Jay Briscoe and the path to redemption

Well, I didn’t really think that professional wrestling was going to be the thing that would pull me out of my blog sabbatical, but here we are.

To the right is wrestler Jamin Pugh, who went by the in-ring name Jay Briscoe. He died two days ago in a car crash when an oncoming SUV came into his lane and hit his vehicle head on. His two daughters, who were in the vehicle with him, were in critical condition after the wreck. He also left behind a wife.

In 2013, Briscoe made a homophobic comment on Twitter. In the days after the tweet, he apologized, and his company, Ring of Honor, said he was going to donate his next two event paychecks to an anti-hate charity. In the ensuing decade, he has apologized multiple times for the comment and has emphasized how wrong he was for saying it. He said his tweet was actually informed by his faith in Christianity, noting that he thought he was “taking a stand for the lord” at the time. He said it was “the most dumbest, immature, obnoxious shit I’ve ever done.”

Despite this, he had been essentially canceled and blacklisted by executives at Warner Bros. Discovery from appearing on any of its wrestling programs, namely AEW on TBS and TNT. In addition, AEW owner Tony Khan was prevented from putting together a tribute show for Briscoe this week. Khan was only allowed to air the above picture at the start of the most recent show. Briscoe was mentioned on the air a couple times and some wrestlers chose to wear “Jay Briscoe” arm bands by way of a tribute. AEW is being forced to relegate a tribute show for Briscoe to its YouTube channel.

Jay, with his brother, Mark, wrestled as The Briscoes tag team and developed an underground following among the wrestling community as part of Ring of Honor. The team gained some national notoriety last year when Khan purchased ROH and booked a series of matches between The Briscoes and former AEW tag champions, FTR. The Briscoes, who played amplified versions of themselves as self-described country boys, were known for their hard-hitting matches, in-ring psychology and old school promo work recalling a nearly bygone era in which wrestlers did not break “character” in public. Thus, some defenders of Jay have argued that he was “in character” when he wrote the offensive tweet, but even if that were true, some lines should never be crossed, and the tweet was just as inexcusable in 2013 as it would be now or at any other time. Jay apparently recognized it as such, saying that The Briscoes have tried to follow the example of their faith and love everyone.

Before I continue, let me address any concerns someone reading this might have as to my bias, either related to the Briscoes or wrestling in general because this site is written for a general audience, not a niche wrestling crowd. Yes, I’m a wrestling fan and have been since the mid-1980s. Yes, pro wrestling has a troubling history of homophobia, sexism, misogyny, steroid and hard drug abuse, untimely death related to said abuse and even suicide and murder. A popular TV show titled, “Dark Side of the Ring,” explores all of them and more in detail. Fortunately, most of those blights on the art form that many of us have come to love, with a couple notable exceptions (See: Vince McMahon and the MeToo movement), have largely been relegated to the past. AEW, which is run by Khan, a millennial of Pakistani-American heritage, has a diverse roster full of millennials and Generation Z members, including multiple members of the LGBTQ community. Many or most of the roster would probably identify as “woke.” Like society, professional wrestling has matured to become more inclusive and more accepting of people from all walks of life and from all continents.

Jay seems to have grown and matured alongside the business that he cherished, and he deserved a chance at redemption. Warner apparently didn’t think so. They have a reputation to uphold, after all, which is why — I’ll add, with heavy notes of sarcasm — Dana White of UFC fame, who made news recently for having a slap exchange with his wife in a bar, was nonetheless allowed to move forward with his new show, Power Slap, even though it was delayed a week because of the bar incident. Power Slap, which features contestants simply slapping each other from a standing position, airs in the 10 p.m. timeslot after, you guessed it, AEW Dynamite on TBS. White and his wife getting into a domestic altercation wasn’t enough for Warner to distance itself from White and his show, but an offensive tweet from 10 years ago was beyond the pale.

Warner refusing to let indie wrestlers like The Briscoes onto their TV programs or to let AEW honor the team’s achievements in the ring and Jay as a father and husband, was on odd hill to die on, especially after Jay apologized and seemed as if he had become a better person. Do people inside Warner really think no one else under their very large umbrella have skeletons in their closets and have said or done things that they wish they could take back?

I’ve been writing on a specific issue between Warner and Briscoe, but the larger consideration is this: What good is it to cancel someone for making an offensive comment if there is no path to redemption? Once people are branded as homophobic, is there even a path to redemption among the woke crowd?

Jay Briscoe deserved every bit of criticism and sharp rebuke he received for his tweet. But did he deserve it indefinitely? Some people may truly be irredeemably bigoted, but perhaps those who apologize numerous times for an offensive comment should be given the benefit of the doubt that they actually have become better people. The entire philosophy behind the justice system in America, broken as it may be, is rehabilitation, not perpetual punishment and banishment. If we can’t at least live up to that ideal in civil society, if we can’t give people a second chance to prove that they have grown, to show that they are better today than they were yesterday and if cancel culture is as closed off to redemption for contrite individuals as racists and bigots are to true acceptance and equality, then we’re in real trouble as a society.

Following are comments from two people who knew Briscoe. The first is a drag queen performer, columnist and wrestler named Paul E. Pratt, who goes by the stage name, Pollo Del Mar. In addition to the tweet below, he recently reposted a photo of himself in the center in full drag, with Jay and Mark smiling on each side with the text, “Those smiles were all genuine.”

The second tweet is from a gay wrestler named Effy.

As far as I know — I just checked — Anthony Bowens, who is an openly gay member of the AEW roster, has not commented on Briscoe’s death. Nyla Rose, a trans member of the same roster, tweeted, “Damn.” with a tear emoji.

10 Ways to Improve WWE TV

Credit: ringsidenews.com

For years now, WWE’s television ratings have been on a sharp decline, such that the last edition of Monday Night Raw drew 1.5 million viewers, the lowest in the history of the show. During the last conference call with investors in April, WWE CEO Vince McMahon attributed the decline mainly to new stars who haven’t had time to get themselves “over,” a wrestling term for how popular wrestlers are with fans. He also said the ratings were sagging because of the absence of Brock Lesner. Lesner, possibly the biggest draw in the company, has been MIA since the beginning of the pandemic, and in any case, isn’t a regular competitor. Of course, blaming new talent for ratings decline seems like a direct indictment of McMahon and his creative team since they are ultimately responsible for pushing the wrestlers and putting them in positions to have success in the ring and on the mic.

In any case, WWE likely won’t read this post because the company’s executives and many of the wrestlers themselves seem to have a dim view of their own fans, on the working assumption that if a person isn’t in the wrestling business, their opinion is somehow less legitimate. I only want the programs to improve and the whole industry — WWE, AEW, NWA, Impact Wrestling and others — to thrive. I would say that I have a pretty good idea of what makes an entertaining wrestling show as a 35 year fan of the business. And let tell you, just about anything else I could be doing on a Monday or Friday night is more entertaining than Raw and SmackDown as of late.

Here is what I would do to improve Raw and SmackDown:

  • Fire people who can’t talk or are can’t go in the ring, or both.
  • Fire people who are just dead weight and don’t draw money and ratings. Admittedly, this is most of the roster, but that leads into the next point.
  • Get over the idea that the company needs to stifle people and keep them at a certain popularity so they don’t get “too big.” For an industry that lives and dies on creating larger than life superstars, this is ludicrous logic. WWE seems to purposefully hold people back. John Cena was the last true legend they have created. Roman Reigns is close, but everyone is a notch below him. Because Reigns has a history of leukemia, he hasn’t been on TV in months, so everyone else is expected to carry the load. The ratings show that they have not created anyone capable of drawing the kind of TV ratings that are anywhere comparable to The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels or John Cena.
  • Stop relying on nostalgia acts. It only works in the short term to create a temporary pop in ratings.
  • This might seem obvious, but be more creative with characters, storylines and backstage segments, and fire writers who don’t have a bold creative vision for the present and future direction of storylines and character development.
  • Don’t insult the intelligence of your own fanbase. WWE does this routinely. Also, don’t drive your fans away by hammering them over the head with your promotional pitches. After 30 minutes on Monday, I lost count of how many times a wrestler or announcer said “The Horror Show at Extreme Rules.” When a wrestler says that whole long title in the middle of an interview, it sounds forced and unnatural.
  • Every match on free TV doesn’t have to be a barn burner, but use more creativity in matches with fewer roll-ups and more clean finishes. Fans hate roll-ups, and they usually do nothing to further feuds between two characters. Have higher quality matches at the PPVs. WWE has gotten into a lazy pattern of giving us one or two good matches at a PPV, and the rest is usually completely forgettable.
  • Give wrestlers more creative freedom on the mic and in the matches. WWE’s promos, a wrestling term for a talking segment that is supposed to further a feud or storyline, usually sound forced and unnatural. This is because what the wrestlers say is heavily scripted, and the company allows little wiggle room for improvisation. Wrestlers have even been punished for going off-the-cuff in promos. This has to end if you want a better product. As for matches, more times than not, they are generic and predictable, as if the producers of the show are operating from a template. This does not create must-see television.
  • Be less generic and predictable, and offer more surprises. Most of the time, Raw and SmackDown are so generic, bland and lifeless that I want to either go to sleep or cut the TV off and do something more entertaining with my time.
  • Keep Somoa Joe, Corey Graves, Beth Phoenix and Mauro Ranallo and fire everyone else on commentary. Get rid of the stupidity and pandering and let the announcers be more organic with what they have to say about in-ring action.

Of course, none of this will happen until McMahon is gone and the company undergoes a complete change in upper management and creative. I would say go TV-14 and be edgier, but it doesn’t matter how much cursing, blood or sex appeal the show has, a la the Attitude Era, if the creative product on the screen is next to unwatchable

[Photo Credit: ringsidenews.com]

Let’s Talk About Pro Wrestling

I don’t write about wrestling much — although it has been suggested to me that I should — because it doesn’t really fit the general tenor of this blog since I normally talk about religion, politics and history.

The fact is that I have been a fan of professional wrestling since I was a kid in the mid-1980s. I grew up watching and revering characters like Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, “The Macho Man” Randy Savage, Dusty Rhodes, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express and many others. I had two wrestling rings as a kid and numerous WWE (WWF at the time) action figures. While the NWA has, in the last year, picked up a lot of steam for its unique — unique for the modern era — focus on studio wrestling, in which the promos and in-ring action take place in front of a small crowd with, typically, no musical introductions, I remember the original era of studio wrestling when people like Flair and Rhodes cut some of the greatest promos in the history of the business. My family wasn’t well off and I could not order the PPVs as a kid, but I had a great-uncle who would tape WresteMania and some NWA/WCW shows for me on VHS.

I guess I was ashamed of it in high school because I stopped watching for awhile thinking I would be made fun of about it and it wasn’t “cool,” but when I got to college, I picked it back up, and was a diehard fan of WCW until it went out of business. I then started watching WWF in March 2001 and have watched since, with a few stops and starts here and there. I have watched WWE, more less consistently since 2005. In subsequent years, I have come to appreciate, not just the entertainment value of the shows, but wrestling as an artform.

For those who aren’t familiar with it, wrestling has its roots in the old carny shows in the early 20th-century. It is one of the most unique artforms in entertainment because it includes a mix of microphone work, known as promos, and in-ring skills and usually includes drama, comedy and sometimes salacious material as a way to develop characters and further storylines. Everything that a viewer sees on their TV screens — wrestlers and other on-screen characters, referees, broadcasters, ring announcers, backstage interviewers, promoters, general managers — are all part of the show or the “kayfabe” experience designed to help the audience suspend disbelief and forget that they are watching a predetermined, scripted program. Thus I have come to, over the years, appreciate wrestling on a different level, for the amount of athletic ability it takes, for the skill wrestlers display performing high-risk moves without injuring themselves or their sparring partner, for the pageantry, for the promos, for the unique characters, for the passion of the fans and for that feeling one gets when a feud between two characters has been built up for months and finally, in one fateful match, it comes to a climax with a superb match in front of a raucous crowd. I am what some people call a “hardcore” wrestling fan. I have a passion for the business and the artform and will usually watch it, in spite of myself, in some fashion, even if the storytelling or characters don’t always hold my attention, which has more or less been the case with more recent editions of WWE’s main shows, Raw and SmackDown.

The Allegations

Fan that I am, I must say that the last few months have been one of the darkest periods that I can remember in wrestling history, notwithstanding the deaths of many high-profile wrestlers over the years.

This is the case for a number of reasons, but the main one is the sexual assault and sexual abuse allegations that have surfaced. The last count I heard was that 70 people have been accused of misconduct at the #SpeakingOut hashtag on Twitter. The largest number of cases were reported in the United Kingdom wrestling scene, but every major promotion in the United States, including WWE, AEW, Impact Wrestling, NWA, Ring of Honor and Chikara have not escaped this blight on the industry. There are simply too many allegations to talk about all of them in detail, but to name a few:

David Starr — Starr, who has worked with numerous promotions, was accused of sexual assault by a former girlfriend. Starr denied the allegation and said he wasn’t a sexual predator but admitted to being a “dickhead” in his relationships on his Twitter page, and in one of the most egregious non-apologies I’ve heard, after a lengthy psychological analysis of his own problems treating women with respect in relationships, he had this to say:

By never taking the time to focus on me, I’ve acted like a teenage boy towards partners. Quite simply, I need to grow the f*** up.

I’m trying to do better and I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.

I apologize to anyone who looks to me as a role model and anyone that I’ve disappointed.

Most importantly, I sincerely apologize to Jackie, Allison, Kali, Victoria, Bella and any other partners I’ve had for any and all torment I’ve put you through because of my own inability to mature and to love myself. You all deserved better than what I gave you.

He doesn’t admit to the specific allegation and issues a blanket apology to those he might have hurt. On his Twitter page, which he has since deleted, he went so far as to suggest that what he allegedly did was “gray rape,” which is just rape and is not recognized in the criminal justice system. Whether both people are drunk or not, if she said no, there is no gray area.

According to a piece from the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center:

I find the promulgation of the idea of “gray rape” deeply disturbing. To be very clear, there is no such thing as “gray rape”. What there is is a rape culture highly invested in not calling this what it is. By telling rape survivors that there was a “gray area” … (by) telling them that the rape was their fault – if only they hadn’t been drinking. If only they’d been saving themselves for marriage. If only they dressed modestly and didn’t flirt. “Gray rape” is nothing but a pseudosociological reframing of classic victim-blaming.

Starr was stripped of his previous championships with multiple promotions and will probably never work in wrestling again.

Joey Ryan — Perhaps one of the sleaziest cases of them all, Ryan, who is mainly known for using his penis to perform wrestling moves in the ring, namely something called the YouPorn-Plex, has been accused several times over for sexual misconduct and sexual harassment. He was fired from Impact Wrestling and had to close his own promotion, Bar Wrestling. Like many of these people, Ryan issued an apology, gave some explanations, or excuses, however you want to read them, about his shortcomings as a person. Two wrestlers, Joey Janella and Ryan Nemeth, confirmed that Ryan had abused women and said he lied in his apology.

Sammy Guevara — This one pains me because I really like the guy, but Geuvara, an AEW talent, apparently said in an interview years ago that he would like to “rape” WWE wrestler Sasha Banks. Geuvara and Banks spoke privately, he apologized to her, and she accepted. AEW sent Guevara to sensitivity training and are planning to donate his salary to the Women’s Center of Jacksonville (Fla.).

Marty Scurll — In one of the more sickening allegations, Scurll, who is perhaps best known for his work in Ring of Honor, was accused of taking advantage of a drunk 16-year-old virgin who allegedly gave him oral sex. Scurll was allegedly going to take the girl into a closet to have sex with her. Scurll didn’t deny the encounter but claimed it was consensual and was within the bounds of the UK’s age of consent law. Scurll would have been 26 at the time the incident took place in 2015.

David Lagana — Lagana, who was in charge of most of the production of NWA and was running the company with Billy Corgan, was accused of sexual misconduct and has since resigned from the company. NWA halted all shows for the time being while the company attempts to restructure in Lagana’s absence.

Mike Quackenbush — Quackenbush, Chikara promoter and trainer at the Wrestle Factory, along with other trainers, were accused of numerous instances of abuse, most of which were shitty and insensitive, but not necessary illegal. He initially had this to say in response:

I have been made aware of recent allegations about myself, and people in my employ.

I take all allegations seriously – whether they are about me, or members of my team.

Addressing these with openness and transparency is of the utmost importance to me. So these matters can be given the proper time and attention, I am discontinuing CHIKARA and resigning as head trainer at the Wrestle Factory.

I’ll make a full statement on these matters in the near future

Quackenbush then issued a 14-minute video where he fell on the sword and apologized for some of the allegations and denied others. He got very emotional at the end when he talked about being insensitive to a person with autism. He confessed to displaying narcissistic and homophobic behavior in a certain period of his life and confessed that he has said “ignorant things in the past.” I agree with Jason Solomon from the Solomonster Sounds Off podcast that it sounded as if Quackenbush was cutting a wrestling promo in his apology video. It had an odd vibe, but folks in the Internet wrestling community who apparently know the man say that is just the way he talks. I can’t gauge whether the apology video was sincere or not. Current WWE star Lince Dorado, who has a history with Quackenbush and worked at Chikara, certainly doesn’t think so. Dorado had this to say:

Lies! I don’t believe you especially at this moment in your bs video! I tried to reached out through email and friends for over a decade! Tried to meet in person and have closure at the PC, coward! My closure is you being exposed! This will be my last tweet about this POS! See me

Velveteen Dream — Dream, real name Patrick Clark Jr., is a top star in WWE’s NXT brand, was accused of sending sexual text messages to an underage girl. The evidence I heard a few weeks ago on this case was limited to a couple screenshots and a short audio clip of someone, possibly Dream but we can’t be sure, asking, “What school do you go to?” He could obviously have been talking to a college student, but in any case, this source claims WWE is getting ready to release him from the company. I don’t necessarily trust random “news” sites online, so we’ll have to wait to hear from the company.

***

I could go on and on with the names and allegations. It’s disturbing and emotionally exhausting to hear these stories, and to say it’s disappointing is an understatement.

The wrestling business has largely always been an incubator for sexism, the objectification of both men and women and downright lewd and tasteless behavior. I, along with many of my fellow wrestling fans, were apparently lulled into believing that those wild west days of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, with some exceptions, were largely behind us as a new generation of socially conscious younger stars have come up believing in more equality, more ethics in wrestling and more respectful treatment of women and men, both on air and in private.

I was wrong. Frankly, I’m ashamed to call myself a wrestling fan at this moment. What I have been reading in articles and on Twitter and hearing as I’ve listened to several podcasts on these cases is disgusting and embarrassing. Again, I agree with Solomon that it’s simply time to weed out the “riff-raff” in wrestling. Enough is enough. Wrestling, which is already in the shitter, with diminishing viewers and interest, might not recover if this continues. But more importantly, there is no excuse — none whatsoever — for sexist, racist, narcissistic or abusive behavior in the world of wrestling or anywhere else.

Some promotions have responded with a round of firings and proceeded to strip people of their titles, those won in the past and more recently, and some have opened investigations into the sexual misconduct and sexual abuse allegations. I would like to know, however, where was the oversight to begin with? Where was the character vetting process to make sure that the people who are put on TV and promoted for shows are actually worthy, ethically, to represent these companies? This current spate of allegations represents a failure of promoters to hold their entertainers to a higher standard. They apparently held their wrestlers to no standard, other than to show up when they are scheduled to appear and do their jobs. All of the cads and creeps in society can never be weeded out completely. There will always be assholes and scumbags, but we can do a better job in the future as fans to speak out against this behavior, and promoters must do a better job of evaluating the mental and emotional well-being of their wrestlers and getting them help if they need it.

The possibility exists that there may be some, or even many, false allegations in all of this. A lot of the claims were made anonymously, and without hard evidence, so there is no way to know for sure what really happened in a lot of these cases. False allegations can ruin a person’s life and career, and if a preponderance of false allegations have been made out of spite, simply because someone didn’t like a wrestler or the wrestler was an asshole, does a grave disservice to the women who were actual victims of serious crimes and suffer from trauma because of it.

A brief word about all of the “apology” statements and videos that have been published by the accused. I’m not sure they do themselves any favors by giving line-by-line analyses of what they think happened in the incidents and then delving into their own psychological state. Some of them have even said they are in the process of working on themselves and have been looking into self-help or therapeutic resources. I see why they take this approach, but frankly, it comes off as self-absorbed, defensive and invalidating to the victims. They should have stuck with short statements that either deny the allegations or own up to their actions and then apologize to those they have hurt, both publicly (maintaining the anonymity of the victim) and privately, if possible.

As of June 23 — I couldn’t find more recent information — no official charges have been filed against any of the accused wrestlers.

The Pandemic

Wrestling is not wrestling without the crowd, which is part of the show, and since the outbreak of Covid-19, the two main wrestling outfits, WWE and AEW, have been running shows without full crowds and typically, with only a limited number of “fans” — mainly other wrestlers, trainees or family members — in attendance to provide at least a little noise. This was all made possible, of course, when the state of Florida inexplicably declared that professional wrestling, of all things, was an “essential business.”

In the early part of the pandemic, WWE was running the shows with no one in their Performance Center other than the referees, announcers and wrestlers, which made the shows almost unwatchable, or more unwatchable than usual. AEW has run shows with wrestling “fans” pretty much from the start, and the company has been providing Covid-19 tests to everyone who enters their venue, Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, for months.

Weeks ago when WWE began having these “fans” around ringside, WWE announcer Michael Cole told the fans watching at home that the company had tested everyone in the Performance Center. This was misleading, at best, or an outright lie, at worst. Until recently, the company was only taking people’s temperature, and while WWE may consider that proper “testing,” it most surely is not. Everyone knows by now that people can be infected with the coronavirus and not show symptoms. Only taking wrestlers’ temperature was irresponsible and far from an adequate response to the situation.

So, lo and behold, what do we find? Up to 30 people in WWE could now be infected with Covid-19. Either through ignorance or, more likely, stubbornness and “the show must go on” syndrome, the company put its wrestlers, which it routinely calls its “most valuable resource,” in harm’s way. The company put 74-year-old CEO Vince McMahon in harm’s way, or he put himself in harm’s way, and the company jeopardized the health of 71-year-old Ric Flair, who recently appeared in an on-air segment in the ring. I realize Flair probably wanted to be there and the decision to appear was his choice, but the idea that WWE would put a legend like Flair, who has a history of heart problems, at risk, makes me angry. Some stars, like Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn and most recently, Kevin Owens, have opted to stay at home. Reigns has a history of leukemia. Zayn, after the company claimed that no one would be punished if they wanted to stay home in quarantine for safety reasons, was stripped of his intercontinental title, and the word backstage is that some wrestlers are afraid to go home because of possible repercussions. If this last part is true, that is disgraceful.

All of this, every scintilla of it, is disgraceful and embarrassing. If WWE actually cared about its “most valuable resource,” this billion dollar company would have suspended TV tapings until tests became available; it would have purchased as many tests as necessary; and it would not have reopened tapings until all wrestlers, trainers, producers, announcers, cameramen and “fans” were tested and cleared. And it would have continued testing each and every time it opened the doors to the Performance Center. Or better yet, WWE could have suspended shows altogether, but of course, the company has contracts with Fox and USA Network and probably feared losing all that TV money as a consequence.

I know there are some really upstanding people in that company, but the management, the people at the top making decisions, appear to be monstrous imbeciles who have proven over and over that a buck is more important than the talented individuals in the ring. WWE is making all these dangerous sacrifices of their human capital for what? For bland, poorly written programs like Raw and SmackDown that are completely missable most weeks. There’s no other way to put it: it’s irresponsible, disappointing and shameful.

Racial injustice and the Kaepernick effect II

I thought I would take this opportunity, as unfortunate a time as it is, to provide a follow up to my previous post on Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the national anthem as a way to protest racial injustice and the continued deaths of unarmed black people.

Since he did it, numerous NFL players have joined in the protest, either raising a closed fist or kneeling during the league’s — and sports organizations’ — borderline neurotic, weekly homage to all things America. One has to wonder: If the police shootings persist, as they have now for years seemingly without any reprieve, at what point will these patriotic exercises become meaningless affronts to those we have lost at the hands of poorly trained and/or trigger happy police officers and the atmosphere of protectionism that pervades the entire criminal justice system.

Credit: AP Photo/Mark Zaleski: Raiders linebacker Malcolm Smith raises his fist during the national anthem prior to the game in Tennessee.

Credit: AP Photo/Mark Zaleski: Raiders linebacker Malcolm Smith raises his fist during the national anthem prior to the game in Tennessee.

At least two more names, Keith Lamont Scott and Terence Crutcher, have been added to the scrolls of injustice since Kaepernick began protesting. Even as I’m writing this and trying to work out the calculus that could lead to such wanton, systemic disregard for human life, as laws and police ethics are seemingly tossed out the window at the slightest of offenses, or at the lack of any offense, the blood boils. George Zimmerman is exhibit No. 1. Zimmerman got little more than a slap on the wrist for shooting and killing Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black kid, yet a driver who shot at Zimmerman during a road altercation in the spring of 2015 who, like Zimmerman, argued on the grounds of self-defense, was convicted of second-degree murder.

I will preface the rest of this post by saying that, as with nearly any case, we don’t know all the details, but we do know enough to conclude with concrete certainty that Scott and Crutcher should still be alive today.

‘Reacted unreasonably’

Crutcher, of course, was recently shot and killed by white Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby after fellow Officer Tyler Turnbough had already tased him. Crutcher was stopped in the middle of the road and was, according to accounts, moving away from the vehicle and claiming it was about to explode. As the incident escalated, an officer in a helicopter made the following half-cocked, unsubstantiated statement about Crutcher: “That looks like a bad dude, too. Maybe on something.”

After the shooting, police let Crutcher lie in the street for a full 2 minutes before returning to him, not to administer attention to the shooting victim, but to check his pockets. Another 45 seconds passed before someone offered medical assistance. For her part, Shelby was charged with first-degree manslaughter.

According to court documents, Shelby

reacted unreasonably (italics mine) by escalating the situation from a confrontation with Mr. Crutcher, who was not responding to verbal commands and was walking away from her with his hands held up, becoming emotionally involved to the point that she over reacted.

As I pointed out on a Twitter a couple days ago, “reacted unreasonably” has to be the understatement of the year. Shooting unarmed people without serious provocation is now considered merely “unreasonable” police work in 2016? What about: “Shelby failed to follow her police training and took justice into her own hands?” What about: “Shelby was not trained properly by the academy or by her superiors and should have never been put into a position to make life and death decisions on the streets of Tulsa?” What about: “The decision to put Shelby on the street represents a categorical failure of leadership at the Tulsa police department?”

As if Crutcher’s death was not shameful enough for Tulsa County, an unarmed black man named Eric Harris was shot and killed by a 73-year-old, white, reserve deputy in April 2015 after the officer mistook his pistol for a taser. He was charged with manslaughter.

Deadly force

Crutcher’s family could scarce get through the grieving process before another unwarranted shooting claimed the life of Scott, who, although we still don’t know whether he had a gun, was seen getting out of his SUV and backing away from the vehicle as Officer Brentley Vinson, who is black, opened fire. According to police, Scott was spotted with a marijuana cigarette and a gun, although his family claims the man had a book in his possession. Video of the incident is inconclusive.

What is conclusive is that police had no reason to believe Scott was dangerous; he was not a fugitive and was not wanted in connection with a warrant. He did serve time for shooting a man in San Antonio in 2005 and was not allowed to carry a weapon because of it, but as The New York Times points out, police on the scene would more than likely have no way of knowing this at the time. What is conclusive is that Scott was surrounded by officers with loaded weapons and, regardless of whether he had a gun in his hand or not, his arms were by his side and not in a raised position, and thus not actively targeting police, when Vinson opened fire.

What is conclusive is that in most of the police shootings garnering national attention in recent history, officers had little, if any, justification for using deadly force to subdue alleged perpetrators.

Here is what the National Institute of Justice has to say on the use of force by law enforcement officials:

Law enforcement officers should use only the amount of force necessary to mitigate an incident, make an arrest, or protect themselves or others from harm. The levels, or continuum, of force police use include basic verbal and physical restraint, less-lethal force, and lethal force.
Learn more about the use-of-force continuum.

The level of force an officer uses varies based on the situation. Because of this variation, guidelines for the use of force are based on many factors, including the officer’s level of training or experience.

An officer’s goal is to regain control as soon as possible while protecting the community. Use of force is an officer’s last option — a necessary course of action to restore safety in a community when other practices are ineffective.

And according to North Carolina law as related to the Keith Lamont Scott case, police are only justified in using deadly force:

a. To defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of deadly physical force;

b. To effect an arrest or to prevent the escape from custody of a person who he reasonably believes is attempting to escape by means of a deadly weapon, or who by his conduct or any other means indicates that he presents an imminent threat of death or serious physical injury to others unless apprehended without delay; or

c. To prevent the escape of a person from custody imposed upon him as a result of conviction for a felony.

By what strained logic can police claim to have been following any of these stipulations in Keith Scott’s case?

Suppose that he was, as police allege, brandishing a weapon and, although we can’t hear it on the video, what if he was defiant, belligerent or even threatening officers? Why couldn’t police simply have shot him in an extremity to bring him to the ground? What possible justification did they have to shoot to kill? Even if perpetrators are wanted on active warrants, escape from prison or are fleeing the scene of a traffic stop, unless they threaten officers or others in the community, police don’t have the right to gun them down OK Corral-style, which is apparently what happened to Keith Scott and precisely what happened to Walter Scott last year in South Carolina.

The white response

Finally, coming back to the NFL, while more players have joined Kaepernick in protesting police shootings the last few weeks, all of the athletes that have stood or raised their fists during the national anthem, so far that I can tell, have been black.

If I may be so bold as to ask, where the hell are the white players standing in solidarity with their teammates and brethren to raise awareness about such a critical issue facing the nation?

Amid the circus of coverage surrounding Kaepernick, I think this has been a severely under-covered part of this story, and the white players who have spoken up about Kaepernick’s actions have largely been dismissive or negative toward the protests and, as I pointed out in the previous post, numerous league executives have gone so far as to demonize the quarterback as a “traitor.”

Are white players, who may be sympathetic to the plight of black America, simply not courageous enough to stick their necks out and support their teammates? Do they think that it would be overstepping their bounds? Are they embarrassed? Do they fail to understand the issue sufficiently? Does their whiteness make them feel ill-equipped to protest racial injustice? Or, perhaps it’s more likely the case that speaking out against injustice and effectively peeling back the layers of racism and prejudice that we long since thought were dead and buried, undermines the league’s role as America’s cheerleader-in-chief.

Certainly, if someone knows of a white NFL player who has stepped out in protest alongside his fellow teammates, by all means, fill me in, and I will write about it. In any case, it is incumbent on us, not as white people on the outside looking in, but as human beings, as brothers and sisters, to view racial injustice, not just as a problem for black people, but as our problem as Americans.

Just like slavery, forced subjugation, disenfranchisement and legalized segregation from previous generations, today’s systemic racism, institutionalized bigotry and police brutality are all of our problems. Anything short of this recognition renders all the blaring displays of patriotism little more than sound and the fury, signifying nothing but an abdication of responsibility to our fellow citizens.

[Artwork credit: “Police Brutality” by DeviantArt user The Rising Soul.]

Racial injustice and the Kaepernick effect

Whether you agree or disagree with Colin Kaepernick’s decision to sit down during the national anthem as a way to protest racial injustice across the country, his right to do so as an American citizen, who is fully endowed with the freedom of speech and expression, is unquestionable.

Will his action, or lack thereof, spark a larger conversation on social justice, police reform or the broken justice system, or, in other words, will it get us talking about something other than Colin Kaepernick? Probably not. The opinion of a multimillionaire who plays football for a living is unlikely to move the needle. But what he has done, perhaps unknowingly, is lay bare the utter hypocrisy and contradictory ethical standards of more than a few head coaches and team executives in the NFL who have all but demonized the man for daring to take a stand for his convictions.

Credit: Associated Press

Credit: Associated Press

In a league that has been awash with nearly unbridled patriotism — bordering on psychotic nationalism — for decades, here is a guy expressing one of the nation’s founding principles: Resistance to injustice and oppression. Quite literally, there is nothing more American than that — arguably even more American than the so-called “paid patriotism” the government tried to generate when it gave the league $6.8 million for “military pageantry” at football games. The NFL supposedly paid back the money, but the same kind of manufactured, robotic, obligatory patriotism, with endless renditions of the national anthem, prayers and American flags as far as the eye can see — just in case we forget what country we live in — continues at nearly every sporting on almost every day of the week in every county in the union. Because, you know, if we tell ourselves America is the greatest nation on the planet over and over and over and sing to each other about it and pray hard enough to gods who somehow let us slip from the top spot because we now allow gay people to get married and be themselves in public without fear of getting stoned to death and because of whatever sins are being committed right now in Las Vegas or New Orleans, maybe, just maybe, it will be true again someday.

So, there you have it. The Kaepernick effect. Even if protesting the anthem will have little, if any, real world implications or lead to an open dialogue on the problems that plague our nation, Kaepernick has reminded those who needed reminding that we are far from the greatest country in the world, and until we stop the killing of unarmed people in the street and put an end to the culture of protectionism inside the criminal justice system, we will be far from it.

And it is this painful realization that seems to explain the unfiltered vitriol that has come from his detractors in recent days. They seem to think that sports is hallowed ground. They seem to think that when the lights go on, if we can just come together in a few fleeting moments to watch 22 guys rip each others’ heads off, all the world’s problems will just dissipate into thin air. In short, Kaepernick exposed the relatively insular world of professional sports to the ugly realities on the street and to a string of injustices that have rattled a nation, some of which, almost certainly took place mere yards or miles from the towers of excess we call American football stadiums.

I, for one, thought he put his rationalization in the plainest of terms:

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.

And the San Francisco 49s acknowledged that Kaepernick did nothing wrong by staying seated. Players are encouraged to stand for the anthem, but are not required. According to the team:

The national anthem is and always will be a special part of the pre-game ceremony. It is an opportunity to honor our country and reflect on the great liberties we are afforded as its citizens. In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose and participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem.”

While player reactions have been mixed, the rage over Kaepernick’s actions burned bright and hot in front offices across the league, as seven executives said they would not want the quarterback on their team, according to the Bleacher Report. Each of the seven suits said about 90-95 of other front desk execs agreed with their sentiments. Other comments got plain nasty. One executive called Kaepernick a “traitor,” while another threw this dart:

He has no respect for our country. Fuck that guy.

And here are the thoughts of one general manager in the NFL:

In my career, I have never seen a guy so hated by front office guys as Kaepernick.

As it turns out, folks who have, or are still, profiting mightily from their gainful association with the NFL have done a lot worse than refusing to stand up for the national anthem. The Will Smith movie, “Concussion,” has already exposed NFL officials’ wanton disregard for player safety in the past, and the league’s pattern of doling out soft punishments for domestic abusers like Greg Hardy and Ray Rice is nothing short of disgraceful.

I’m not going to attempt to approve of and justify all of Kaepernick’s behavior. Wearing the pig-cop socks was probably a little beyond the pale, although not without precedent in pop culture, but the NFL has committed vastly more egregious offenses than simply allowing a player to exercise his right to conduct peaceful and silent protests in the name of justice.

[Credit: Cover artwork “Racism” by DeviantArt user ahmedwkhan.]

Sexism: Not what The Rock is cookin’

Full disclosure: I am a fan of the pro wrestling craft and have been since the 1980s, but I think I present a fairer and more comprehensive assessment of the WWE than the articles critiqued below. The idea for this post came from Don Tony, with the Don Tony and Kevin Castle Show. Go check them out here: http://wrestling-news.com.

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I know the good folks over at the Bleacher Report and Vocativ just need something to keep themselves busy, and in the fully-pajamaed, dweeb-in-the-basement-industry of Internet prognostication, any old fodder will do, but no serious writer who looks at the WWE today can conclude that the wrestling promotion, or wrestling in general, is any more or less sexist in its presentation and objectification of women than other products in the entertainment industry.

But as writers on the Internet are wont to do, Alex Goot, with Vocativ, and Ryan Dilbert, with the Bleacher Report, took great pains to shed all remnants of logic and type up critiques of what they deem is WWE’s glaring problem with sexism, particular in light of The Rock’s recent return to RAW on Jan. 25, as seen here:

The two articles actually read like mirror-pieces because they more or less cover the same ground on the Rock’s seemingly unscripted (I doubt it) conversation backstage with C.J. Perry, aka Lana, about their sexual proclivities, which partly took place in the presence of Perry’s real-life fiancé, Miroslav Barnyashev, aka Rusev.

During the segment, The Rock recalled how Lana met him in a hotel room at some point in the past, and the pair performed various positions in bed, one of which included the “one-legged Russian vacuum.”

According to Dilbert:

The Rock congratulated him on having a wife who was so flexible.

Lana offered no response. She mostly just stood there blushing. She wasn’t a player in this bit of minitheater; she was a prop.

At her height, Lana was both alluring and powerful. She was vicious, power-hungry, a blindly passionate patriot and real wrestling character. Over time, she’s been reduced to the subject of sex-centered storylines. She went from being the smiling, silent woman on Dolph Ziggler’s arm to the smiling, silent woman hanging around Rusev.

On Monday night, WWE pulled her back into the spotlight just to make a cheap joke about her promiscuity.

Dilbert and Goot miss, or purposefully exclude, some rather obvious, yet important details in this, and almost all, segments on WWE programming that anyone with an IQ over 50 would understand. First, these are all fictional characters talking to each other about fictional events. The Rock is not Dewayne Johnson the movie star; he is the “larger than life” character created by the WWE to entertain audience members and people watching at home. He is a little tamped down from the Attitude Era days, but he still says things that would be inappropriate in real life, as do many characters in all facets of the entertain industry.

Second, in order for The Rock, the character, to talk about Lana’s promiscuity, he must also talk about his own. If we want to pretend to tread the moral high ground in breaking down this segment, we might also ask what The Rock was doing getting drunk and messing around with someone else’s girlfriend. Yet, in the criticism against WWE, we are led to believe that only Lana could have been complicit in these fictional hotel acrobatics, as if Lana was the ultimate seducer, and The Rock was just along for the proverbial ride. Could we not call that assessment sexist as well?

Third, Lana was not suddenly downgraded from a “vicious, power-hungry, a blindly passionate patriot” to the coy, fawning female on RAW the other night just so The Rock could air their — again, fictional — exploits in front of millions of people. Lana has had “heat,” as they call it in the wrestling business, because she allegedly leaked news of her and Rusev’s real-life engagement on social media at a time when the couple were involved in a storyline dispute on TV. She also apparently had some kind of spat on social media with Paige, which also got her some heat. As a result, and this is the usual trend in WWE, she is being afforded less time on TV at the moment.

Fourth, are characters, who represent exaggerated version of real life figures, supposed to simply ignore the topic of human relationships and sex purely because WWE may run the risk of objectifying people? Drunken sex in hotels and promiscuous horseplay are still things people do, right? So, why does WWE run afoul for suggesting that an explicit and fictional encounter occurred between two consenting adults? Cheating on your boyfriend may be unethical, but it’s not illegal.

In any case, over-analyzing dialogue between fictional characters about fictional events in this way amounts to borderline insanity.

While WWE does have its fair share of boorish characters, both male and female, not all male characters in the company dredge up the sexual histories of female wrestlers, and not all female wrestlers are depicted as shallow, one-dimensional Barbies. Examples of the latter include A.J. Lee, who, until recently, was the longest running women’s champion in history, Lita, Jacqueline, Alundra Blayze, Charlotte, Sasha Banks, Natalya, etc.

I will say that when the opportunity presents itself, WWE does tend to go for the relationship storylines too often, in which female characters often get pigeonholed as side-kick figures, and people like John Cena and Ryback, who are supposed to be good guys, as Goot pointed out, sometimes make crude jokes about heel characters, as Lana was at one time. I would chalk these up less to sexism and more to laziness on the part of the writers.

Goot also took issue with Ric Flair kissing Becky Lynch during a match with Charlotte at the Royal Rumble in order to cause a distraction and help Charlotte regain the upper hand.

According to Goot:

Rather than adding anything of value to the contest, Flair’s actions took the audience out of it, forcing viewers to contemplate the strange display they just witnessed, rather than focusing on the action in the ring.

Flair’s kiss becomes even more maddening given how utterly unnecessary it was, with the finish of the match coming after some additional, far less lecherous interference. Bringing sexual harassment into the storyline added little, if anything, to Flair’s villainy.

What Goot failed to mention is that Flair’s character, which he has played on and off for 30 years, actually is an immoral and flamboyant ladies man, and the words, “kiss stealing” are part of his DNA as a character, as in the well-worn mantra that he is a “kiss stealing, wheeling dealing, limousine riding, jet flying, son of a gun.” Goot also failed to mention that Becky Lynch gave Flair a stiff slap in the face in return for his antics.

So, yes, Flair is a bad guy who would not and should not suddenly change to fit in with our modern sensibilities. Would a 2016 remake of “Scarface” show Tony Montana finally getting clean, going into rehab for his cocaine addiction and starting a new life in The Hamptons as a real estate agent? Would we, as consumers, even want to see a reformed Tony Montana? Of course not.

Low brow humor is easy pickings for overworked writers who are under immense pressure to produce five hours of television every week and 12-13 PPVs per year, but WWE is a publicly traded company now and has to answer to advertisers, so while the company clearly still has some outstanding issues related to gender, race and stereotypes, it is worlds removed from the WWE of the Attitude Era or the 1980s in the current PG era of political correctness.

If we want to have a conversation on sexism and the objectification of women in the entertainment industry, we could certainly find plenty to talk about, but we should have some perspective about judging wrestling against other television shows, movies and even music. Where is the outcry against television shows like Game of Thrones, which routinely depicts violence against women, misogyny and sexual abuse? Where is the outcry against shows like Real Housewives of (insert city) and The Bachelor? What about the sexism depicted in Mad Men, 2 Broke Girls and Modern Family? Hell, if we’re so concerned about objectification, why don’t we call for a boycott of Sports illustrated for producing a swimsuit edition?

I agree with Goot that WWE can and should do more to promote strong, confident women who should have more time on the mic and in the ring and be given more complex storylines, but the truth is that WWE does present strong-willed, ass-kicking females every week, 52 weeks out of the year. Perhaps strongest of all, despite her villainy on TV, is Stephanie McMahon, who is helping to run the company, all the while raising three daughters.

To suggest that WWE in the year 2016 is a hotbed of sexism, when one of its principle owners is a powerful female, all the while ignoring the rest of the entertainment industry, which features nearly ubiquitous examples of overt sexism and objectification that trump anything on WWE programming in recent memory, all the while ignoring the fact that WWE is, itself, a form of entertainment, is a dubious claim to make about a company that routinely trips over itself, almost to a fault, to toe the PG line and kowtow to the PC culture.

Monetized patriotism

By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’(1). But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality. – George Orwell

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I don’t use words like “disgusting” very often because overusing strong adjectives tends to devalue their meaning, but when we find something that is genuinely repellent — say, when the U.S. Department of Defense provides more than $6 million to 16 NFL teams for advertising about supporting the troops and the teams accepting the cash — I think “disgusting” is apropos. I think pretty much the same when recalling the many examples of the exploitation of patriotism in the entertainment and sports industries and the borderline nationalism that purveys many sectors of public life. See Toby Keith. See the WWE’s Tribute to the Troops. See American Sniper. See virtually every American sports event after Sept. 11, 2001.

In that vein, Charles Pierce has given us an excellent play-by-play of the “messy business” of propaganda and how sports has not only cheapened the idea of patriotism by insisting that Americans can’t gather for an afternoon baseball or football game without obligatory rituals and renditions of the national anthem that have essentially become meaningless by repetition, but has now effectively “commodified” patriotism:

Most veterans you will see on the field in an NFL stadium, or standing on top of a dugout between innings, are genuinely worthy of the country’s admiration. They’ve earned every cheer they get. They also have earned decent health care and a chance at an education and whatever counseling they need to get beyond what they’ve experienced. What they don’t deserve to be are front people through whom the rich get richer, to be walking advertisements for the services that they already have paid back in full. This is a transaction grotesquely inappropriate for their sacrifices.

Hansen torches Cowboys, NFL

Dale Hansen has brought the rhetorical pain on the Dallas Cowboys for hiring Greg Hardy, who was involved in a domestic dispute for beating his girlfriend, threatening to kill her and then paying her off to simply disappear:

Hardy was convicted of assault and sending death threats this past summer. And now, he will be playing football for the Cowboys, who will pay him a handsome $11.3 million. Meanwhile, the Cowboys, and the NFL more broadly, have relinquished any remaining scruples to which they were still feebly clinging. After Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson, the NFL’s track record on domestic violence is indefensible.