Courtesy of EBONY.com
Following the NFC Championship game last weekend, Richard Sherman gave an interview to Erin Andrews. He yelled to millions watching in their living rooms about being the best and shutting down opposing receiver Michael Crabtree. However, following his interview, he somehow morphed from a football player who had just reached the pinnacle of sports achievement into a racial stereotype.
Suddenly he was “classless,” a “thug” from Compton, and any manner of other negative terms that one can substitute for the n-word. Sherman was no longer human, but a racist caricature.
Black people exist in a “damned if we do, damned if we don’t” space within American conversation. If a black person does something that’s seen as negative, that negative behavior is used as yet another example of how “we” are. Negative behavior, so it goes, is just inherent in “us.” On the flip side, if a Black person achieves something positive, the positive achievement is often dismissed either undeserved or the result of an innate gift the achiever can’t take credit for.