Ok, at first I wasn’t even going to bother commenting on this silliness, but now I kinda feel compelled to do so. For those of you who watched the 49er’s and the Seahawks playoff game last weekend, I’m quite sure you saw the sideline 'interview' with loudmouth Richard Sherman. My first impression of the guy as I watched him go off was, "What an asshole." Now I can, sort of, understand that in the heat of the moment one might get a little over excited. But this was clearly over the top. And as someone who spent a career in the military, if there’s one thing that you learn right away, it’s that there is no ‘I’ in team. Sherman made it sound as if that were it not for him his team would have lost.
He has since, and it think apologize might be a little too strong of a word, attempted to make the point that, yes, he did get a little carried away, but after all, his team had just won the game that would give them their chance to take part in the Super Bowl. But still, I guess, what seemed to bother Sherman the most was that because of that post-game interview he was now being referred to as a thug. And I’ll tell you something as someone who doesn’t watch much football except for this time of year and has never seen this guy before, my first impression of him was that he at least came across as being thuggish. There in dreads, shooting his mouth off into the camera about how great he was.
Sherman would later be asked if being called a thug bothered him, Sherman said he was bothered and disappointed that he was called a "thug" after his crazed post-game rant on Sunday because he said it seems like "thug" is the "accepted way of calling somebody the N-word nowadays." The new N-word? Give me a break! Are we not being just a bit over sensitive? So I guess the big bad football player feels offended because someone, after witnessing his rather outlandish post-game behavior, simply called that behavior as they saw it? The behavior of a thug. The bottom line here is that if one doesn’t like being referred to as thug, then one shouldn’t behave like one. It’s really pretty simple.
Anyway, it was during a press conference on Wednesday that Sherman said, "The only reason it bothers me is because it seems like it's the accepted way of calling somebody the N-word nowadays." He added, "There was a hockey game where they didn't even play hockey, they just threw the puck aside and started fighting. I saw that, and said, 'Oh man, I'm the thug? What's going on here?'" He went on to say that he has "done nothing villainous" and noted he has not gotten suspended for fighting off the field or arrested or any other thing associated with "thugs." Like I said, first impressions are lasting impressions. And what I saw was not the behavior of someone who, like it or not, is a role model.
I’m not sure what I find more aggravating about this guy, whether it’s his post-game antics or his whining about how "thug" is now to be considered as the new "N-Word". In most cases, if you look like a thug, talk like a thug and act like a thug, guess what, you’re likely a thug. So Sherman needs to get over himself. Because in choosing to behave in the manner that he did, he automatically, in a manner of speaking, becomes guilty by association. And he can whine about it until the cows come home because what has people using the "T-word", which is now, I guess, the new "N-Word" is what they saw on their televisions after the game. If he doesn’t want to labeled as such, then he shouldn’t act as he did.
No comments:
Post a Comment