In this whole mess in Miami, where one player has verbally bullied another into apparently quitting professional football, we’ve once again missed the point.
We can’t see the forest for the trees, how this situation actually applies to us.
(Insert record scratch here.)
Us? What the heck is he talking about?
How do people become Richie Incognito? Or Jonathan Martin? These things don’t just happen. We all have roles to play, like actors. And we have been training for each moment of our lives. And we’ve all heard what we should do.
Treat others the way you wish to be treated. Turn the other check. Be kind, rewind. Smile when the world frowns. Be understanding of others and the fact you do not know what they may be going through.
It’s simple and yet incredibly difficult, right?
We don’t practice what we preach, because we’re human and humans make mistakes.
Then again, to ere is divine. Ask for forgiveness later. Don’t let anyone step on your buzz or stand in your way.
All of this to say we’re one massive contradiction.
I didn’t want to write about Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin, nor the Miami Dolphins “Code Red” approach to football basic training. But I can’t help it.
Does it matter if the Dolphins instructed Incognito to bring Martin along and toughen him up? Does it matter if they didn’t specify to not be a moron and leave racial slur-ridden messages for Martin? Does it matter if, according to teammates, Martin played the messages in the locker room and laughed? Does it matter that Joe Philbin’s airport press conference was a joke?
I suppose.
If you care about the dirty details. And most of us do. We want the gossip, the goods, the low-down. We’ll read the riveting expose of Incognito’s bullying ways that date back 10-plus years and call him a horrible human being. It’s probably true.
We’ll listen to the pundits blame Martin for not being tougher, for being weak. We’ll call this the NFL, the modern culture. We’ll draw comparisons to all kinds of professions and say this is just guys being guys. There might be some truth there, too.
We’ll blame Ryan Tannehill and members of the offensive line for not stopping it, for not being leaders, for not doing the right thing.
We’ll do our typical American thing, be appalled by someone, anyone – or multiple someones. Then, we will do our other typical American thing. We’ll go right back to being gossip hounds. We will ignore our children by staring at our phones. We’ll bad mouth friends, family and neighbors to anyone within ear shot. We will say someone cheated their way to the top. We’ll work 18 hours a day and sacrifice all of our relationships.
What the heck does this have to do with the situation in Miami?
Everything and nothing at the same time.
We breed this activity, we accept this kind of culture – in either situation. Whether or not you think Incognito was just doing his job, is certifiably insane or the absolute scum of the earth, you’re probably right. And Martin could be both a victim and a weakling. It’s all a matter of perspective.
But whatever your take, whatever your belief in this whole sordid ordeal, we allow it. All of it. And we’ve been building towards these moments for quite some time.
As I wrote last week, we are weak, though I certainly didn’t mean it in this context. And as I have also wrote before, we are some of the meanest, crudest, insincere and least connected people on earth.
It is all true.
We need a serious detox program for the culture of this country. The fact that this is even a hot debate raging in the media – and a thousand different opinions on who is right and wrong – says more than enough about us.
We don’t know who we are and what we value. At least as a collective unit, we don’t.
All I know is what I value, what I have been taught and what I believe. And I believe you don’t motivate someone with hate ridden voicemails and texts and bullying. That’s not motivating, that’s humiliating. And it would probably behoove you, as a professional organization, to oversee the development of your employee – not a borderline “talent” with past issues. You also might have the guts to stand up for yourself and tell someone before bailing, quitting and using the situation to your advantage.
But this isn’t about being a man or breaking fraternal locker room code. It’s about being a human being, inhabiting a world of other human beings and how we all treat each other on the daily.
The truth is, none of us have this whole thing figured out. If we did, we wouldn’t continue killing each other on battlefields. We wouldn’t continue to trash each other through social media for the world to see. We’d calm the heck down and learn to appreciate each other a little bit more.
If we knew what we were doing, we’d value the day-to-day life we’re blessed with and enjoy each moment, speak kinder to one another and just generally lighten up.
But we don’t. So we won’t.
Carry on.
Richie Incognito said he was just weathering the storm and this will pass.
Sadly, he’s right. We’ll let this go like everything else and not see how it is a magnified example of how we handle life, in our own way.
This too, shall pass.
That’s the entire problem. We let everything pass.
At least the stuff that actually matters.
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