By this late date in our gradual enslouchment toward Babylon, it's a given that pop culture figures are going to come covered tit to jowl in tattoos. So much so that even the nation's orneriest watchdogs of fleshly purity and character-issues, sports writers, have resigned themselves to the inevitability. Our professional sports leagues may be populated by skin-besmirched body-modded skulldugs, but at least that sort of nonsense is reserved for athletes of a lower class -- linebackers, say, or heroin-addicted baseball sluggers, or anyone in the NBA, which, you know. NFL quarterbacks, on the other hand, should know better. They're the faces of billion-dollar corporations, and they should damn well comport themselves like it, if not with their penises, then at least with their outermost epidermal layers.
So writes David Whitley in a piece on AOL Fan House this week about ascendant San Francsisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, presumably after coming inside from .
"San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick is going to be a big-time NFL quarterback. That must make the guys in San Quentin happy," he writes. "Approximately 98.7 percent of the inmates at California’s state prison have tattoos. I don’t know that as fact, but I’ve watched enough 'Lockup' to know it’s close to accurate." Because tattoos, in the year 2012, are still mainly the provenance of criminals? You know who else has tattoos besides the inmates Whitley fantasizes about? 21% of Americans, or around 45 million people.
From the Harris Poll that found that 21% figure:
This idea connecting tattoos with rebelliousness is not new, however, it may be waning. In 2008 among all adults (whether or not they had a tattoo) almost three in ten said that people with tattoos are more likely to do something most people consider deviant (29%) while 2% said people with tattoos were less likely to do something deviant and 69% said it made no difference. Today, the number of people who say adults with tattoos are more likely to do something most people consider deviant has dropped to 24%, and the number of people who say it makes no difference has gone up, to 74%.
Probably playing a role in that drop in people who automatically equate tattoos with "deviance" is the fact that all of our grandparents died in the intervening years. Whitley is keeping the dream alive for Nana anyway. Unlike regular old disposable linemen or running backs, quarterbacks, he says, aren't supposed to have tattoos.
NFL quarterback is the ultimate position of influence and responsibility. He is the CEO of a high-profile organization, and you don’t want your CEO to look like he just got paroled.
Now along comes Kaepernick. Since taking over for Alex Smith two games ago, he has convinced everybody in the Bay area that he’s the second coming of Steve Young.
Smith is coming back from a concussion, ushering in the attendant QB controversy. But he is looking like Wally Pipp and Kaepernick is Lou Gehrig. All I can do is look in the mirror and sigh.
Uh, setting aside the fact that he's comparing a young quarterback who's played two decent games and the guy he filled in for to one of the greatest replacement-story runs in the history of sports there, what's he even talking about?
Forgive me, but I suffer from tattoo-ism. I sport no ink, and I don’t want any. I know that attitude qualifies me for an AARP card, and I’ve tried to get with it.
I realize tattoos are ways to pay homage to your religion, children and motorcycle gang. I’m cool with LeBron James looking like an Etch A Sketch.
What is it with conservative old shit heads and Etch A Sketches this year? Whitley admits he's out of touch, which is rather generous of him for saving us the trouble of having to do it for him, but maybe he could've gone a step further and admitted his racial and cultural biases for us as well?
For dinosaurs like me, NFL quarterbacks were our little Dutch boys. The original hero stuck his finger in the dyke to save Holland. Pro QBs were the last line of defense against the raging sea of ink. When our kids said they wanted a tattoo, we could always point to the Manning brothers.
I'm not sure what league you've been watching, but that Aryan motherfucker right there isn't actually what comes to mind when I think about quarterbacks now in the league of Cam Newton, Robert Griffin III, Josh Freeman, Russel Wilson, and Michael Vick, but alright, this is your purity fantasy. Whitley explains further:
Did Sammy Baugh, Johnny Unitas, Doug Williams or Joe Montana have arms covered in ink? Do Tom Brady, Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers? The world will end when Tim Tebow shows up a tattoo parlor.
Johnny Unitas. Now there was a haircut you could set your watch too, right? PS, nice try inserting Doug Williams in there, but I'm not buying it. Maybe you could try to convince us more explicitly you don't automatically equate tattoos with black men and criminals in different words?
It’s not just a white thing, I hope. When the Panthers interviewed Cam Newton, owner Jerry Richardson popped the question.
“Do you have any tattoos?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Newton said. “I don’t have any.”
“We want to keep it that way,” Richardson said.
OK, but I'm not sure using the old billionaire sports owner from North Carolina did it too defense to argue that it's not a racial thing isn't exactly helping.
That’s what makes Kaepernick a threat to the stereotype. By all accounts, he’s polite, hard working, humble and has never been to prison. He sounds more like a Tebow who can throw.
You mean he acts like a white guy, but looks like a black guy? Is that what you mean? Polite, hard working, humble, and has never been to prison. The language choice here is a joke, right? This isn't a real column. This one where he played the subtle reverse-racism card in defending the Minnesota Timberwolves against black community members saying they were too white wasn't either, was it?
I still think tattoo removal is going to be huge industry in the coming years. But for now, I might as well accept that Holland is probably doomed.
If you can’t draw the tattoo line at NFL quarterback, you can’t draw them anywhere.
Jesus Christ. Nobody tell Whitley about the changing racial demographics of the country or I'm worried he's going to tattoo his face to the pavement. And definitely don't tell him about all the tattoo and piercing shops in the Netherlands. I don't think he'd survive the shock.
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5 comments:
Some people are just really creeped out about biracial public figures raised by a white couple, huh?
What's "AOL" again? Some fringe faction of the John Birch Society?
They really really are
Man, you get me to read so many frustrating things I wouldn’t normally read. Sports writers are often low-hanging fruit, but this one is definitely up there in terms of stratosphere levels of being out of touch and just an idiot. I’m pretty sure this guy’s whole tattoo mindset would be changed if he does a Google image search for rockabilly.
I also read a recent sports piece about how maybe it’s not okay for Hope Solo to be a somewhat crazy sports figure because she’s a girl. Twas fairly depressing/lulzy.
girls are supposed to be polite, come on, everyone knows that.
Why people raise so many issues related to tattoos designs. there are many more issues like global warming which needs serious attention .
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