Hey, there! Log in / Register

Dennis and Callahan love calling a black man 'thug'

Deadspin analyzes the use of the word "thug" to describe Richard Sherman's post-game comments, finds Boston media led the country in using the term yesterday, almost entirely because of John "Little Joe" Dennis and Callahan:

In Boston, nearly all of its country-leading mentions of thugs came from the TV broadcast of WEEI's Dennis & Callahan, which at one point reached a peak of 12 "thug"s in two minutes.

Topics: 
Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

Seriously, besides the Sox games, who listens to WEEI? While John Henry is working on his non-profit plans for the city through the ownership of the Globe, how about making the city a better place by dropping the Dummy & Chowderhead show from NESN in the morning? He has the power since he owns 80% of the station. One less revenue stream for Entercom to keep the tough guys in their 50's with the mikes on the air.

up
Voting closed 0

There is no evidence that supports that assertion.

Sherman violence is football violence. What makes him an extraordinary football player is his athleticism.

His post game interview, if you can call it that, seemed incongruously loud and peculiar and inappropriately angry but it wasn't violent.

Sherman is using the media to increase his personal profile. He also just made the play that sealed the NFC championship for the Seahawks. He is a excellent corner on one of the NFL's best defenses.

Sherman got noticed but not in the best light. That said, there's no basis to call him a thug.

up
Voting closed 0

Richard Sherman on Being Called a Thug:

It's the Accepted Way of Calling Somebody the N-Word
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu4uxNNNVc8 Wed, Jan 22.

up
Voting closed 0

Hes a VERY smart man, who is just adding to his marketing hype and backing up all he says be being the best player on the field.

Dennis and Callahan are just ugly racists.

up
Voting closed 0

Yet Sherman had near perfect grades out of high school and graduated from Stanford with a solid academic record.

He had his head in the game and in NFL culture. The Loser Brigade is frightened by a brilliant and passionate black guy who can also play sports in a way that their pathetic selves never could.

up
Voting closed 0

Sherman represents the worst in professional sports.

Yes, he is a brilliant player. But denigrating your opposition in the way he did, after a victory, is the very epitome of poor sportsmanship. Whether or not he knew what he was doing - whether it was a marketing ploy on his part - is mostly irrelevant. The actions themselves were despicable.

I'm not so obtuse as to miss the racial factor for some - that's proven by the very real way some comments on FB and other places have been openly racial in nature - but I believe race is not a factor for most of us who think what he did was wrong. For my part, I've been sickened by celebrations at expense of opponents, in the NFL, since the heyday of Mark Gastineau (very much a white man and the spiritual father of what Sherman spewed on Sunday.)

Putting a racial spin on it, as though the commentators started this and they are the ones at fault, is disingenuous (barring the possibility that you are truly ignorant, of course, but I doubt that's the case.)

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

up
Voting closed 0

sportmanship? its a league of cheaters run by a man who couldn't care less if all the players end up with brain damage. The NFL is not much more than the WWE these days. What Sherman did just fits in perfectly.

You want to talk about poor sportsmanship? Poor sportmanship is Bill Belichicks sour grapes attack on Welker's pick play. Its "A league Matter" but he couldnt wait to talk about it.

up
Voting closed 0

Agreed, 100%. Truly classless to call out Welker on that play. It was an unfortunate injury to Talib, but nothing much that the Patriots themselves haven't more-or-less done numerous times.

(By the way, for those keeping score, Gerry Callahan said much the same in today's Herald.)

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

up
Voting closed 0

If you want NFL football players to be gentlemen at all times, don't stick a microphone in their faces within a few minutes of the end of the game.

Football is not tennis or golf. It's a game in which you must commit your body to colliding with your opponent at top speeds in order to thwart their advance. To prepare for football, you put your mind in a different place before you start the game. When the game is over it takes time to come back from that place.

Sportsmanship is an important value which I support. In professional sports, it is subordinate to winning and profit. Case in point, professional hockey fights. What is less about good sportsmanship than league sanctioned fighting?

Richard Sherman's "interview" was a rant and arguably poor sportsmanship. Sticking a mic in his face a minute after the game ended was Fox's bad judgement.

up
Voting closed 0

You don't think these players have the self control to speak after football games?

I disagree.

up
Voting closed 0

swirly, you fell for the other side of the story. Being smart doesnt make you NOT a thug. It is possible to graduate from Stanford and still be a thug.

The truth is hes an entertainer, building his brand. We are all talking about him, more than we would be if he had just tipped a pass to end the game.

up
Voting closed 0

Sherman is a performer.

Do you have any evidence otherwise?

up
Voting closed 0

But dont cite his performance in school asa evidence. To me that is as ignorant as calling him a thug.

up
Voting closed 0

He may well be brilliant but I've seen zero evidence of that in his behavior. And don't kid yourself, there are plenty of football players that have graduated with decent grades who can't even read.

Again, he may have earned every grade, but I'm not taking that at face value. (Nor would I for a white or purple football player.)

I also don't think his behavior the other night, nor any I've seen, is thuggish.

I'd call him more of a punk than a thug. Show some respect for yourself, the game, your opponents, and the fans.

up
Voting closed 0

But just in case, it was Stanford, which doesn't have sports scholarships.

up
Voting closed 0

http://facts.stanford.edu/campuslife/athletics - The Department of Athletics offers 36 varsity sports—20 for women, 16 for men—plus 26 club sports. Stanford offers 300 athletic scholarships. About 800 student participate in intercollegiate sports. Stanford scholar-athletics have earned 151 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships—a national best.

No athletic scholarships, you say?

up
Voting closed 1

It does offer them, Adam. From their own website, at http://facts.stanford.edu/campuslife/athletics

"Stanford offers 300 athletic scholarships." (Second paragraph)

I do not know how or to whom those scholarships are distributed, but Stanford does have them.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

up
Voting closed 0

Had higher SAT scores than Sherman. It is amazing to see someone like Sherman come from such a tough place and do what he has done, but lets stop all this talk about "brilliance"

What he said and what Belichick said are exactly the same. Both kind of arrogant, selfish statements.

up
Voting closed 0

Yeah. Thought so.

Sorry, there's no way you can deny Sherman's intelligence. Watch the video of him talking about his approach to the game and how he studies the tapes--he's definitely someone who prizes strategy over athleticism. And he's sharp and funny and charismatic--no Ali, IMO, but very interesting to watch. He may be arrogant or a jerk or unsportsmanlike but bringing the term "thug" into it implies a racially loaded criminality that just isn't there.

up
Voting closed 0

thug, punk, loser, arrogant, loudmouth......

I'm fine with any of those words to describe him. If he was white, he would be called a clown, punk, "crazy", "insane" or some other term.

It would also be true that many in the national sports media knows that he failed a drug test, and got off on a technicality. There are so many better examples of good character in the NFL than for us to celebrate Sherman as being some sort of brilliant mind. Most NFL players are obsessed with film, Sherman is no different.

And the word thug isn't always what the white dictionary says it is. So look up what TuPac defines the word as, or any other African American from an urban location. You will get many different definitions. A lot of white males under the age of 40 grew up with a different sense of what words like "thug" means (that may not excuse Dennis and Callahan), but rap music was a huge part of young male culture in the 1980s and 1990s, white or black, and the vocabulary sometimes shows that.

up
Voting closed 0

Seriously? Are you really not seeing a difference between calling him a clown or a punk and a thug? Come on. And again--are we talking about failing a drug test or are we talking about his behavior the other day!

up
Voting closed 0

Last paragraph above.

And punk doesn't have some great connotations either if you look up that word:

Inexperienced, of poor quality, worthless, a petty criminal or hoodlum, homosexual, inferior, rotten, worthless....

Yea punk sounds like a much better term, were you picturing Joey Ramone, or Sid Viscious?

up
Voting closed 0

And/ or grade inflation. C'mon Adam, almost every kid at Harvard gets honor grades too.
Again, he may have earned every grade but it's not unheard of for star athletes to get preferential treatment, even w/o scholarships.

up
Voting closed 0

Seems it really was in the heat of the moment and trash-talking on the field comes under a much different and lower level of scrutiny.

Glad to see he's stepping back after the adrenaline wears off.

And he's a charitable person giving back.

Not a punk and certainly not a thug.

up
Voting closed 0

I was always bewildered by your thugophile comments, but it all makes sense now. What else can you expect from a self-loathing, white guilt-ridden liberal?

up
Voting closed 0

I don't even loath most other whites. Just you.

up
Voting closed 0

That would be swirly - you're more of a masochistic altruist type. Big difference between screaming "long live thugs" from a safe white suburb vs 'hood where the said thugs are shooting and robbing few blocks away from your house.

up
Voting closed 0

Roslindale is a "safe white suburb" now? Anon geography is a magical thing.

up
Voting closed 0

It's not that dangerous, just stay out of the bricks. About half are white suburban streets.

up
Voting closed 0

That would be Swirly's Medford, and I'm fairly certain she lives in the wealthier part. Roslindale, on the other hand, is terrorized by thugs and had its fair share of shootings and armed robberies, hence admin's masochistic altruist label. White guilt normally fades pretty quickly when thugs set up their playground and all the nice things that come with it (violence, drugs, etc) few blocks away from one's house, though in admin's case he's still full of it despite the fact that at the rate things have been going in Roslindale lately, his kids or himself might find themselves staring down the barrel of a thug's gun one day.

up
Voting closed 0

If you haters would drop the pretense and just admit you hate blacks and brown people.

up
Voting closed 0

I don't know about others, but I hate thugs who happen to come in all colors - black, white, brown and yellow. Unfortunately, many of the thugs in Boston happen to be black, though there's plenty of white, latino and asian thugs as well, and it's always downright laughable seeing bleeding heart liberals trying to come up with excuses for unacceptable thug behavior. Now take that racist card of yours and put it back in the stack, you'll get plenty more chances to pin it on somebody else.

up
Voting closed 0

Did I miss something? Did Richard Sherman mug someone? Sell drugs to someone? Murder his grandma? Then why are we calling him a thug? Being a jerk while black doesn't make you a criminal. Get it?

up
Voting closed 0

Is someone who acts in an obnoxious, threatening manner and dresses in a way normally used to conceal one's identity and firearms (i.e. oversized baggy pants a handgun wouldn't "print" under, and dark oversized hoodie that hides one's face from witnesses and cameras.) Completely interchangeable with "punk," "hoodlum," "hood rat," "troublemaker," etc.

up
Voting closed 0

Making up rubbish. (Yes, there have been some unfortunate events in Roslindale -- but no one I know feels anything like "terrorized").

up
Voting closed 0

In the 70s on the west coast, trailer courts were essentially equivalent to housing projects, with a different soundtrack and all the attendant poverty, crime, and violence. I grew up in that sort of mess. We had to know the difference between TRASH TALKING and actual credible THREATS of violence from actual violent thugs because drugs and guns were all around at home, on the school bus, at school ...

Anon wouldn't last five minutes in that "real" an environment, not knowing who to ignore and who to avoid.

For review:
Person who commits violent acts = THUG (aka Hernandez)
Person who trash talks but doesn't commit violet acts = Trash Talker/Drama Queen (aka Sherman)

Athletes who trash talk are NOT THUGS but PERFORMERS. Athletes who murder and commit assault, etc. are THUGS.

Get it straight Anon - the real world isn't like your GTA fantasy land on your screen and your little rap i-tunes collection.

up
Voting closed 0

Charles Barkley
Dion Sanders
Marlon Briscoe
Ahmad Rashad

..just to name a few

up
Voting closed 0

I've seen your arguments and I've seen your requests form citations. I understand you work with data. You're better than your second and last paragraphs. You calling out an anon for his inability to hang where you come from is no different than the peeps who call you out for not understanding where they're from.

You don't win arguments by conjecture. I'm an anon who disagrees with you quite often. My current written views would reveal quite little about my hardscrabble background.
Furthermore, I'm surprised how you seem to be stereotyping someone who you assume to be not from a hard 'hood. They wouldn't last 5 minutes? What do you base this on?

I know kids in my old hood ( a tough one ) who wouldn't last a second in another hood. They were protected in ours b/c they weren't hard. I also know some courageous hard fucks who didn't grow up hard at all but have heart and skills and will walk anywhere anytime and regulate.

Your trailer park anecdote, like many others, is vote but has no relevance.

You should really get back to your stats and citations.

Thanks.

up
Voting closed 0

.

up
Voting closed 0

Ok, but no points for civility. I guess he slept through that class. What a great example to set for aspiring athletes...

up
Voting closed 0

I'd say he's rather "thuggish."

up
Voting closed 0

If it's a black man who actually acts and sounds like a thug, and if Deadspin reports it, and if someone from Boston says so, well, it's racist, of course.

The term thug fits in the case of Richard Sherman.

I think Adam just doesn't like the source of the comments. I don't, either, but c'mon...

up
Voting closed 0

Someone who talks trash? (Because that's why D&C called him a thug) Mohammed Ali talked the most trash out of any athlete. Is he a thug?

up
Voting closed 0

I've heard people citing Ali as a trash talker and saying there is little difference between he and Sherman. Why are we picking on Sherman when so many people idolize Ali, etc.

When Sherman is stripped of his championship (if he wins one) by government agencies colluding to deny him a license to practice his profession, and then is forced into missing three-and-a-half years of his career, during the prime of his sporting life, because he refuses to back down from something he deeply believes, then we can start equating him with Ali. Until then, the comparison is specious at best.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

up
Voting closed 0

What's racist is that one liberal radio station that comes on every morning where they talk down about anyone white.. The same station who for no reason bitched about how thought that boy who stabbed his teacher to death and dumped her in woods was prob due to the victim "most likely engaging in sexual activities" with the killer. U all know what station I mean?

up
Voting closed 0

Do tell.

up
Voting closed 0

I believe its anons radio station WMSU also known as We Make Shit Up.

up
Voting closed 1

Care to share which radio station you're talking about?

up
Voting closed 0

Lèctio sancti Evangèlii secùndum Vincent ,

When you get into the end zone, act like you've been there before.

up
Voting closed 0

Since when is calling someone a thug
Racist ? Liberal clowns

up
Voting closed 0

Snow storm pandering, I don't know what is.

up
Voting closed 0

Well, if I do a Google search on "Richard Sherman Thug" I get 131,000 results.

When I search on "Chris Christie Thug" I get 279,000.

up
Voting closed 0

Try "Allen Iverson", who America didn't just learn existed in the past week

(Wait, I don't even see a number of results on a google search anymore - where did it go?)

up
Voting closed 0

That guy? That lousy "The Answer, A.I., Bubba Chuck, Jewelz, The Third Degree" guy. (Google search results.)

up
Voting closed 0

The racists, or more to the point, the race-baiters, can't have this word. Especially since they're the one's it is generally most applicable to.

up
Voting closed 0

JohnAKeith,

Richard Sherman +Thug : 190 results
Chris Christie +Thug : 115 results

You need to add the + in front of thug, or pages that mention the name without the term can potentially be counted as well. The + tells google to explicitly require that term. You should probably put the first and last name in quotes too, but we'll save that for googling 102.

Can we all just agree that Dennis and Callahan are horrible?

up
Voting closed 0

Thank you for the search tip. Srsly never knew that!

And, yes, they're imbeciles.

up
Voting closed 0

I figure it's because their corporate masters finally told them that playing the rickety right-wing Statler & Waldorf of sports blather was ratings death, accelerating the exodus of younger fans to the Sports Hub. They hardly ever make har-dee-har wink-wink jokes about Metco gorillas any more.

It's too bad they're so awful: Callahan has him moments as a writer, like that old chestnut of "high school seniors playing their last football game" column the Herald trots out every November. But otherwise, whenever it veers slightly from sports, that morning show is like two versions of your grandfather who listens to Rush all day after his eighth tallboy at Thanksgiving: painful, and never clever, always falling back on the tritest, most shopworn rightie propaganda tropes. It gets particularly cringe-worthy any time they start talking about pop culture: music, films, TV. Please don't, Grampaw and Peepaw. Just. Stop.

up
Voting closed 0

in the woods metaphor for radio/TV. If no one is listening do they really say anything.

up
Voting closed 0

Sherman's over-the-top aggressiveness in the interview reminded me of Bust Rhymes's performance preceding the fight scene in the film Higher Learning.

up
Voting closed 0

major shake ups coming. will d or c still be standing when the dust settles? hmmmmmm

up
Voting closed 0

When that whole Manti Te'o fake girlfriend thing came out, I was as amused as most were.. but D&C loooooved talking about this and it got to downright homophobic levels.

up
Voting closed 0

Weren't D&C accurate though? He was acting tough and violent which is what I saw in the dictionary.

Are we at the point where we can't use accurate words in the dictionary or be called racist?

This is a bunch of bull.

You guys can stay at the kids table.

up
Voting closed 0

"a brutal ruffian or assassin : gangster, tough"

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thug

Would you care to link to a reputable dictionary that defines a "thug" as "someone who engages in arrogant trash talking"?

up
Voting closed 0

I have used the term Union Thugs forever.

Is that racist too?

Liberals need to constantly move the goalposts of racism so that they can constantly say racism is a huge problem and justify electing Democrats.

up
Voting closed 0

Just stupid.

up
Voting closed 0

Thug n.
1. a tough and violent man, esp a criminal
2. (Historical Terms) (sometimes capital) (formerly) a member of an organization of robbers and assassins in India who typically strangled their victims
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/dict.aspx?rd=1&word=thug

up
Voting closed 0

Take a pill people. Liberals used to be cool. Now they're so uptight. They're no fun to be around.

up
Voting closed 0

This idea that the word thug is racist can easily be debunked:

"It requires short term memory loss to say "thug"= black. Hell, just days ago "thug" was used to describe Rich Incognito and Chris Christie."

https://twitter.com/larryelder/status/427461954882387968

up
Voting closed 0