By now you’ve probably heard that Netflix has a new show following Colin Kaepernick’s life as the adopted black child of two white parents, and a new graphic novel he created based on his upbringing. What created a frenzy was one particular moment, when the former Blane Gabbert backup and killer of Chip Kelly’s NFL career, accused his parents of racism for not wanting him to get cornrows. See, Colin loved Allen Iverson, and wanted to emulate his hero. But when they saw his new do, his parents disapproved, and his mother told him *trigger warning* “your hair is not professional. You look like a little thug.”
Colin Kaepernick learned early on that he would have to be the one to challenge the standard and change the rules.
Always question the status quo. 👊🏾
📺: COLIN IN BLACK & WHITE is now streaming on Netflix pic.twitter.com/yRnnUZug13
— Strong Black Lead (@strongblacklead) November 1, 2021
Yes, they used the dreaded “th” word, which was neither a big deal nor a racist term when Colin was a teenager. But what Kaepernick is doing is using one of the left’s favorite ways to accuse someone of racism: weaponizing previously socially acceptable terms and ideas as proof of racial bigotry.
Let’s talk about the word “thug.” Long associated with hockey players, it’s not hard to find NHL writers consistently using the term to describe enforcers and those who played in a certain aggressive style. Even today, Michael Wilbon felt free to call serial white tripper Grayson Allen the NBA’s thug. But that’s not new. He used the term to describe the black players involved in the “Malice at the Palace,” back in 2004.
Bleacher Report had no problem describing Plaxico Burress as a thug in 2004. No editor even blinked an eye at using the term. Ditto all the mafia and Irish mob enforcers known for their assaults, nearly all of which were deemed thugs. Even in the black community, Tupac famously had the word “thug life” tattooed on his stomach, in 2001 Trick Daddy had a huge hit with “I’m a Thug”, and Young Thug was a prominent rapper throughout the early 2000’s. Simply put, nobody considered the word racially connected.
That all changed in 2014, when NFL defensive back Richard Sherman decided “thug” was now “an acceptable way of calling someone the N word.” For a while, people pointed out how ridiculous that was, but soon enough fears of being called racist led whites to abandon the word in fear. Beloved basketball coaches like John Beilien who had coached black players for decades, were getting called secret racists for using the term, even if it was by accident.
Keep in mind that Kaepernick went to college in 2006, so the famous “thug” incident would’ve been nearly a decade before Sherman’s statement.
The point being, modeling yourself after Allen Iverson, who was in fact so unprofessional looking the NBA had to institute a dress code because of him, and who an ESPN the Magazine writer had no problem writing “everyone assumed Iverson was the thug around here” about, back in 2005, is in fact embracing an unprofessional look.
But more importantly, Kaepernick’s mom using the word thug in the early 2000’s isn’t racist, at all. That’s not a personal opinion, it’s a verifiable fact based on the usage of the word in media by both white and black journalists. And no matter how he portrays the incident in a Netflix show, there’s no way Kaeperenick froze in aghast horror at his mom’s use of a completely socially acceptable term, that had no racial insinuations when she used it..
Who cares? You should. While the majority of opinion writers spoke of how he’d sold out his parents and backstabbed people who did so much for him, for Conservatives there’s a much more important lesson to be learned.
If the left is willing to rewrite history that every thirty year old sports fan can remember using this clever technique, do you think they’ll view historical incidents, historical figure’s statements, or past political beliefs in context to the time they were said? The Senate? The Electoral College? The Constitution? The Confederacy? Of course not. They’ll pull up the quote, pretend it wasn’t socially acceptable back then, and try to guilt you into trying to add context to what is now considered a heinous word, statement or idea.
It’s a clever trick for Kaepernick to use, and one straight out of the left’s playbook. If Conservatives want to fight it, they’ll have to do what NFL defenses did to Colin himself, study, adapt, and figure out how to shut it down.
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