Just stop
Wow, has it really been a month since I last wrote something? All three of you who read this must be disappointed....damn good thing I don't get paid to do this. Anyway I was watching some TV last night when I heard some one say something stupid, and you know me when it comes to stupid I simply can't resist.
First the background of everything. For those of you who don't follow sports, this past weekend was the NFL Draft. It's basically a giant get together where NFL teams pluck eligible college players to help build their team. The New England Patriots (the team I happen to follow) picked a safety out of the University of Miami with their pick in the first round, his name is Brandon Meriweather.
OK, some more background time, but back during the college football season, the University of Miami and Florida International got into something of a brou-ha-ha during their game this season. By something of a brou-ha-ha I mean it was pretty much a giant brawl with both benches emptying, punches being thrown, helmets being swung as weapons and players kicking and stomping other players that were already on the ground. It wasn't pretty, we'll just leave it at that.
Well Meriweather happened to make the highlight reel from the brawl for all the wrong reasons. He was shown, quite a few times stomping and kick Florida International players who were defenseless and on the ground. Seems to call to question his character a little bit doesn't it.
This unfortunately was not the only incident involving Meriweather. Back in July Meriweather fired a gun a man outside his home in Miami after the man had fired at he and his roommate (and actually hit his roommate, read about it here).
So why am I bringing all this up? Well on top of drafting Meriweather, the Patriots have traded for wide receiver Randy Moss who has his whole own litany of character issues. It's been something of a frenzy here in New England (at least amongst the media) over the Meriweather and Moss (more so Moss) because New England has always valued players of character or talent laden yet trouble finding players, blah, blah, blah whatever.
Real quickly, is this something of a change from New England has done in the past? Sure. In fact the Pats released a draft pick (Christian Peter) a while back before he ever set foot in New England after learning he had some domestic violence charges on his rap sheet. But this is not the same place it was then. They have a lot of high character guys and a lot of leaders, so it enables them to take a risk on some guys with unquestionable talent and perhaps questionable character.
But since this is the all in the realm of the Boston sports media, it's been made to feel like some kind of crime against humanity has been committed and that the Patriots are just another team looking to win. Hello? Isn't the object of playing sports to win? Didn't then Jets (and now Chiefs) coach Herman Edwards say "You play to win the game?" So the Pats took a couple of chances here, big whoop. Sure they value character and since they've done so for a ling time, it allows them to take a chance and who knows, maybe they can help develop some more character.
OK, but back to the stupid here. In discussing Meriweather's character the brawl incident and the gun incident have been brought up. The brawl incident is fair game to discuss. Did he use good judgement? That would be no. Did he get caught up in the heat of things and get carried away? Most definitely. If you were involved in an incident like that how would you act? My guess is you wouldn't be a saint and neither would be most anyone else.
But that's not the stupid thing here really. It all has to do with the gun incident. OK, I'm not all that enamored with guns, nor people who find the need to carry them. If I could go back in time and fix two things one would be slavery, the other you ask? Rewriting the 2nd amendment to the constitution to be much less ambiguous and much more specific. That all being said, Meriweather owned the gun legally and used it legally.
To run through the incident quickly in case you didn't click the link above. Meriweather and his roommate saw a suspicious car outside their home at 6:30 in the morning and they went outside to investigate, Meriweather with his gun in tow. They saw a man exit the vehicle, there was some yelling back and fourth then the man shot at Meriaweather and his friend, striking Meriweather's friend in the ass. Meriweather then fired back and the assailant fled. Bear in mind, Meriweather legally owned the fire own and used it legally as well.
Now here comes the stupid, this being something I heard on TV the other night and I have heard on the radio and read about since. The question has been posed on more than one occasion in more than one medium, "What would you do if you saw a suspicious looking vehicle outside your home in the early morning hours?" The answer of course has been all week, "call the police." OK, on the surface this doesn't seem stupid at all, quite sensible actually. The stupid comes though with who is leading the discussion and who is being discussed.
Being discussed are young black men who have grown up in poor urban (nice word for ghetto) settings for most of their lives. The people doing the discussing are middle aged, upper-middle class white men. So the question here is being posed by people that have grown up in quiet run of the mill towns or suburbs and now live in comfortable middle class areas with a pretty fair lack of major crime.
See, if you live in a podunk town or a nice area of suburbia, you call the police when things look suspicious. You trust the police, hell chances are you even know some of the police (or if you town is small enough, all of them). But this really isn't the case if you're a minority (specifically black) growing up in an urban background. Chances are you don't trust the police that much and that the police aren't all the quick to jump to your attention when something goes wrong in your neck of the woods.
So taking all that in, where does someone who has never experienced life in a ghetto, surrounded by drugs and violence, living in a constant state of fear even to begin to have the proper perspective to discuss an issue like this. It's simple, they don't. Listen, I'm not condoning Meriweather's actions, in fact I don't think his actions should be condoned. But, if you haven't at least peeked into another person's perspective on life, where do you get off telling him what he should have done instead?
Again, it's more than valid to say that Meriweather's action bring up some questions about character, but if you don't have the proper perspective or understanding then you don't have any real ground to say, he should have done this instead.
The world is not all one color, people don't all react the same the way. What you and I may do, some one else will not, pure and simple. And since when did sports writers and pundits become arbiters of moral authority anyway?
Listen, I'm not saying you can't call into question some one's character. We all do, it's how we evaluate people, it's how we decide who we'll call our friends. Just don't tell people to do something else when it appears you don't understand why they did it in the first place.
First the background of everything. For those of you who don't follow sports, this past weekend was the NFL Draft. It's basically a giant get together where NFL teams pluck eligible college players to help build their team. The New England Patriots (the team I happen to follow) picked a safety out of the University of Miami with their pick in the first round, his name is Brandon Meriweather.
OK, some more background time, but back during the college football season, the University of Miami and Florida International got into something of a brou-ha-ha during their game this season. By something of a brou-ha-ha I mean it was pretty much a giant brawl with both benches emptying, punches being thrown, helmets being swung as weapons and players kicking and stomping other players that were already on the ground. It wasn't pretty, we'll just leave it at that.
Well Meriweather happened to make the highlight reel from the brawl for all the wrong reasons. He was shown, quite a few times stomping and kick Florida International players who were defenseless and on the ground. Seems to call to question his character a little bit doesn't it.
This unfortunately was not the only incident involving Meriweather. Back in July Meriweather fired a gun a man outside his home in Miami after the man had fired at he and his roommate (and actually hit his roommate, read about it here).
So why am I bringing all this up? Well on top of drafting Meriweather, the Patriots have traded for wide receiver Randy Moss who has his whole own litany of character issues. It's been something of a frenzy here in New England (at least amongst the media) over the Meriweather and Moss (more so Moss) because New England has always valued players of character or talent laden yet trouble finding players, blah, blah, blah whatever.
Real quickly, is this something of a change from New England has done in the past? Sure. In fact the Pats released a draft pick (Christian Peter) a while back before he ever set foot in New England after learning he had some domestic violence charges on his rap sheet. But this is not the same place it was then. They have a lot of high character guys and a lot of leaders, so it enables them to take a risk on some guys with unquestionable talent and perhaps questionable character.
But since this is the all in the realm of the Boston sports media, it's been made to feel like some kind of crime against humanity has been committed and that the Patriots are just another team looking to win. Hello? Isn't the object of playing sports to win? Didn't then Jets (and now Chiefs) coach Herman Edwards say "You play to win the game?" So the Pats took a couple of chances here, big whoop. Sure they value character and since they've done so for a ling time, it allows them to take a chance and who knows, maybe they can help develop some more character.
OK, but back to the stupid here. In discussing Meriweather's character the brawl incident and the gun incident have been brought up. The brawl incident is fair game to discuss. Did he use good judgement? That would be no. Did he get caught up in the heat of things and get carried away? Most definitely. If you were involved in an incident like that how would you act? My guess is you wouldn't be a saint and neither would be most anyone else.
But that's not the stupid thing here really. It all has to do with the gun incident. OK, I'm not all that enamored with guns, nor people who find the need to carry them. If I could go back in time and fix two things one would be slavery, the other you ask? Rewriting the 2nd amendment to the constitution to be much less ambiguous and much more specific. That all being said, Meriweather owned the gun legally and used it legally.
To run through the incident quickly in case you didn't click the link above. Meriweather and his roommate saw a suspicious car outside their home at 6:30 in the morning and they went outside to investigate, Meriweather with his gun in tow. They saw a man exit the vehicle, there was some yelling back and fourth then the man shot at Meriaweather and his friend, striking Meriweather's friend in the ass. Meriweather then fired back and the assailant fled. Bear in mind, Meriweather legally owned the fire own and used it legally as well.
Now here comes the stupid, this being something I heard on TV the other night and I have heard on the radio and read about since. The question has been posed on more than one occasion in more than one medium, "What would you do if you saw a suspicious looking vehicle outside your home in the early morning hours?" The answer of course has been all week, "call the police." OK, on the surface this doesn't seem stupid at all, quite sensible actually. The stupid comes though with who is leading the discussion and who is being discussed.
Being discussed are young black men who have grown up in poor urban (nice word for ghetto) settings for most of their lives. The people doing the discussing are middle aged, upper-middle class white men. So the question here is being posed by people that have grown up in quiet run of the mill towns or suburbs and now live in comfortable middle class areas with a pretty fair lack of major crime.
See, if you live in a podunk town or a nice area of suburbia, you call the police when things look suspicious. You trust the police, hell chances are you even know some of the police (or if you town is small enough, all of them). But this really isn't the case if you're a minority (specifically black) growing up in an urban background. Chances are you don't trust the police that much and that the police aren't all the quick to jump to your attention when something goes wrong in your neck of the woods.
So taking all that in, where does someone who has never experienced life in a ghetto, surrounded by drugs and violence, living in a constant state of fear even to begin to have the proper perspective to discuss an issue like this. It's simple, they don't. Listen, I'm not condoning Meriweather's actions, in fact I don't think his actions should be condoned. But, if you haven't at least peeked into another person's perspective on life, where do you get off telling him what he should have done instead?
Again, it's more than valid to say that Meriweather's action bring up some questions about character, but if you don't have the proper perspective or understanding then you don't have any real ground to say, he should have done this instead.
The world is not all one color, people don't all react the same the way. What you and I may do, some one else will not, pure and simple. And since when did sports writers and pundits become arbiters of moral authority anyway?
Listen, I'm not saying you can't call into question some one's character. We all do, it's how we evaluate people, it's how we decide who we'll call our friends. Just don't tell people to do something else when it appears you don't understand why they did it in the first place.
posted by MC at 12:32 PM
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