Anyone who has been around James Harrison for even a few seconds knows that he is about as far from soft spoken, as Men’s Journal is from quality journalism. The guy is a throwback to when players were gladiators, tried to punish you by going as hard as they could (not in a dirty way), and had no interest in being political correct.
Many of the things he said in the Men’s Journal interview were controversial. Using an anti-gay slur is unacceptable under any circumstances, but as far as the commissioner and his teammates, he has every right to speak his mind.
If this had been Peyton Manning or Tom Brady calling out the commissioner, or Drew Brees bad mouthing the owners (wait that actually happened), we would have applauded them for. We would side with them and all shake our heads in concert at how abhorrent the commissioner has acted. When one of the marquee players in the NFL calls out a teammate for lack of effort, or for being a distraction, they are exhibiting the strong leadership characteristics that make them so great.
But it wasn’t any of those marketable super stars speaking at a staged press conference after practice. It was James Harrison, a big scary black guy posing with guns. It’s important to note here that as far as we have come in the battle for equal rights, even an African American who was elected to be president, takes great measures to not come across as an “angry black man” when addressing emotional issues.
Don’t get me wrong, Harrison said the words, so he is responsible for their consequences. But shouldn’t we be taking a harder look at Men’s Journal’s role in all this.
Harrison’s presence as the scapegoat for the NFL rules on hitting, his outspoken nature, the volatile nature of his personality make him a great interview. But they also make him an easy target for a moral ambiguous media outlet to use him to get a bump in circulation. The story was thought up and designed to go “viral”. It was a ‘genius’ idea that they knew, with the never ending play ESPN gives to these things, would land their magazine firmly in the crosshairs of a public debate.
They wanted the attention that Harrison’s words were going to create, and in order to ensure they got it, they had him take his shirt off and hold a couple of guns.
Then they stuck John McEnroe on the cover. Seems like a double standard no? A Controversial black man holding some guns on the inside and a fully dressed white guy on the cover to keep the sponsors happy seems like a sleazy bit of PR magic doesn’t it?
They wanted to get off, getting off in this case meaning some much needed publicity, and they knew that they didn’t want to risk catching a case by exposing themselves to bad publicity. Harrison was the perfect prophylactic. He could be used and then thrown into the toilet of public opinion.
James Harrison should have known better. There’s no doubt about that, but Men’s Journal should take some of the blame for pouring gasoline on him, and handing him a box full of matches before disappearing into the background.
Exploiting people to sell magazines is par for the course these days, but if we are going to burn James Harrison at the stake for speaking his mind, Men’s Journal should be close enough that they get third degree burns on their exploiting asses.
—–Corey
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