Demonizing Jonathan Martin

How the NFL and its supporters have rallied around Richie Incognito over the hazing and threatening of Jonathan Martin is both disgusting and typical. Martin is essentially being drummed out of the league. It’s really hard to see how he returns to the league. It would take the right kind of coach, the right kind of locker room, one that seemingly doesn’t exist in the violent, homophobic, misogynistic NFL. Everyone on the Dolphins supports Incognito and is blaming Martin, saying he wasn’t enough of a man to just punch Incognito in the face, which evidently is the solution to all problems. Peter King is opening his site at Sports Illustrated to a former Dolphin who is basically saying the same thing (I love the “I’m only interested in the truth” line. Ah). What’s more, everyone is saying there’s no way Incognito can be called a racist. After all he did was call his black teammate a “half-nigger,” who could call that racist! We all know that the only real racists in American society are those who support equality for blacks and who therefore are racist toward whites. And while of course no one in the NFL is tying their explanation away or half-apologies for Incognito’s racist text to the modern conservative political definition of racism, they are in fact closely related. In our society, no one is a racist. The mom who dressed her kid up as a KKK member for Halloween? She’s just continuing a family tradition. Why, I bet some of her best friends are black! There evidently are no racists anymore. The word itself has become demonized, as if it doesn’t actually describe certain behaviors and is itself a term more offensive than “half-nigger.” It’s all horrifying.

Also, given all of this, anyone think a gay NFL player is possibly going to come out? And put up with the horrors of the locker room, not to mention other teams? What would Richie Incognito do to a gay teammate? I don’t really want to know.

I love football. But I’m getting really close to limit. It is such a reprehensible institution. Nonetheless, I’m going to watch the Ducks defeat Stanford in 10 minutes. Such are the contradictions of life.