"Thug" - the new code words for n-gg-r.
Richard Sherman, corner back for the Seattle Seahawks said this in a brief T.V. interview immediately after the Seahawks win in the 2014 Super Bowl. (He was on the field and still in uniform!)
Of course that's exactly the kind of off the cuff rhetoric which any sportsman/woman might spout after a great sporting victory.
Except that you cannot say such things if you are black. For when black people are exuberant they are immediately pegged as "thugs", as was Sherman.
Here is a bit about the "thug" in question ( these are not my words, they are lifted from the Huffington Post).
See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/isaac-saul/what-richard-sherman-taught-us_b_4631980.html
Firstly, we're talking about a 25-year-old who came out of the streets of Compton, California. Sherman graduated from one of the worst school districts in the United States, one that boasts a high-school graduation rate of 57 percent. In a country where 68 percent of all federal and state inmates are lacking a high school diploma, you could say Sherman avoided a horrifying fate.
But to say he "got lucky" or "escaped" would be foolhardy. He didn't "just graduate," either. He finished with a 4.2 GPA, second in his class, and went on to Stanford University, one of the most prestigious places to get an education in the entire world. He busted out in a rocket ship. He went from a world of gang violence and drugs to everything that Palo Alto and Stanford University represent.
And where did Mr. Sherman get the work ethic to put up those grades and make it to a school that offers that kind of education? Probably from his father, Kevin, who has worked in the sanitation department for Los Angeles for more than thirty years. But you won't see that on Sherman's stat sheet, and you definitely won't hear about it when ESPN analysts comment on his post-game interview today.
So now, America, let's talk about Richard Sherman in the NFL. Let's talk about the Stanford graduate from Compton who has never been arrested, never cursed in a post-game interview, never been accused of being a dirty player, started his own charitable non-profit, and won an appeal in the only thing close to a smudge on his record.
This past off-season, 31 NFL players were arrested for everything from gun charges and driving under the influence to murder.
Last year, Kansas City Chiefs player Javon Belcher killed Kasandra Perkins, his girlfriend and the mother of his own child, before taking his own life.
Week in and week out, we sit down in front of our televisions and cheer for these freak athletes to destroy each other's bodies in one of the most brutal games known to man. Most of us probably do it with a beer in our hand, screaming and cursing at our TVs in a desperate hope to change the outcome of the game. We ignore how the NFL's owners use our tax money so freely, and we don't seem to care much about the brain damage retired players suffer from every year.
Yet, when one kid who has overcome everything, one kid who was doubted by the very player he overcame on Sunday, decides to emphatically claim he is the best (by the way: he is), this is what upsets us? Man, could you imagine if this generation had to deal with Muhammad Ali?"
Thanks Huff Po for this truthful account of the "real" Richard Sherman. But of course, he is still a "n-gg-r" - oops I mean "thug".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile in Florida "The Jim Crow State" ---- oops I got it wrong again, I mean "The Sunshine State" a man named Michael Dunn is on trial for the murder of Jordan Davis.
Davis and his companions were in a car in which he and three other teens were playing very loud "rap music" when they pulled into the Gate gas station on Nov. 23 2012.
Michael Dunn was also at that gas station. He voiced his objections to the loudness of the music and there was an oral but non-violent confrontation with the young men in the other car.
Dunn's fiancée went into the gas station's store, whereupon Dunn fired nine shots into the other car.
Jordan Davis was hit by three of the shots and subsequently died.
According to the testimony given in Court by Dunn's fiancée he said "I hate THUG music".
I suspect that he meant "N-gg-r" music, but what do I, a white liberal, know about such matters.
(I forgot to mention that Dunn is white and the youths in the other car were black - silly me).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course that's exactly the kind of off the cuff rhetoric which any sportsman/woman might spout after a great sporting victory.
Except that you cannot say such things if you are black. For when black people are exuberant they are immediately pegged as "thugs", as was Sherman.
Here is a bit about the "thug" in question ( these are not my words, they are lifted from the Huffington Post).
See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/isaac-saul/what-richard-sherman-taught-us_b_4631980.html
"But from my perspective, the heat Sherman is getting is not just misguided but ludicrous. This is a guy who represents one of the best kinds of sports stories there is in the world: the rise from the bottom, the profound destruction of obstacles, the honest success story built by a foundation of hard work and loving parents. If anyone with a brain took the time to learn about Richard Sherman, and then put him in the context of the rest of the National Football League, he'd be a pretty hard guy to bash.
But to say he "got lucky" or "escaped" would be foolhardy. He didn't "just graduate," either. He finished with a 4.2 GPA, second in his class, and went on to Stanford University, one of the most prestigious places to get an education in the entire world. He busted out in a rocket ship. He went from a world of gang violence and drugs to everything that Palo Alto and Stanford University represent.
And where did Mr. Sherman get the work ethic to put up those grades and make it to a school that offers that kind of education? Probably from his father, Kevin, who has worked in the sanitation department for Los Angeles for more than thirty years. But you won't see that on Sherman's stat sheet, and you definitely won't hear about it when ESPN analysts comment on his post-game interview today.
So now, America, let's talk about Richard Sherman in the NFL. Let's talk about the Stanford graduate from Compton who has never been arrested, never cursed in a post-game interview, never been accused of being a dirty player, started his own charitable non-profit, and won an appeal in the only thing close to a smudge on his record.
This past off-season, 31 NFL players were arrested for everything from gun charges and driving under the influence to murder.
Last year, Kansas City Chiefs player Javon Belcher killed Kasandra Perkins, his girlfriend and the mother of his own child, before taking his own life.
Week in and week out, we sit down in front of our televisions and cheer for these freak athletes to destroy each other's bodies in one of the most brutal games known to man. Most of us probably do it with a beer in our hand, screaming and cursing at our TVs in a desperate hope to change the outcome of the game. We ignore how the NFL's owners use our tax money so freely, and we don't seem to care much about the brain damage retired players suffer from every year.
Yet, when one kid who has overcome everything, one kid who was doubted by the very player he overcame on Sunday, decides to emphatically claim he is the best (by the way: he is), this is what upsets us? Man, could you imagine if this generation had to deal with Muhammad Ali?"
Thanks Huff Po for this truthful account of the "real" Richard Sherman. But of course, he is still a "n-gg-r" - oops I mean "thug".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile in Florida "The Jim Crow State" ---- oops I got it wrong again, I mean "The Sunshine State" a man named Michael Dunn is on trial for the murder of Jordan Davis.
Davis and his companions were in a car in which he and three other teens were playing very loud "rap music" when they pulled into the Gate gas station on Nov. 23 2012.
Michael Dunn was also at that gas station. He voiced his objections to the loudness of the music and there was an oral but non-violent confrontation with the young men in the other car.
Dunn's fiancée went into the gas station's store, whereupon Dunn fired nine shots into the other car.
Jordan Davis was hit by three of the shots and subsequently died.
According to the testimony given in Court by Dunn's fiancée he said "I hate THUG music".
I suspect that he meant "N-gg-r" music, but what do I, a white liberal, know about such matters.
(I forgot to mention that Dunn is white and the youths in the other car were black - silly me).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments
Post a Comment