Quote Originally Posted by paulwoods13 View Post
With respect, there was segregation in Canadian football, and indeed all sports. There were non-whites in this country who were not given an opportunity to play sports, whether in school, sandlot or at the highest level, solely because of their skin colour. It might be nice to think Canada was better than that, but it wasn't.
I know its en vogue and trendy to look back on our history with disdain for the treatment of people of colour, and some of it is indeed justified. But there was no official segregation in Canadian football as there was in MLB and the NFL. One of the reasons there were few to none blacks in Canadian football prior to folks like Whitlock, was because teams didn't sign American players, and the population of blacks in Canada at the time was extremely low. I'm not saying that there might have been an attitude of complete acceptance of blacks in Canadian football, I just don't believe, as there is no evidence to suggest, that blacks were actively snubbed by teams as they were in the NFL, which carried on as late as the early 60s for some teams. Our history is not perfect by any means, but it sure is a hell of a lot better than the US's history when it comes to things like this. Again for some reason its in fashion to think that Canada was actually, but secretly, just like Alabama. But I'm quite proud of our history, despite some stains, and do believe that for the most part, Canada was better than that.