Tiki Barber said Wednesday on WFAN that he knows not many Black men have been full time hosts on the station. That may mean he is expected to offer a different perspective than one listeners usually hear on the station, but it doesn’t mean his job is to argue for things he does not believe.
During Wednesday’s episode of Tiki & Tierney, he discussed Brian Flores’s lawsuit against the NFL alleging racial discrimination in the hiring practices of many teams, including the New York Giants. It is the team Barber played his with for his entire career.
A caller named Dwayne told Tiki Barber that he has a platform to talk about the lack of Black head coaches in the NFL. He should be able to recognize and explain to listeners “how hard it was to get someone that looks like you to work the shift you work.”
“WFAN can’t hide from the fact that not many minorities have held these seats, but I’m also not willing to scream and yell that a Giants organization I revere is racist,” Barber responded. “You want me to turn my pulpit into a bully pulpit, but I don’t believe in alleging things I don’t believe are true. You might think that I’m not fulfilling what a black guy in a host seat should do, but I can’t speak something I don’t believe.”
The Mara family, which owns the New York Giants, has been close with Tiki Barber for a long time. He said that he knows them well enough to know they do not harbor any racial prejudice.
“They embraced me like I was family. I know them intimately. So when I say I don’t believe they’re racist, it’s because I know they’re not. Maybe they don’t have a black head coach, or a black general manager or coordinator. But I know they’re not a racist organization, and for Dwayne to try to boil me into saying something that’s not true, it’s frustrating, because you don’t know my truth and my interactions with this organization. To force me just because I have the seat to do so, it’s just wrong. And it’s frustrating, and it’s frustrating to me that the Giants are getting this rap.”
