Richard Sherman And The Plight Of The Conquering Negro

Last night in the NFC championship, the San Francisco 49ers trailed the Seattle Seahawks by six, 23-17, with 30 seconds left in the game. Quarterback Colin Kaepernick had led the 49ers all the way down to the Seahawks' 18-yard line. He took the snap out of the gun, set his feet, and released a flossy little fade to the corner of the end zone, where receiver Michael Crabtree had his hands out. And then Richard Sherman happened.

Sherman, a 6-foot-3 physical marvel and the current best cornerback in the NFL, leaped with Crabtree, and falling backward toward the rear of the end zone, he tipped the pass with his left hand back inbounds to a teammate and ended the 49ers season.

It was a spectacular play, a historic play, the kind of play we'll be seeing on NFL playoff ads in five, 10, 20 years, when the name Richard Sherman dances on the tip of our tongues, just out of reach, and the memory of this year's conference championship is clouded and composited with the memories of playoff matchups to come.

But we're not talking about that play today. Instead, we're talking about what happened right after the play, when reporter Erin Andrews found Richard Sherman in the postgame scrum just seconds after the final buzzer. Because what happened next was absolutely epic.

When Erin Andrews asked Sherman to rehash the play, the cornerback instead barked out: "I'm the best corner in the game. When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that's the result you're gonna get! Don't you ever talk about me!" Then he glared directly into the camera.

It was so powerful, so raw of a reaction that Andrews needed a moment before proceeding. The league's best cornerback had made the best move of his career on the biggest play of his career to win the biggest game of his career, against an opposing wide receiver and college head coach with whom he shares not a little bad blood. This was a triumphant moment, and still to a lot of people there was something viscerally ugly about Sherman standing over a pretty blonde woman, yelling into our living rooms with an emotional mixture of joy, relief, and excitement, arrogance, and anger. Dude was turnt up.




Millions of Americans took to their cell phones, to social media, to the bar patron next to them, to cluck at Sherman. We called him classless, a bad sportsman, a troll. We called him a monkey and a ******. We threatened his life. We said that he set black people and race relations back 30, 50, 100 years.

Because in that moment, Sherman—a singular kid from Compton who won both the athletic and intellectual lottery so completely, so authoritatively, that he spent three years playing on Stanford's football team at wide receiver before converting to defensive back and becoming the NFL's best at the position—was in the public eye. In that moment, whether he knew, cared, or neither, Richard Sherman, a public figure, became a proxy for the black male id.

When you're a public figure, there are rules. Here's one: A public personality can be black, talented, or arrogant, but he can't be any more than two of these traits at a time. It's why antics and soundbites from guys like Brett Favre, Johnny Football and Bryce Harper seem almost hyper-American, capable of capturing the country's imagination, but black superstars like Sherman, Floyd Mayweather, and Cam Newton are seen as polarizing, as selfish, as glory boys, as distasteful and perhaps offensive. It's why we recoil at Kanye West's rants, like when West, one of the greatest musical minds of our generation, had the audacity to publicly declare himself a genius (was this up for debate?), and partly why, over the six years of Barack Obama's presidency, a noisy, obstreperous wing of the GOP has seemed perpetually on the cusp of calling him "uppity." Barry Bonds at his peak was black, talented, and arrogant; he was a problem for America. Joe Louis was black, talented, and at least outwardly humble; he was "a credit to his race, the human race," as Jimmy Cannon once wrote.

All this is based on the common, very American belief that black males must know their place, and more tellingly, that their place is somewhere different than that of whites. It's been etched into our cultural fabric that to act as anything but a loud, yet harmless buffoon or an immensely powerful, yet humble servant is overstepping. It's uppity. It is, as Fox Sports's Kayla Knapp tweeted last night, petrifying.


The problem is that it's not just white folks who feel this way. Last night, Golden State Warriors wingman Andre Iguodala received nearly 3,000 retweets from this:



The problem is that too many people think that Iguodala has a point. Too many of us think that one ecstatic, triumphant black man showing honest, human emotion just seconds after making a play that very well could be written into the first appositive of his obituary, is not only offensive, but is also representative of the tens of millions of blacks in this country. And in two weeks time, in the year 2014, too many of us will be rooting for the Denver Broncos for no other reason than to knock Richard Sherman down a few notches, if only to put him back in his place.


http://deadspin.com/richard-sherman...ource=deadspin_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

 

The level of hypocrisy is plain dispicable. People revel in the excitement and brutality of these sports yet expect the competitors to be devoid of expressing any emotion or expressing how they feel about their rivalries. It's like they want them to just be cyborgs or robots with no feelings. I'm sure that's probably not far from how they view us either which is why they hate to see us talk boastfully like Sherman, Floyd Mayweather, Ray Lewis, Muhammed Ali etc

You have people calling him a thug or questioning his character when all he did was called out a receiver.

I didn't see this level of hate when Brett Favre decided it was okay to call out his receiver when he was trying to get a better deal or Brady yelling at folks at the sidelines/yelling at referees at the end of the games.They all got a pass under "He's a warrior all fired up to win the game" or "He's just an good ole boy showing his passion and love for the game" and yet one black guy speaks his mind and half the people in the country want treat him like an fucking criminal.

 

realest shit you ever wrote kid. Wow I honestly don't get why they care so much?
Then again dude is rich and famous he'll be aight.

 

100!! :smt023

 

I love his spontaneous and real emotions. I just don't understand why after making the play, that sent his team to the FUCKING SUPERBOWL!! he chose to focus on a minor piece of negativity? It makes him look petty and scurrilous.

If I was there, I'd say to him "You won Idiot, Crabtree is going home. He feels as bad as he possibly could. So your just wasting the energy you should be using to celebrate, on dwelling in negativity."

 

I agree with this. There's nothing wrong with emotion and celebration, but him calling out Crabtree at that time, in that place was just inexcusable.

The author's slant on this article is ridiculous. Immaturity and lack of good judgement occurs all across the spectrum.

And Kanye West is conceited. I don't care WHO you are - if you have to tell people you're a genius, ya probably ain't.

 

I'm sorry but Muhammed ali was an asshole. and I didn't see this same comment when Brock lesnar was talking about mounting his wife and an avalanche of people were trash talking him because of it. Folks don't like pride. It ain't a black thing.

 

I agree with this sentiment, there is a thing called winning with class. As someone who played ball at the highest levels, I always respected those who won or lost with grace and dignity for themselves, their opponents, and the game itself. It is very telling in the days since that interview, Sherman has backtracked a great deal from his comments, and admitted that it took away the spotlight from a great team win.

Yes emotions run high when performing at the highest stage, I honestly think that the guys from "Pardon the Interruption" got it right when they postulated that Sherman was calculated in his boasting because he understands that being bombastic can lead to more off field opportunities like Deon Sanders in his prime.

 

Spoken like some true people who never played sports on an competitive level ever in their life. Talking shit has always been apart of the game of any sport, people like y'all is why sports are so pussified these days and you have clowns suing schools for bullying when their child's team gets an ass whooping on the little league level.

Ches your mad at Kanye because he's very sure of himself and he is an musical genius, you'll be hard pressed to find another producer/rapper in Hip Hop that will ever come close to making classics like him. Let that steam out your collar.

 

There's a time and place for talking sh*t. On national TV after a major playoff game is not that time or place. I don't have to play sports to know that.

As for Kanye, like I said, if you have to tell someone you're a genius, you're not that sure of yourself. If you're all that, your actions will speak for themselves and it will be obvious. My ex used to say "Damn, I'm good." His quiet but wise grandmother would always respond "It sounds better when someone else says it."

 

It was very immature and the minute he smack Crabtree on the ass and jumped in his face, I thought Crabtree was about to knock his head off.

Congrats, Mr. Sherman!! You have represented Stanford University well! LOL

 

meanwhile the broncos are back to practice on thursday..."no comment" is the response when asked about richard sherman

 

So when is the appropriate time and place to talk shit Ches?


As for your second post, all I see is jealousy. Let the steam out of your collar. All because you don't have any confidence in yourself doesn't mean everyone else should mope around with their heads down waiting for others to build up their confidence.

 

Yeah, but the game was over, and his foe was already vanquished.

If you just won the lottery, are you going to complain that the person who sold you the ticket was rude? Who gives a fuck about that.

Like I said, my problem isn't with Sherman's exuberance. It's with his focusing on negativity at a time when he should have been nothing but joyful.

 

His post game interview was him expressing his joy and anger at the same time. Thank god I didnt have you shelless people on my teams while growing up. Mommy he called me a bum :smt022 waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh

 

The locker room. Or, if you have something to settle with the guy, do it off camera.

Jealousy???!!!! :smt043:smt043:smt043 Omg! That's rich. I'll be laughing about that all day....Thanks for that, North! There's a big difference between confidence and arrogance. Even my poor li'l low self-esteemed self can actually distinguish between the two.

 

You didn't play football on national television either.

 

Funniest shit I've read yet! Kanye is a musical genius?! Seriously lmfao and smh at the same damn time :smt043

 

The thing is, I really like Richard Sherman, I think he is a role model for a lot of young brothers coming up.

But he went a little too far on this, and he knows it. That's why he backed off his comments and even apologized.

"I apologize for attacking an individual and taking the attention away from the fantastic game by my teammates," Sherman told ESPN's Ed Werder. "That was not my intent."


Oh, and what does "shelless" mean?

 

As someone who has played competitive sports my whole life, yes trash talking happens on the field/court, doing it off the field/court is just dumb as it makes you look classless and gives more motivation to the other team.

Music is certainly a subjective medium, I for one would classify someone like Stevie Wonder or Sting as a musical genius, not Kanye, not even close. Admittedly boasting and bragging is part of hip hop culture, and one cannot doubt the success Kanye has had (although I will never understand it, perhaps I am just too old to appreciate his music). That being said, his erratic behavior (interrupting award shows) and brash nature is bound to rub many people the wrong way.