Richard Sherman: The Unspoken Words

Richard Sherman’s timeline is our shared and gory truth about race, a truth that no amount of time will eradicate.  You cannot wash it out with political correctness and you cannot shame it into nonexistence so corporations can keep printing money, cynically it just “is”.  Some of the most thoughtful and intelligent black voices have had their say and they have the platform to do so.  However, because of that platform, they can only say so much and Rockefeller education will never give them the full spectrum of enlightenment and bravery that Malcolm X had.

He said it plain.

To “say it plain” is not fruitful, and it requires a willingness to abandon the niceties and eloquence in which many have placed a high priority. When trying to trying to dispel a stereotype we have to accept that those who place them on us and those who contribute to our livelihoods are one and the same. Our history makes this impossible, and the sheer numbers suggest that only 13% of the population at minimum will even bother to hear Richard Sherman out. Being well spoken is now more important than being succinct and to the point, it’s as if the whole of black folks in sports have set out to prove in the next week they all are more than just “thugs”.  Richard Sherman did screw up, but he screwed up in ways much more practically hurtful to black players than the hyper sensitive, ineffectual racists on Twitter.

Indirectly he messed with another Black Man’s Money

There was a sports media type who “favored anarchy” and WWE styled trash talk who (giddily) said that the post-game interview would end up as a “remember when” watershed moment.  Plainly, that means more brotha’s clowning brotha’s after games, in a league that does everything in its power to avoiding paying them.  Sherman may be the best, but ask Derelle Revis how long that ride may last at a fast twitch position like Cornerback.  The truth is once a brotha sits down with the organization to try and “cash out” on his second deal most organizations are armed with everything from advanced metrics to reports from private investigators.  Sherman’s judgment of a fellow union member’s performance on TV should not be tolerated  because he is opening a Pandora’s Box to a pack of wolves. 

The organization is always trying to get a brotha for as little as possible; hence, the reason ultra-white Bill Simmons makes no qualms about vilifying Rudy Gay for having a “bad contract”.  He can use his platform with impunity with no regard for Gay’s wife or family when ESPN is legendary for prohibiting media on media crime. If there is a person at ESPN who thinks he is overrated we will never hear about it, must be nice.  Crabtree is Sherman’s brother in the very sense that one day soon they will both be treated like pieces of meat, by calling him “mediocre” he spoke on the man’s contract.  To say what he said about a fellow piece of meat in such descriptive market based terminology is a crime because it will be used in the future if the 49’ers decide they want to “go in another direction” or lowball him.

Fans already dehumanize Football players with fantasy football and other coping mechanisms, now the black players can use language to lower one another’s market value after a bad play?  What if it were a poorly thrown ball by a white Quarterback?  would Sherman be so willing to affect that man’s ability to make a living?.  If you’re an adult you know that there are professional jealousies and brutal language on and off the field but once it bleeds onto microphones it can affect a man’s bottom line.  If commentators and coaches evaluate and find a player mediocre that information will reveal itself but adding post-game interviews to the process is too much like the social Darwinism that makes “us” an ugly reflection of the dominant culture.

Moreover, it lends to the growing stereotype that blacks (for lack of ethics and racial identity) have no problem destroying other blacks for a buck-Hip Hop is built on that ratchet shit.  The “him or me” mentality is evidence of a people with a strong identity based on scarcity and “not enoughness” masquerading as competition.  White folks don’t suffer from crab in the barrel syndrome because they are the barrel. Peyton Manning vanquished a man who dogged him for the better part of his career but he handled it the way someone who assumes prosperity for all (of his kind) does.

“I TOLD YA’LL HE AINT A BETTER QB THAN ME!  DUDE WAS BOUT THAT SYSTEM, SPYGATE WHAT!  NOW CUE THAT WACK AS IM THE MAN SONG!!”

The emphasis on Sherman’s education “is” a poor reflection on us

Stop talking about Stanford, because it makes you sound historically and politically naive.  Places like Stanford are renowned for high IQ’s but a lot of those high IQ’s (Prof. Stephan Schneider) are enlisted in think tanks who propagandize global initiatives (Agenda 21) that negatively affect poor people who aren’t 6’3 and run a 4.4 40.  Our greatest institutions have produced some of the biggest thugs ever to walk the face of the earth and under white supremacy it is all legal. One should never forget that Sherman comes from a place that highly educated people thought it was cool to dump crack while defunding programs that produced strong children.

When black folks point to education in the face of racism what they convey is “I should be exempt” much like the stars and media types who have to suffer the inconvenience of being treated like a brotha by traffic cops once a year.  Stanford will not exempt you, and when you hold it up as a shield, you further isolate those who are far more vulnerable than an athlete or Harvard Professor like Henry Louis Gates.  You separate yourself from the people who truly risk themselves in times of struggle because intellectuals never do.  Muhammad Ali could barely write and he often defended himself in a way that was unapologetically black.  Too many blacks in media legitimize themselves through association with the dominant cultures institutions when the truth in combating racism is asserting ones value from their day of birth.  The ability to assimilate within the dominant culture is not a virtue; it is a survival tactic we have mastered.

No matter where you went to school if you go Busta Rhymes in the white ladies face she’s going to recoil plain and simple, and guess what?  It’s her problem not yours.  Should we discuss the media being all up in a brotha’s face right after a game?  Sure, but do not plan on winning that one, because if you’re from Stanford you know the media is a major contributor to the revenue generated from football.

The latent venom from white fans aint going away

A lot of white football fans where the chafe to a brotha’s wheat in high school football and basketball.  However, a lot of them love the game more than they hate the brotha who put them on the bench back in the day, so now they consume it irrationally.  When you are addicted to a sport where you do not see yourself and you are the financial engine of that sport you passively want those brotha’s to make you feel better about your sickness.  You want to believe you can control them that your words and character attacks actually hurt, your only release is the occasional controversy, or when a player goes broke so the inner racist is can to run wild.

 Fans are vicious at games because they drink, but they are also vicious because they love people they would not normally give a shit about in real life.  They are vicious because they cannot stop paying black men who make them sick, that “junkie’s remorse” puts them on edge with few opportunities for relief.  Black players like Richard Sherman should know this, especially in markets like Seattle and Minnesota where racial coding on sports radio is the accepted native tongue.  Thug “is” code for Nigger, but I am happy to live in a world where white folks have to take the emasculating path of cryptic language and “tweets” because my grandmother didn’t.

In her day, the word came from men who had lives, resources, and power not the mouth breathers who attack Sherman on Twitter.  Those same losers who call him a nigger on Twitter will tune in next Sunday to help the ratings soar just as they do when Mayweather fights some handpicked bum.  There was a time in this country when black arrogance led to white violence, many died when Jack Johnson was whooping ass in 1909- now the descendants of that white trash must “tweet”.  These “men” will continue to contribute to creating an uber class of black men who will send children to Ivy League institutions to become real legal thugs who may run for office on day.  They will also continue to make bullshit Hip Hop and 250$ headphones billion dollar industries, because despite hating you they cannot be cool without you.

What is unspoken is those same people who call Sherman a Nigger are most likely consumers, and if you are a consumer, you can say whatever you like because economically there are no ethnic or territorial lines.

In Economics, the Buyer is always the Nigger.

PART 2 COMING NEXT WEEK