Richie Incognito

Two things about this just utterly depress me. One is this idea that you can be that kind of evil hothead and people think that you can just “keep it in the locker room” or “leave it on the field.” I’m not opposed to sports. I don’t think that a person who hits a ball is likely to hit a person. Or that a person who does something while in uniform is destined to do that thing out of uniform.

But I don’t think you can get positive reinforcement for scaring the shit out of people outside of the context of the game and calling names and acting like a jerk and not have it leak out into your regular life. It’s just not a psychological change most people can make. If you get praise for it, it’s very difficult to set it aside when outside of contexts where you get praise for it.

But second, and most importantly, I find the men rushing to Incognito’s defense, trying to explain it away as “locker room” or “its own culture” to be so damn sad. Because you shouldn’t have to work at a job where your co-workers use racial epithets against you. And yet, to see all these guys arguing that it’s okay, it’s obviously okay because that’s the norm. They literally expect no better. They get to be millionaires and cultural heroes and the epitome of manliness. It’s still so ordinary for them to be called or to hear a teammate the n-word or by white guys that they get on TV and argue that it’s okay.

They expect nothing better than Incognito’s actions.

It’s just utterly depressing.