Evidence Of Discrimination Against Ernie Davis Essay

Evidence of Discrimination Against Ernie Davis
    Ernie Davis had experienced a lot of discrimination in his lifetime, although to be fair Ernie’s
life took place during the action of the Jim Crow laws so there is a small reason as to why Ernie
was discriminated against so much, but this was still no excuse. Most were conducted by the
hate of his skin color, many times in the book Ernie described the hate as useless and unethical.
    Much of this discrimination can be referred to during the very beginning of Ernie’s freshman
year at Syracuse University. Many of the fellow teammates (the white ones) used to push him
around and patronize Ernie for being one (out of three) of the black people on his team. When
asked by one of his fellow teammates why he doesn’t retaliate, Ernie simply answered by
saying “I do my talking on the field’. This showed both the maturity and the sportsmanship in
Ernie’s personality. He refused to stoop down to their level and attack back, but instead he
decided to portray his skills and show them that they are in no place to even think about
messing with him. Another example of discrimination against Ernie Davis was when him and his
team had gone to West Virginia University to play their football game. As Ernie and his
teammates had walked on the field the viewers of the game had begun to throw their pop-corn
at them because the coach had allowed black athletes to join the team. The discrimination on
that field was so strong that even the referees had denied many of the touchdowns that Ernie
had attempted and achieved. The coaches were forced into subbing in Ernie and replacing him
with a white player just so that the referees would accept the goal.
  In conclusion the discrimination Ernie Davis was forced to experience was quite cruel and
inhumane. Everywhere he went he was attacked both mentally and physically mainly because
of the color of his skin. The discrimination against his color had...