This whole situation with social medias, racially charged BLACK-lash toward Richard
Sherman after his post-game interview, following the Seattle Seahawks win over
San Francisco last Sunday, was and still is completely out of control!
I don’t know Richard Sherman personally and I'm not a fan of the Seahawks, although I did enjoy watching them spank the 49ers last week! :-) But really, this man needs no
“defense”. His defense on and off the field, speaks for itself! Just ask Michael "I'm mad" Crabtree.
 |
| Richard Sherman makes a season-saving play — in front of Michael Crabtree Sunday night. http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/lupica-don-sherman-act-deal-article-1.1585376#ixzz2rH5ZYa8C |
To add insult to injury to this entire situation, I don't hear anybody talking about much the childish, poor sportsmanship displayed physically by Crabtree, toward Sherman after the game. If Sherman was the "thug" that people tried to say he is, he would have knocked Crabtree's head clean off his shoulders and dropped it off on his momma front stoop, for such an infraction!
 |
Sherman says 'good game,' Crabtree gives him the Heisman treatment. (USATSI)
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24418110/richard-sherman-micd-up-tells-michael-crabtree-hell-of-game |
Anyway, before I give my 25 cents worth, first I have a question.
Did Roger Goodell ban"trash talking" from the NFL and I missed the
memo? Trash talking has been around
since long before Richard Sherman ever suited up and hit the field. Sports fans probably do the most trash
talking of all. So what da problem is? Oh, I guess these people who called themselves "going in" on Sherman have never done
that...been excited, spoken from the heart, expressed themselves openly and
honestly and intensely!?!? Or I suppose when they did it, they were polite, humble and low key! Yeah right, whatever!
Sherman had just helped his team (in a major way) to win the
NFC Championship. Something he has
probably worked for and dreamed about since childhood. So what he got caught up in the heat of the
moment? So what he talked trash and
proclaimed himself as the best cornerback in the league! Isn’t he allowed to feel that way about himself? Or is he allowed to feel that way, just as
long as he doesn’t piss off his opponents or offend the delicate sensitivities
of a female FOX sports caster? (Please...Don't even get me started on the FOX Network!)
I don’t know
how you can be a top performing athlete or anything else in life and not
believe when you step out on your field of play, that you are the best out
there, whether you say it out loud or not. If you look at athletes like Muhammad Ali, Deion Sanders, Floyd Mayweather Jr., WWF wrestlers, etc., they always talked "trash" (in Floyd's case...is still talking) but they could back it up. Some use it as a mental tactic to pump themselves up and get motivated. I've heard that "if you don't believe it, no one else will". That's real talk!
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| http://www.totalprosports.com/2014/01/19/seahawks-richard-sherman-post-game-interview-with-erin-andrews-video/ |
Call Richard Sherman “arrogant” or “cocky” or whatever you want, but if he can back
it up, isn't that called "pride" or "confidence"? Are his
personal feelings about his own abilities exaggerated or accurate? I guess that’s a matter of public opinion also, how people should or shouldn’t view themselves. While I personally don't care for a bunch of lip service and would rather see results, who am I to judge when it's okay for someone to talk about how great they think they are? Who is anyone to make that call on someone else? Why do we have to label it as anything and really, who freakin' cares???
If you ask me, Richard Sherman was being his
truest, most authentic self at that moment! Nothing more
and nothing less.
Or is the bigger issue not so much what he said but that
he’s a Black man who said it? Go ahead,
take your time and think about it. I’ll
wait…..*crickets chirping in the background*
 |
| http://sports.yahoo.com/photos/top-12-richard-sherman-faces-slideshow/ |
It seems to me that no matter what, the written or unwritten
standards of “appropriate” and “acceptable” behavior are, those rules are always different for
people of color. We are held to a higher
standard and even when we rise to the challenge, it’s still not quite good
enough. There’s still and maybe always
will be a great portion of the population who fear a strong, opinionated,
outspoken Black man (woman). You know
what I’m talking about….a real “fancy pants” or “uppity” nigger who doesn’t know
his/her “place”. Oh yeah I said it! Hell, I've been called "it" in not so many words.
Suffice to say, I expected the racial under and OVER tones in the comments that would be made about him, so I wasn’t shocked by it….just really
irritated and saddened. Post racial America my ass! This wasn't just backlash this was Blacklash!!!
What pained me more,
were some of the comments being made by other people of color. Things like “We’ve just been sent back 500
years”. Sadly, this speaks to the fact
that some of us still hate ourselves for the color of our own skin. We still see ourselves as separate from
God and therefore we see everyone else that way. And after all this time, some of us
actually still believe the bullshit that has been engrained in us, generation after generation, about who
were are (less than or of no value) and how we should behave, speak, and aspire
to be or be like in this society. A society still predominantly run by some of the most corrupt, immoral,
self-serving people ever! Some who would
sell their own mother’s to stay in control and make a profit off the backs of
others. And before anybody gets their
panties in a bunch, I am speaking in generalities here, so if the shoe doesn’t
fit, you can relax. If you’re
uncomfortable in your own skin and would rather not hear the truth, feel free
to close this post and stick your head back in the sand. I’m not here to babysit anybody’s feelings or
insecurities.
I’m talking about the “haves” and the “have not’s”. Those who hold the power (money), control and who have
sold us ALL the illusion of “freedom”.
Versus those of us who fail to decipher
the code and continue to “buy in” to their propaganda and lies . But that’s a subject for a different day.
To get back to the matter at hand. People couldn’t wait to hit social media with
their usual messiness within seconds of the Sherman interview. He was called crazy, uneducated, a thug, a
disgrace, a “stereotypical unprofessional nigger”, “an overpaid, classless embarrassment to
professional sports”...amongst other things. Really people?!
Check your facts: Richard
Sherman grew up in Compton, CA, an inner suburb of Los Angeles and notorious
for gang violence and crime, especially around the time when Sherman was becoming
a young man. You should educate
yourself about that too, as the media has exaggerated a lot of the Compton hype like they do everything else.
In spite of the odds stacked against him, Sherman finished high school with a 4.2 GPA
(2nd in his class) and then went on to EARN a Communications degree from
Stanford (the 15th highest rated university in the country). So make no mistake about it, Richard Sherman is
FAR from being a "thug". He's a success story! He started from the bottom, now he's here...and he's not done yet!!! And he’s probably smarter than
99% of the people who had something negative and/or ignorant to say about him!
Sherman recently told Sports Illustrated:
"Things I do probably look like madness, like I'm totally out of control, but there's always a plan. It's part of a greater scheme to get some eyes, to grow the market, to grow Seattle." |
| http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-richard-sherman-20140121,0,7685217.story#axzz2rHCemYYK |
Richard Sherman has a foundation for kids who need help getting
through school and he ACTIVELY participates in his foundation. It's not just some fly by night, 501
organization set up to hide money and evade taxes. If people ever took the time to listen to this man speak or
bothered to read any of his printer interviews, it’s clear how passionate he is and how much he wants to make a difference for these young people. He wants to give them a fighting chance to achieve their goals and crush the stereotypes about athletes not being educated, not caring
about school and only aspiring to be ball players, gang bangers and drug dealers.
He doesn’t have an arrest record on the books and has never used
profanity in a post-game interview. The
man hasn’t even be accused being a dirty player on or off the field. And yet the people who know nothing about this
man except the raw emotion he showed one night, in a loud stadium, with
thousands of fans, photographers and news media buzzing around, after winning
the biggest game of his life so far, have so much to say! The same people, who probably curse, yell,
stomp and scream at their TV screens week after week, while our favorite (or not
so favorite) athletes do what they do to feed their families and entertain us. All while at the risk of permanently injuring
themselves or ending up with brain damage!
Com’on man. Enough is enough
already.
Stop the madness! Stay in your
lane, worry about what you do or don’t do and let everybody else breathe! Athletes and all other celebrities don't owe you anything. They only owe themselves. At the end of day they are human just like everybody else. Don't be so quick to judge a book by it's cover before reading every page! Then go back and read it again!
We all have our own way of responding to situations and stimuli. There’s nothing wrong with being or doing
things differently. Whether it's the way we look, dress, speak, dance, whatever! The media and many other folks are so quick to paint a picture of who they think someone
is, without ever taking the time to look beyond that one action…that one moment
a person does something THEY feel is so terrible!!! Whether they realize it or not, the fact that
they felt the need to criticize him for his actions says more about THEM and their insecurities than it could ever say about him and his lack of anything. If you’re a sports fan or athlete and you’ve never
talked trash or had an outburst of emotion...I can’t even talk to
you! Because clearly you don’t even exist. That or you’re an alien with unbelievable super powers and mental abilities.
So, since Richard Sherman’s PR team and coach have probably asked him to
stifle himself, I've decided to be his "Luther" and say it for him. "To all the news media profit hounds trying to
get story in by your deadline. To anyone
who has bashed, bullied or otherwise felt the need to try to humiliate someone
for your own self-gratification or because you just naturally suck as a human
being. And finally, to all the Richard
Sherman haters around the world. F@ck you and your ignorant, irrelevant, over-exaggerated, hyper-critical,
super-ridiculous, mean-spirited, judgmental, plain old disrespectful backlash. Let me be “me” and you go do you. Cause I’m still the best at doing me and you
can only be you!”
If you don't know who "Luther" is, Google "key and peele luther". LOL
Now back to my regularly scheduled programming
(de-programming)…I need to meditate! I
let these folks work my last nerve with all their non-sense!
Peace and blessings,
Stiletto Dagger
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