Cam Newton is waging an impossible war this week, and it’s not even against the Denver Broncos. Instead, he is facing an uphill battle against race relations within the NFL. Most of it is from racist idiots on Twitter, but a lot of it is being perpetuated by the media.

This particular frenzy is popping up at an opportune time. It’s black history month. Some girl I used to have a crush on from Clueless raved about how we don’t need to celebrate such an occasion. So naturally, people are going to gravitate towards the fascination that Cam Newton is a black quarterback (or African American if that’s what he prefers).

The question isn’t about black quarterbacks. It’s more so about running quarterbacks. Well beyond that, it’s about whether or not the old guard of the NFL is ready to accept that a new type of athlete could potentially play the position.

I’m not attempting to strafe from the argument about race. I made a point last week that discussions over “mobile quarterbacks” will often abandon a sense of dignity and begin to reek of racism. But we can attempt to alleviate the conversation if we look at this from an historical perspective.