Quixotic wrote:Coupla thoughts.
1. Name calling is getting to be a dangerous game as social media overtakes actual MEDIA for eyeballs and trust level. You can call someone a racist, or creeper, or perv, or misogynist…or whatever your want, with no supporting points for WHY you might say that. But the accusation itself becomes conviction in the eyes of some. And if you’re busted for it, you can always say: A)just kidding, B)satire, or C)well that’s just the way I “feel.” Not very good for domestic tranquility, if you know what I mean.
2. If Ben is a racist (which is to say if there actually is real evidence to support such an accusation), that would be a very bad thing. It should be recorded for posterity. And he should have to live with a compromised reputation for the rest of his life. Just like Ty Cobb, Gaylord Perry, and probably Shoeless Joe Jackson. To me, that doesn’t have much impact on how his athletic achievements should be viewed (which invites the question, “why should athletic achievement matter so much, when there are so many more important issues?”).
3. More likely, Ben is a self-absorbed Millennial, who has benefited from white privilege, height privilege, elite-talent privilege, rich privilege, adored-by-throngs-of-fans privilege…. When others his age were learning to consider the feelings and needs of others, Ben had no reason to learn those things. So, he is kind of a goof, and kind of jerk to everyone. And, depending on the specific situation, it can seem racist, sexist, jockish, bullyish…whatever lens you’re viewing whatever incident through. Is he a “racist” at heart; is “racism” his defining characteristics. I doubt it. But I don’t know.
4. I don’t remember Mendenhall very well. Didn’t he get his sternum busted by Ray Lewis like the first game of his rookie season and spend the rest of the year visiting art museums? Dunno. I kind of recall his being kind of introverted (sulkey). And sometimes kind of subtle. Not real comfortable in his own skin (surprising for a budding NFL star). If my recollection is accurate, I can well imagine his having a sense of humor that would lead him to satirize the whole Ben/AB thing by trolling both sides. And I can imagine his response to people not getting the joke and being all pissy about it being something like his second tweet—“C’mon, y’all. Ben’s not a racist. AB is not trash. IT WAS A JOKE!”
Mods -- if this isn't appropriate, please delete. But there has been something that has been bothering me for a while -- as a soceity we treat racism as the ultimate sin.
Let's say Ben is a racist but takes no action except maybe snubbing a few black persons and generally holding a bad view of black people because of thier skin color. Not good -- I hope we can all agree that that is bad. But is it so bad that we need to record it for posterity?
Let's say there are two Bens:
Ben A is a racist (i.e., doesn't like black people because they are black, but the extent of it is that he holds negative thoughts about black people and is sometimes mean to them unjustly) and is otherwise perfect.
Ben B is an absentee, bad father but is otherwise perfect (i.e., not a racist).
Would Q make the same post that Ben B's shitness as a father should be recorded for posterity? Maybe Q would, but I don't think as a soceity we'd have the same level of umbrage. And that's problematic to me. The reason why is that if you compare the social impact of Ben A and Ben B it is almost certianly true that Ben B has a worse outcome than Ben A.
All o fhtis isn't to excuse racism, but to suggest there needs to be some nuance -- the fact that someone might be racist doesn't make them per se a bad person (humans are complicated) and struggling to eliminate racism or castigate racists may not be the most important thing for a society to do. It was the most important thing when there was race based human chattel or even Jim Crow; but, is it the most improtant thing today? I don't know, but I have to imagine the most important thing about Ben's character isn't his views on race relations.
