Richard Sherman has been known to be many things: powerhouse cornerback, a blerd (he frequents comic conventions) and openly transparent about the state of football (speaking on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in football, the practice of running up the score and delighting in taunting Tom Brady). Richard Sherman has never shied away from the spotlight or kept his feelings about anything mum.
Yesterday morning, the Seattle Seahawks held a press conference in which Sherman was to speak about their upcoming game against Aaron Rodgers and the Greenbay Packers. However, in true Sherman fashion, he used his platform to address issues he felt were specific to his heart. Namely those of police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement.
He began the conference by stating that a widely circulated blog post which many had viewed, retweeted, shared was actually not written by him. However, Sherman clarified that while there are some points he agreed with, he found others to be “ignorant.”
That’s where I cringed. Something told me that this was going to be a ‘we-gotta- do-better-by-ourselves-if-we-want-them-to-stop-killing/harassing/beating/wrongfully accusing/profiling/-us’ conversation.
“I don’t think it’s any time to call for an all-out war against police or any race of people,” Sherman went on to state, ” I thought that was an ignorant statement. But as a black man, I do understand that black lives matter. I stand for that. I believe in that wholeheartedly.” He continued, “But I also think that there’s a way to go about things and there’s a way to do things. The issue at hand needs to be addressed internally before we move on, because from personal experience, living in the hood, living in the inner city, you deal with things. You deal with people dying, dealt with a best friend getting killed. It wasn’t no police officer involved, wasn’t anybody shouting ‘Black Lives Matter’ then.”
Sherman also added “I think that’s the point that we need to get to, is we need to deal with our own internal issues before we start moving forward and start attacking other people. We need to solidify ourselves as a people and deal with our issues because I think as long as we have black-on-black crime and one black man killing another, if black lives matter then they should matter all the time. You should never let anyone get killed.”
*sigh*
When will the respectability politics end? Listen, it does not matter how well educated, rich, poor, well-dressed or well-spoken someone is! We are all subject to racism because we are black. Of course black-on-black crime is an issue. How about white-on-white crime (Sandy Hook elementary, Columbine, Aurora, etc)? Is that an issue? Why won’t white people and everyone else not black focus on the other people that are only killing people who look them?
Want to know why? Because that’s not the issue. The issue is the unfair profiling of all people of color. The system that was literally built on the backs, blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors has the offspring of their oppressors as beneficiaries to privileges that include the control of wealth and media, more open opportunities for educational advancement, the ability to be half as good and receive twice as much, and the list goes on.
My bottom line is this — I’m disappointed in Richard Sherman. As someone who does come from the hood, and has experienced all of these things and has gone on to propel himself financially, socially and economically upward — he still doesn’t get it. Richard Sherman is everything that America tells us that we need to be, in order for them to respect us. He is educated, well-spoken, well-dressed and financially stable. And yet he still got labeled a thug. So what now? His education, money or well-tailored suits still didn’t shield him because none of that could hide what is oh-so-painfully obvious.
He’s black.
So although he is correct about the issues being internal, what he is wrong about is that black-on-black crime is what’s causing them. The issue is and always has been systematic. It’s called racism. And until that system is abolished and reparations are made, it won’t be disappearing anytime soon.
What did you think of Sherman’s statements? Let us know in the comments below.
