The More You Know:Davis Issues An Apology For Unknowingly Using a racist slur
Carlton Davis just came off the biggest season of his entire career.
The young fella became a legit CB1 in, arguably, the League’s toughest division. He stepped into the spotlight by repeatedly giving top receivers their hardest games.
He had a big uptick in production as well as took on bigger responsibility on the field as a leader for the secondary.
All that notoriety follows him off the field where anything he says or does is magnified exponentially. Coming off a Super Bowl win, that spotlight can catch any and every dark moment at any given time.
Just recently, the stud cornerback known as C-Murda has found himself in a dark spot most people, let alone high profile people, want to find themselves. He’s having to explain something he’s said. Furthermore, he’s having to explain something he didn’t know.
In response to rapper/producer Southside saying he “runs Miami”, Davis tweeted out his feelings on the situation. In the tweet, he used terminology that, to him and the area he grew up in, meant “lame” or corny.
In the tweet, Davis says “Gotta stop letting g***s in Miami. The rapper he was addressing is a native of Atlanta, GA that moved to the Miami area rather than being born and raised there. Hence, the notion of stop letting them in. Without context or knowledge of both the usage of the term AND Davis’ knowledge of the term, it came off as a slight to Asians.
While it may be a casual insult or jab to some, the word he used, had also been utilized as a racial slur toward people of Asian descent. In particular, Koreans and Vietnamese.
The term he used in the tweet isn’t common. You’ve probably seen or heard some try to say narrow down the lack of knowledge of the term to south Floridians like Davis. But the truth is, it isn’t common to many under the age of 40 or those who haven’t been continuously surrounded by such direct racism.
I had heard or seen that term exactly ONCE in my entire life until I saw the blowback from Davis’ tweet. Until The Athletic’s Greg Auman retweeted out a screenshot of the deleted message, it had been damn near 20 years since I first heard that terminology.
The first time that word entered my world was on WWF television back in 2001 when The Big Show(Paul Wight) was cutting a promo on a stable of wrestlers of Asian descent.
The wrestlers he was addressing were known for cutting promos that played out like old kung fu movies edited for American television. They’d have long-winded dialogue in Japanese that was dubbed over in English. The characters would be done talking, but the audio lagged behind or vice versa.
Honestly, I thought it was a hilarious bit they routinely did.
All the way up until the time where The Big Show’s dialect came across as the racial slur. Allegedly, the wrestler was meant to call the stable a couple of goofs. Audibly, it came across as something completely different. The entire incident as well as the subsequent clarification can be found here.
When I heard it, I immediately asked myself “What the hell is a g****?!”. It sounded offensive. I knew it was definitely aimed at the two Asian wrestlers and only slightly assumed it could’ve been aimed at a larger group of Asians.
Even though the internet was indeed a thing in 2001, I had to ask a few older people around me what the word was and if they’d even heard of it. Google wasn’t exactly accessible back then. My uncle, a 15 year Air Force veteran, was the one to tell me it used to be a slanderous term aimed at Asians.
That was it. That was 20 years ago that I last saw that word until Carlton Davis’ tweet.
And his tweet didn’t use it in a context that was aimed at a person of Asian descent or anything of the like. Davis was addressing a Black man with no known Asian heritage. His explanation in his follow-up apology/clarification tweets seems honest enough.
In his subsequent tweet, Davis says he’ll retire the word from his vocabulary.
As much as anything, I implore people to not include those who have gotten caught saying things that have been more widely known to be offensive and hurtful in the same boat as Carlton Davis. Don’t confuse Davis’ situation with someone else’s who’s been outed for egregiously using slanderous language with strong intent. Those people weren’t learning anything new about the language they were using. They only learned about the consequence and backlash of using it. And that’s a distinct difference.
There are plenty of race-baiting people and bots jumping on the “how did he not know” train in attacking Davis’ tweet. It’s nothing new. These types have always been in the bushes waiting to ask “what if the situation was reversed?” and use very telling language like “reverse racism” which shows they know exactly what racism is and what’s been the primary source and target of its use in America.
If you’re wondering how Davis didn’t know a word he commonly used was also a racist slur, you should stop and question how you or the people you know learned to use it as a racial slur when others didn’t.
Updated: GM Jason Licht releases a statement on the situation:
If you’re interested in seeing what you can do to help support those who have been affected by violence and hate towards those in the Asian-American community, please click here. You’ll find multiple support channels and donations for those who have been attacked and/or abused as a result of the most recent attacks towards people of Asian descent.
