(Note: This originally appeared as a column on the editorial page of the April 8, 2015 edition of The Anderson News.)
By now you know what Andrew Harrison
supposedly said.
If you don't know
what the University of Kentucky basketball player said Saturday after
the Wildcats were ousted from the NCAA Tournament, you obviously
haven't been paying attention.
In case you really
did miss it, here is a little refresher.
Kentucky went to
the Final Four with a 38-0 record and was a prohibitive favorite to
finish off an undefeated regular season. Wisconsin, however, had
other ideas. The Badgers made the plays when Kentucky didn't and
ended the Wildcat dream of an unbeaten season, 71-64.
A few minutes after
the game ended, Kentucky coach John Calipari brought four of his
players, including Andrew Harrison, to the post-game press
conference, where media types from around the nation get their chance
to ask questions that usually produce some kind of canned response.
Someone asked
Kentucky's Karl-Anthony Towns about Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky, the
national Player of the Year and a major reason the Wildcats went home
two wins short of perfection. As Towns began to answer, Harrison
muttered an expletive and a racial slur under his breath. The bad
news for Harrison was that his microphone was live.
I won't repeat what
Harrison said. If you don't know and are really curious, do a Google
search. You will find plenty of references on the Internet.
Some downplay the
racial slur as common language among young African-Americans. I get
that and truly believe it was poor judgment on the part of a young
man who had just seen his team's dream of a national championship
abruptly end.
During his two
years at Kentucky Harrison has always conducted himself well in the
public eye.
Therefore, I am not
about to condone what Harrison said. Neither am I going to condemn.
As a sports writer,
I can't say I have encountered the slur very often, but I have heard
the same expletive uttered many times by game participants countless
times during games. Watch just about any major college or pro
sporting event on TV and chances are if you read lips, you will see
the same word uttered over and over. We often make light of it with
terms like “colorful language.”
That, of course,
does not make it right.
But such language,
the type that kids would get their mouths washed out with soap for
using not that long ago, has become somewhat accepted in every day
life.
Why?
Last week, my wife
and I were walking through Fayette Mall in Lexington when we saw a
young man wearing a shirt printed with one of the offensive words
that Andrew Harrison used. Why was it wrong for him say something and
someone else able to purchase a shirt with the same word.
As I drove to the
office Tuesday morning, I was stopped behind a vehicle “adorned”
with a bumper sticker bearing another expletive.
I am sure the owner
of the vehicle thought it was funny.
It wasn't.
My question again
is why have we allowed such vulgar talk to become acceptable?
Recently, I sat
down to watch a movie with my daughter – my choice of movies, not
hers – and we made about 15 minutes before changing what was on our
TV. The language was that embarrassing.
I am not old enough
to know any first-hand reaction to Clark Gable's famous line in “Gone
With the Wind.” Nor am I patient enough to sit through the movie to
see the context in which he said it. What I do know is we have
allowed our cultural standards to decline to the point where much
stronger language have become common place in movies, music and every
day life.
Andrew Harrison
undoubtedly made a mistake and reached out to Kaminsky. He owned up
to what he did and will have to live with it.
The more pertinent
question is when will society own up to its mistake of diminished
standards of decorum.
