The University of Alabama at Birmingham's Football Team Reinstated: All Because the Program was too Black to Cancel

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB): the federally-funded university keeping the 73 percent black city of Birmingham artificially afloat. 

It's a university proving the Iron Rule of Black Empowerment in Black-Run America (BRA) is stronger than ever: Any decision or action negatively impacting black people will inevitably be reversed. 

Deemed "not sustainable" to continue, the University of Alabama at Birmingham football program was resurrected on June 1: though it won't be stated publicly, one of the reasons it was brought back was because the school's black male enrollment suffered a huge drop, as it's artificially supported by the football team

You see, UAB officials recently decided to cancel the football program because the sport was "not sustainable."

This was in late 2014; only two days ago, the president of UAB, Ray Watts, announced the football program would be resurrected. 

What might be one of the reasons UAB brought back its football program? 

If you guessed, "Because canceling the football program had a disproportionate impact on blacks," you'd be right. [African-American male population at UAB plummets amid loss of football, Al.com, 5-19-15]:

When UAB president Ray Watts announced the demise of football, rifle and bowling last December, he dramatically changed the racial composition of the Birmingham school's student body. 

There were 89 African-Americans on the Blazers' 105-player football roster last season, according to the College Sports Solutions report issued last week to the Athletic Assessment Task Force. They and their teammates were told that if they wanted to keep playing football, they'd have to do so elsewhere. Those 89 students represented nearly 12 percent of the total male full-time African-American undergraduate enrollment of 759 in 2014, according to UAB enrollment data. The majority decided to continue their college careers elsewhere, with less than 30 choosing to stay at UAB. 

Teams are allotted 85 full college football scholarships. If UAB doesn't reinstate football, numerous opportunities for young men, many of poor socioeconomic situations, to receive a free education at a quality academic institution may be lost forever. 

"One consideration of this change is the loss of football scholarships that are disproportionally supporting low-income kids," said Stephen Black, the director of the Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility at the University of Alabama. "It's on UAB to make sure that gap is at least filled, and hopefully more so, in low-income kids to have large scholarships to the university." 

Black would like to see UAB use the funds allotted for football scholarships to developing merit-based scholarships for low-income students. 

That African-American male population might not be easily replaceable, however. The school denied only 289 male applicants for enrollment for the fall 2014 admission cycle, according to the CSS report. Among full-time African-American undergraduates, nearly 65 percent is female. 

Jim Bakken, a university spokesman, said "diversity is a core strength at UAB" and noted that UAB was recognized by the Princeton Review as "one of the most diverse universities in the nation." 

Football emphasized recruiting within the state. Fifty-four members of the 2014 Blazers were from Alabama; 24 players from the Birmingham metro area"It's a blow to student-athletes, not just in football, but it will probably spiral and affect every sport," Daphne coach Glenn Vickery told AL.com.  "It closes a door of opportunity to stay in-state and get an education."

With 84 percent of the UAB football team being black, it's hard to take seriously Bakken's claim of "diversity" being a core strength of the school (or, for that matter, the nearly all-black football being that successful, posting a combined record of 18-42 since 2010).  

It should be noted UAB has long been trying to get rid of any representation by white males, notably abandoning its Viking mascot in 1993 because: 

 The University of Alabama-Birmingham Blazers recently abandoned their mascot-a viking like character named Blaze-for being too male and too Caucasian, and because he was intimidating to children.

Or, as the Associated Press reported [UAB to dump controversial mascot, 1993]:

The University of Alabama at Birmingham has dropped Blaze, the mascot for its athletic teams, which are called the Blazers. Blaze, who was a big, rough-and-tumble Norseman, drew fire for being too mean, too masculine, and too white. Grant Shingleton, sports information director for the university, explained that poor Blaze was, “I hate to use the word — too Aryan.”  

Though the Nordic character Blaze was too white and "too Aryan" for UAB, the football program ended up being too black to cancel.

Remember: Any decision or action negatively impacting black people will inevitably be reversed.