racism and police brutality, and the NFL — known for having its own problems with race — couldn’t ignore it. The phrases “END RACISM” and “IT TAKES ALL OF US” still line the back of the end zones at Lucas Oil Stadium more than three years after Floyd’s death.
The NFL was forced to join in these often taboo discussions, with several players speaking out at the time, including members of the Colts. Irsay also weighed in, sharing on social media in 2020, “Of course all lives matter, but the phrase ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’ is about the unequal treatment of Black Americans.” It doesn’t mean ONLY Black lives matter .”
To compare that sentiment with Irsay, who now says he was treated unfairly by police because he is white and wealthy, is strikingly tone-deaf. For Irsay, it is sad not to recognize the privilege of his position at this point in his life. But it may not be as sad as the fact that these comments will drown out the good he was trying to accomplish by speaking to Real Sports in the first place.
To be clear: Irsay is not a villain. I witnessed his big heart and generosity firsthand, and this one interview should not be an all-encompassing indictment of his character. His openness about his struggles is admirable, and his family’s Kicking The Stigma initiative to combat addiction and mental illness has helped many in need. That should be celebrated. However, when a person who is supposed to be a leader in their community makes insensitive comments about race, when they play the victim instead of taking responsibility for their actions, then not only is they failing in their responsibilities, but they are also failing he only blames himself for the resulting backlash.
Irsay stood by his comments on Wednesday, sending out a series of social media posts to portray himself as more of a victim, while also taking aim at others who dared to say he had missed the mark and dared to claiming that he might be a “rich white billionaire” was subject to far more privilege than prejudice.
This was supposed to be an opportunity for Irsay to really look in the mirror and then at the world around him. Because for many of us – the non-white and the non-rich – the place he lives in doesn’t exist.
(Photo: Zach Bolinger / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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