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Man Up: Declaring a war on warrior culture in the wake of the Miami Dolphins bullying scandal
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9939308/richie-incognito-jonathan-martin-miami-dolphins-bullying-scandal"...
I guess the nuanced line on the scandal in Miami is that a locker room is a complicated organism, and the aggression/affection dynamic between teammates is impossible for outsiders to understand.2 Maybe that's true. But there are boundaries in locker rooms, same as anywhere else, and those boundaries are culturally conditioned, same as anywhere else, and they change with time, and they can be influenced. And it would be really good, it would be a really good thing, if the NFL moved its boundaries in such a way as to show some minimal respect for mental health. Not just for PR purposes, but because for as hell-bent as we seem on turning football players into gods without dignity, humanity doesn't stop the moment you strap on a Dolphins helmet. I don't know when football forgot that fact, but the evidence is overwhelming that it needs to remember.
There will always be locker-room assholes. They should be curtailed. And when a player says he needs time off for mental reasons — again: in a sport with a suicide problem — it shouldn't spark a national conversation on whether he's soft.
I am here to hurt you, so I'll also say this: You're a warrior, cool. What the hell are you a warrior for? I'm sorry if this makes it sound like I have emotions other than anger — I assure you that I don't — but tell me this: What's the point of being strong if all you stand for is abusing a suffering teammate? Those guys who taught me that when you see a problem, you step up and solve it, all those anonymous sources foaming on about how to be a man — is that what they think "being a man" is? I mean, nothing about protecting someone who's struggling in your big gender equation, then? Nothing about, like, knowing right from wrong?
Here's what I can't stop thinking: There were so many tough men in that Dolphins locker room. The unwritten code of football is that you handle your business in-house. Any one of these men could have said something to stop Incognito and help Martin. Any one of them could have handled it. They're warriors, right? They're paragons of strength. And yeah, there are complex reasons why they didn't. But they didn't."
He says what needs to be said.
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