This is my first foray into this thread. I write now because I think I now have a plausible scenario that makes it all make sense to me. But before I get into it let me
add some subtext..
I grew up in a housing project in Dorchester and have always lived in very diverse neighborhoods. Years later I taught at a Jr HS in the same neighborhood beginning in 1969. By then it was a predominantly black neighborhood and when my kids found out I grew up in the Franklin Field projects they thought I must be the toughest white guy they knew
I taught almost 7 years before I taught a white kid and it took busing to make that happen (Yes Martha, there WAS defacto segregation occurring in the Boston Public Schools, and the judge made the correct decision and then totally screwed up the solution....but that's another discussion.)
A lot has been said in this thread about the "N" word. In those days it had a distinct meaning. It described someone who was not sharp, lazy, stupid or disorderly, not necessarily someone who was black. It was a word the kids often used with each other, AND I'm embarrassed to say, that in the proper context I used as well....with no problem. Today I cannot imagine using that expression under any context, but on that day and time, it came out as naturally as any discussion among friends and associates.
That all came to an end in the early days of busing when, in a class half filled with white kids that was slow getting settled down to work, I raised my voice to get them under control and said (without thinking) "If this class doesn't stop acting like a bunch of Nigger's we are all going to wind up after school".
Well the black kids started laughing because the white kids were getting ready to duck under their desks, and I thought to myself....."well this can't happen again". When things settled down, I decided to have a discussion on the power of words and how they mean different things to different people and how we have to be careful what we say because we can never predict how people will reaction to what we say. It turned out to be a great class. One that I used many times over the years.
I should note that my experience with busing was much more benign than most. In the year before busing when wee were an all black school, we sent more kids per capita to the examination HS's than any JrHS in the city. The year after we did the same. By the end of the year we were confident enough that we could take 150 8th graders by public transportation to downtown Boston to take a boat to a harbor Island for a picnic for our year end trip. We had a good faculty and It didn't take long for the kids to realize they couldn't manipulate most of the teachers by playing the black/white card and it rarely raised its ugly head.
So I can readily see a guy who was fully integrated into the Dolphins locker room being able to use words that wouldn't be acceptable anywhere else (and rightfully so)
But back to my scenario - When it all comes out here is what I think really happened.
I think Johnathan Martin is gay.
I think that a whole bunch of events came together that lead to his melt down. I don't think he loves the game. He's probably playing because he's good at it and its been expected of him. But now things haven't been going well. He hasn't been nearly as successful at it as he expected. He recently lost his starting job. I think the treatment and vulgarity of the locker room made him uncomfortable to begin with, and with him hiding being gay, only made it only worse. I think even an innocuous even like the lunch room snub could have set him off. Hiding that secret must have put him under an incredible amount of pressure, then add the fact that he wasn't doing well and the fact that he was viewed as a bit of an outsider by his teammates. Its only natural that he'd lash out and try to to get out of that situation.
I think putting all the blame on Incognito was a knee jerk reaction that took a life of its own and now can't be put back into the bottle. I'm not sure how premeditated and how thought out the "bullying defense" was. In the end it really unfortunate for all the parties involved. the players, the team, and the league itself have all been put under the lamp of other people passing judgement about things they really don't know about.
The fact is, that lots of people have been making blanket judgements where the ONLY people who know what's going on are the people in the Miami locker room. And while Richie Ingognito seems like a thoroughly disreputable character by all accounts, the near universal support he's gotten from his own teams (over 70% black) is more telling to me than anything I hear from some talking head who feels he has the need and authority to pass judgement over people he knows little about
