By now, we have all heard about Richard Sherman’s infamous rant with Fox Sports reporter Erin Andrews. Just to refresh your memory, when asked about the last play of the game Sherman said, “Well, I’m the best corner in the game! (It is hard to argue against this point. Sherman was the least-targeted defensive back in the NFL and he still managed to lead the league in interceptions.) When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that’s the result you are going to get! Don’t you ever talk about me!”
And with those words, Twitter evolved into a cesspool of egregious accounts of racism toward Sherman. I will not focus on the actual words the individuals used to express their opinions of Sherman. However, I want to briefly share two of my thoughts on the entire incident.
First, I would contend that part of the reaction to Sherman’s rant may stem from cultural misunderstandings.
For example, when I used to play pick-up basketball in my neighborhood with predominantly black people (my friends Travis and Jonathan were the exceptions), trash talk was exchanged from the moment the game began until it ended. It is not uncommon to yell “rip show” after stealing someone’s ball or “buckets” after shooting in someone’s face or “give me that” after blocking someone’s shot. I would contend that most people would agree with that assessment. In no way am I equating trash talking on the neighborhood court to trash talking on national television after a professional football game. I simply used that anecdotal example to suggest that Sherman’s rant is not exactly anything novel in content.
However, the context of Sherman’s rant is what created the social media firestorm. I probably would not have proclaimed my dominance on a national stage like Sherman. But hey, that’s just me. What truly bothers me is how little it took from Sherman to bring out the ugliest part of some people’s character.
Second, I would like to address the racist attitudes that almost immediately came about after the rant. I will paraphrase some of the tweets to provide the proper context. One tweet said something along the lines of “You can take the n-word out of Compton, but you cannot take the n-word out of a n-word.” Another tweet read something like, “I don’t care that Sherman went to Stanford. He is still a n-word.”
Let me go ahead and say that obviously the tweets of these individuals do not represent the national conscience, and, yes, we have made progress since the 1960s. I get that. However, I’m tired of people running to those two predictable lines after any racist event occurs. We as a society have to begin asking why people make those types of comments. A quick guess from me would be that people say those comments out of ignorance about people different from themselves. And obviously the protection of tweeting from a mobile device or computer gives people a feeling of invincibility.
The reactions of some people angered me, but they also provided a barometer of the mindset of some of our fellow men. This barometer indicates that there is still much work to be done by good people to enhance the morality of our fellow citizens. With that being said, let’s get to work!
Tim Abram is a senior public policy leadership major from Horn Lake.
