I thought that Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman acted like a first-class jerk after making a great play to seal the win during the Seahawk – 49er playoff game, but I just found out by watching several sports shows that I only feel that way because he is black and I’m a racist.
I don’t know Sherman; I’m not a football junkie, Seahawk or 49er fan – they all have some great players who act like jerks. I was rooting for the Seahawks, but I’m told I wasn’t rooting for their black players, only for their white players.
Anyway, if you’re a racist, the talk shows say, you’ll always be happy because there will be a lot of players on the losing team who are black. Naturally, you’ll also be sad because there will always be a lot of players on the winning team are also black. How’s that work? My guess is that real racists don’t even watch football, which often showcases great black athletes.
I’m ok with the ever-present trash talk, but when Sherman went to the choke sign; both the Refs and I had enough. What a stupid time to get a major penalty! Why give the other team and chance at all? Besides, if I agreed with Sherman that the 49ers choked, they didn’t, it would only diminish his play.
You see, being a NY Giant fan, the Miracle at the Meadowlands (AKA, The Fumble) is always on my mind. For those of you under 50, here is the story. The underdog Giants were playing the hated Eagles. The Giants had the ball on their own 26 and were ahead 17-12, third down and two in the days of the old 30-second play clock. The Eagles were out of timeouts.
As the clocks wound down Giant center Jim Clack snapped the ball to avoid a delay of game penalty at 31 seconds. The quarterback, Joe Pisarcik, wasn’t ready and bobbled the snap as he tried to hand it to Larry Csonka; it hit Csonka in the hip, hit the ground and was picked up by Herman Edwards who ran it in for a touchdown and a 19-17 Eagles victory. All they had to do was take a knee, but they blew it. None of those Giants players was black – but they sure were jerks that day. The moral of the story is, in the NFL, as in so many other things, “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”
It was only after I said that I was tired of self-centered jerks like Sherman, did I find out that it was racist because Sherman was black, a great player, smart, grew up poor, went to Stanford, and graduated. He was off limits even though he gave away those yards for no good reason. As to his after game interviews – who cares?
Racists of every kind will always be with us, but it’s disturbing that America’s black community has so little confidence in their best people that that they constantly deflect every criticism or failure of a black person as racism. It’s such an easy, comfortable refuge even President Obama went there last week when his popularity dropped forgetting that the same public used to give him high approval ratings. True equality means having the same standards for everyone and resisting the temptation to be either prejudiced or condescending.
Blaming everything on racism is racism in itself, and since Richard Sherman is so smart, I’m sure he understands exactly what I’m talking about.
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident.
