Tag Archives: Richard Sherman

race

Recalling 1947 in 2014

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I had never felt more than a passing interest in 42: The Jackie Robinson Story because I expected a film biography of Robinson to pale too much against his life. As someone who admires the life and career of Muhammad Ali, I felt the same reservations about Ali.

It seems likely that some people, some lives are simply too big, too grand on their own for recreation.

But the universe can be a funny thing. 42 was on cable the other night so I gave the film a chance. There is much power in the story, and despite the film slipping as many film biographies and movies about sports do, I was glad to have watched since it prompted me to look closer at Robinson’s life.

More importantly, though, I watched this film on Robinson in the context of two other situations—just weeks after the Richard Sherman controversy and just hours before Marcus Smart, an Oklahoma State basketball player, stumbled into the crowd at a game resulting in his pushing a fan who taunted Smart.

As the title of the Robinson film highlights, in sports, numbers mean a great deal.

While exploring how the media and public responded to Sherman, I noted that while Sherman is not Ali, the life and responses to Ali certainly should inform how we recognize racist threads running through calling Sherman a “thug” and attempts to justify Sherman through his academic achievements, such as his GPA. Even as we tried to embrace Sherman, we erased his blackness by honoring codes of his whiteness, codes that blind.

Marcus Smart is no Jackie Robinson; nor will he have that opportunity because Robinson lived in a time of monumental shifts that cannot be recreated.

But the incidents surrounding Sherman and Smart—both talented young African American men—are important moments for America to look in the mirror, and it may be equally important that we make sure pictures of Robinson and Ali hang on the wall behind us so their faces remain in that mirror frame while we pause, look, and reflect.

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In 1947, Jackie Robinson was closer to Sherman’s age than Smart’s. Robinson had attended college and served in the military by the time he played baseball in the Negro League before being invited to play minor and then major league baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

But what could prepare a man for standing at the plate to play a baseball game while the manager for the opposing team stood outside the dugout yelling racial slurs?

As I watched the film recreation of Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman shouting at Robinson, I was enraged. I was enraged, hundreds of levels removed from Robinson by my privilege, my race, my spot in history, my safe couch.

And then I saw Smart stumble into the stands after hustling down the court on defense. I saw him push a fan. I read Smart’s lips as his teammates pushed him away. And I knew Smart had lost in a way that Robinson had been warned about thousands of times.

It is a different type of anger, but I was immediately angry about that fact. I knew Smart would apologize (I was surprised the fan made his admission, though). I expected Smart to be suspended (and he was). I knew Smart would be compelled to express remorse for how he portrayed himself as a potential NBA prospect, as a member of the Oklahoma State team, as a young man.

I suspect there now will be some discussion of just what the fan shouted—as if “piece of crap” somehow lessens the incident.

We can’t have a fan shouting a racial slur but we can have a fan shouting “piece of crap” because we are not going to examine why that fan felt justified in the taunt?

Right, as with the Sherman controversy, it can’t be about race. And if anyone suggests otherwise, the usual “Why does everything have to be about race?” will be trotted out as a defense.

Mostly by white people. Mostly by white males in power who live outside a racist gaze, who are insulated from living every moment on the razor-thin threat of collapse brought about not by the content of one’s character but by the simple fact of one’s skin color.

It is 2014 and there is no longer a race barrier stopping African American males from excelling in professional athletics.

But, if the film 42 is accurate at all, young African American males must live on the same egg shells Robinson did when they are challenged, literally, by a white male.

Smart lost the minute he asserted himself in defense of his own dignity as a human—just a Robinson would have lost if he hadn’t remained at the plate while Chapman harassed him.

You see, civil society wants African American males with numbers on their chests to assert a certain kind of manhood on the court, the field, or the diamond, but those same African American males must not assert their manhood when it is about human dignity. Decades removed from Robinson’s life, codes of knowing one’s place remain.

The public and media gaze for the Smart incident will remain on Smart. He will carry the brunt of responsibility for the entire incident even though he was simply playing the game, even though he stumbled into the crowd, and even though the fan felt justified in shouting at the young man for no other reason than the jersey and number on his chest.

Marcus Smart should never have been placed in that situation, however, and then Smart would not have been the one holding a press conference and apologizing.

And as far as gazes go, let’s not forget that Robinson broke a barrier other people created.

It is 2014, and we need fewer press conferences and more time looking in the mirror.

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Please read:

10 Points About College Hoops All-American Marcus Smart’s Pushing a ‘Fan’ by Dave Zirin

race

Richard Sherman’s GPA and “Thug” Label: The Codes that Blind

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Three aspects of the public and media focus on Richard Sherman after the NFC championship game on January 19, 2014, are notable.

First, the images of Sherman tend to be like this one.

Next, after his much replayed and discussed post-game interview with Erin Andrews, Sherman was labeled a “thug,” as well as directly slurred with overt racist labels throughout social media such as Twitter.

And then, most of the mainstream efforts to explain the so-called real Sherman include his GPA, such as this caption in a photograph:

A student at Dominguez High, where Richard Sherman compiled a 4.2 grade-point average and played football and ran track. 

Or this from Getting to Know Richard Sherman:

Classroom Superstar

In 2005, Sherman’s excellence in the classroom was the centerpiece of a profile by Eric Sondheimer of the Los Angeles Times. Compton gained a national reputation as the epicenter of Los Angeles’ gang and crime problems in the 1980s and 1990s, and the state ran the failing school district from 1993 to 2001. Sherman, though, knew he had the ability to excel in the classroom—and that his teammates did too.

“I’m trying my best to get them where I’m going, to the college level,” Sherman told Sondheimer. “I’m helping them study for the SAT. A lot of people come in blind in what they need to know, not knowing one day they could be a top college prospect.”

Sherman talked the talk and walked the walk, telling his teammates to “quit making excuses” for poor academic performance while posting a 4.1 GPA—more than good enough to be accepted into Stanford, the first Dominguez player in over 20 years to be good enough athletically and academically to earn an invite there.

While media hype certainly plays a role in the lingering focus on Sherman after the on-field interview, the responses offer important moments to consider.

There is some comfort, I think, in a growing recognition that responses to Sherman have been at least fueled by racism—including the coincidence of Justin Bieber’s arrest and the resulting confrontation of how Sherman has been labeled a “thug” while Bieber’s wealth and white/male status shield him from a number of verbal and legal consequences that African American males experience daily.

And beginning a dialogue on the use of “thug” as code for racial slurs and racism also adds to a social effort to reach race and class equity in the U.S.

But I haven’t seen yet any consideration of using GPA to justify Sherman; his GPA has become a reflexive association, especially among mainstream, white, middle-class media.

Sherman did well in high school. (And he grew up in Compton.)

Sherman went to Stanford. (And he grew up in Compton.)

Sherman had a high GPA in high school and Stanford. (And he grew up in Compton.)

And while I haven’t heard or read it, I imagine Sherman has been discussed with the standard, “He speaks so well. (And he grew up in Compton.)”

Each time these justifications are used, I recognize a level of racism and condescension not unlike the use of “thug”—not toward Sherman, but toward a hushed suggestion of those real thugs (he grew up in Compton) with whom Sherman is being unfairly confused. You know, those others who do poorly in school. His GPA becomes a tool in wink-wink-nod-nod public discourse that is just as poisonous as the use of “thug.”

For me, Sherman is a highly skilled athlete in a sport filled with other highly skilled athletes—many of whom happen to be African American.

Setting aside the slurs aimed at him, Sherman is also triggering a social taboo (grounded in racialized norms) against a certain type of bravado. Sherman isn’t Muhammad Ali, but it seems fair to note how white mainstream America responded to Ali—not for the substance of his vision, not for the power of his athleticism, not for his eloquence and showmanship, but for his bravado.

Having been born and raised in the South, I am old enough to recognize the warnings in negative responses to bravado by African American men—a warning about being uppity, a nastiness of lingering racism.

So when many rush to justify Sherman by his GPAs, I see the same white faces explaining how Barry Sanders and Jim Brown did it the right way, meaning they displayed an understated character on the field. No spiking the ball after a touchdown, no thumbs to the name on the back of the jersey, no chest thumping.

And it all sounds to me like praising the other for knowing his place, a place decided for him.

Let’s not allow the conversation about “thug” being code for a racial slur disappear behind the next wave of media hype, but let’s also unmask the many other codes being used to justify Sherman—such as branding him with the confirmation of GPA and attending the right university.

Richard Sherman is a highly skilled athlete, competing in a sport made up of highly skilled athletes.

That isn’t simple, or even meant to be simplistic, but there are credible ways to praise Richard Sherman for the content of his character without taking veiled swipes at those people we continue to marginalize as Others.

Yes, there are codes behind words, but there are codes behind numbers as well. GPA (and SAT scores) may be waved to justify an athlete unfairly slurred, but those numbers are also masking how GPA and SAT serve to perpetuate privilege and gate-keep—a mask of objectivity that hides racial, class, and gender biases in those numbers.

No one should be justified by a number, in fact. Thus numbers must not continue to carry the weight of such justifications, the false veneer that they are objective or fair.

We have much left to do, including uncovering the codes that blind, both the words and the numbers.