January 24, 2014
The recent brouhaha about Richard Sherman is not important to me in itself. I don’t care what he said after the NFC Championship. I do care that he was called a thug. Actually, I don’t care much about that either because I don’t care what goes on in the sports world. My eyes glaze over thinking about the sports world. But I understand from SO, who is into what goes on there (translation: he reads the sports pages religiously), that some people have made way too much out of Sherman’s statements and erroneously called him a thug.
What I really care about is Sherman’s characterization of the word. He’s certainly entitled to fight back when he’s been unfairly ostracized for what he said. But he’s overreacting and trying to change the meaning of a word for all of us and to something racist. I’m calling vigorous bullshit on that. Thug does not mean the n-word. Maybe to some select group out there it might, but thug does not mean the n-word to most people. To most it still means someone who is up to no good and often a bully.
I resent like hell that I feel pressured to qualify any future use of that word. What I really resent is the news media co-opting words so they become inflammatory and to use them may immediately brand someone a racist. Who wants to keep up with that? To keep up with what you can and cannot say on every little bitty word so that you do not offend anyone, anywhere at anytime? Do you want to live in that world?
If I were paranoid, I would think Mr. Sherman is a Marxist. That’s a bridge too far, but he is displaying Marxist tendencies to change the language and take control. Maybe he feels compelled to take control, but this isn’t the way to do it. But maybe he’s figured something out that the rest of us need to be very aware of in the future — to control the language is to control the thoughts of people. I wish I had a citation to back that up, but I’m too lazy to look it up. This is supposed to be a fun place remember? (Forgive me this piece please.) I just know from study about a hundred years ago in college, that Marxism uses language to shape groups of people. I also understand from SO that Sherman is brilliant intellectually as well as athletically. We’ll see how his gambit plays out. I guess he needs to get the press as his tool to be successful.
Bottom line for me: to the readers of this blog and anyone who knows me in real life interactions, I’m going to use the word thug when I want to use it, and it will not mean the n-word.
And for the record, the autograph thugs were all white guys. Just sayin’.
RAFrenzy 