Donnell Alexander Journalist Profile

Articles

Gorilla Face

3 weeks ago | danepstein.substack.com | Dan Epstein |Peter Aaron |Donnell Alexander |Tony Fletcher

Happy Saturday, Jagged Time Lapsers!The baseball season has started, and while this in itself is sadly no longer a source of joy for me — and the news of Opening Day’s MLB.TV outage and the league’s spineless decision to scrub the word “diversity” from its website because it makes white supremacists mad aren’t exactly rekindling the embers of my once-ardent fandom — I still love watching 1976’s The Bad News Bears at this time every year.
Security to the Stage

Jul 29, 2024 | laweekly.com | Donnell Alexander

His figure emerges from darkness in the hour before sunrise. He's there in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven, a backpack tight on his puffy white work shirt. His shoulders hunch forward in mimicry of a purposeful walk. The lunch-money kid. Nice, neat Afro, just like his mother told him. I watch his alert eyes, and it seems no sadder sight could be contrived. Another security guard on the way to work. In high school I might have sweated him for lunch money.
You might think the NFL is racist. An insider says he’s about to prove it in court.

Nov 25, 2023 | alternet.org | Donnell Alexander

Jim Trotter’s new job at NFL.com began with the former ESPN and Sports Illustrated staffer noticing there were no Black people in decision-making positions at the National Football League-backed news website and multimedia hub. This was five years ago, and at first, Trotter complained to NFL business managers, noting that the NFL’s workforce includes nearly 60 percent Black players. When no Black people got big jobs at NFL.com, he began to complain in media appearances.
You might think the NFL is racist. An insider says he’s about to prove it in court.

Nov 17, 2023 | rawstory.com | Donnell Alexander

About usJobsUS NEWSInvestigationsOpinionvideoHELPget the newsletterJim Trotter’s new job at NFL.com began with the former ESPN and Sports Illustrated staffer noticing there were no Black people in decision-making positions at the National Football League-backed news website and multimedia hub. This was five years ago, and at first, Trotter complained to NFL business managers, noting that the NFL’s workforce includes nearly 60 percent Black players.
A Central Valley View from London Town

Sep 28, 2023 | donnellalexander.substack.com | Donnell Alexander

Antonio Olmos and I attended university in Fresno… is not a very West Coast sentence to say. It’s legit though because on Monday Tony was in conversation with me from London and when our college years came up—with just a dusting of Mexican accent—he was incidentally equating scrappy California State University, Fresno with some boggy European place of higher learning—Cambridge, but with Super Sweet Corn. The imagery is whimsical enough for me to allow it.
A deafening silence from Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s Black football players

Jul 23, 2023 | msn.com | Donnell Alexander

The Ohio State Buckeyes spoiled the head coaching debut of Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman. Freeman and the Irish were able to win nine of their final 11 games, but starting their season with a loss on national television didn’t sit right with Freeman, who played collegiately with Ohio State. Last year’s game occurred in Columbus. This year’s rematch, however, will be played in South Bend, Indiana. Freeman, speaking on Good Morning Football, thinks that will make a difference.
A deafening silence from Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s Black football players

Jul 23, 2023 | rawstory.com | Donnell Alexander

Last month, I phoned Ronnie Brown at the Atlanta office of UBS, a 150-year-old wealth management company where the former Auburn University gridiron legend has made a name for himself as a big-time financial adviser. My notion had been to collect Brown’s perspective on baldly racist statements made by his former college football coach, Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama. “How did you get my number?” an irked Brown asked when I shared the reason for my call.
How Hollywood killed a Black identity masterpiece we need today more than ever

Apr 12, 2023 | rawstory.com | Donnell Alexander

“Sucks” isn’t pejorative enough to describe Americans’ relationship to their country’s racial history. The strategy that the right calls Critical Race Theory Opposition is our moment's mind-blowing example of flight from legacy facts, and living through it sucks. How did we land here, with millions all-in on not knowing settled U.S. history? Were America’s racialized life even reasonably reflected, this red meat end run wouldn’t have a base to stand on.
Absence of homegrown Black players at World Baseball Classic shames Major League Baseball

Mar 21, 2023 | rawstory.com | Donnell Alexander

With Opening Day nearing, old-school Major League Baseball fans are now focused on their probably doomed squads' chances of winning the World Series. Meanwhile, fans around the planet — and leading-edge Americans — are experiencing the World Baseball Classic as the game’s version of soccer’s World Cup. In tonight’s World Baseball Classic final, the United States takes on Japan, concluding a tsunami of sport.
L.A.’s Third Rail

Mar 16, 2023 | altaonline.com | Donnell Alexander

The public transit experience for the average Los Angeles resident amounts to peeking around buses while stuck in traffic and watching pedestrians disappear underground into the kinds of spaces they’d know better if they were living in New York, Chicago, or Portland. This essay was adapted from the Alta newsletter, delivered every Thursday.