People often say sports brings people together, which is true in many ways. Bringing people from all walks of life together also often serves to highlight the gaps and misunderstandings that separate them, which can be a good thing as well.
Recently, a professional football team – my Philadelphia Eagles – released a star wide receiver amid rumors that he had “gang ties.” The cause and effect here is unclear: the Eagles have not, and likely will not, say that is why they released him. In fact, they will likely not ever discuss these “gang ties” at all. (Note: “gang ties” will be in quotes throughout this column, because no one anywhere has published anything remotely conclusive tying the player to actual gang activity).
But this happens from time to time in sports because many athletes come from impoverished backgrounds and grew up in circumstances that seem alien to the fans who follow and root for or against them.
It’s much easier for a kid from the suburbs (New Jersey, in my case) to shake a finger at someone for having “gang ties” – I couldn’t have found a gang to join or gang members to hang out with if I’d wanted to (Note: I did not want to and no gang would’ve had me). But too many kids who grew up in Compton, or Chicago, or Camden couldn’t help brushing shoulders with other kids who were in gangs, whether they wanted to or not. Another athlete with a similar background – Richard Sherman of the Seahawks, who has walked into the cultural buzzsaw a couple of times himself – made this point particularly well in a recent column.
I don’t think commentators and fans usually judge a person’s actions without stopping to consider how different their life experiences or circumstances maliciously; they do it because they’re people, and people view the world through the lens of their own experience. I also don’t subscribe to some notion of absolute moral relativism: I love David Simon more than any living artist not named Allen Iverson, but I don’t agree that I’m incapable of judging someone else’s moral choices simply because their life experiences are drastically different than mine.
But incidents like this highlight the sheer hypocrisy in criticizing people for having “gang ties” without stopping for a second to ask why gangs have taken root in so many of our cities – let alone what we would have done growing up in the same situation.
This reminds me of the cultures-colliding aspect of rap music, which for years was derided as not real music, exploitative, violent, and reflective of society’s moral decay – with the critics somehow managing to miss, or ignore, the fact that those lyrics were frequently a reflection of the world that surrounded the rappers. The fact that rap has been around for thirty years and a portion of the population still doesn’t get it suggests that the Desean Jacksons and Richard Shermans of the sports world will continue to make waves simply by putting their life experiences front and center.
Thanks for reading,
Brendan