Hypocrisy.
I talk about it a lot, because I believe the mirror never lies. One of the things that irks about the media is favoritism and bias, so I am very careful to make sure I am not falling into that trap, because you can’t call someone a hypocrite, if you are a hypocrite yourself.
It doesn’t takes me long to process information and come to a conclusion about what I am going to do with it. I have never been one to worry about being politically correct, it is my job to give opinions, not be concerned how people take them. But, I paused for a minute when I saw that Adrian Peterson had another child that no one knew about.
Certain situations aren’t black and white, there is a lot of gray area. Adrian Peterson’s son passing away was complicated and I spoke on some of those issues when talking about why you shouldn’t have been surprised that he played on Sunday.
Others like Phil Mushnick took a more radical take, but that is to be expected in the new Skiptized world that we lived in.
None of that was the reason that I paused. The reason was because I wondered where exactly is the line drawn, should a tragedy make it open season to start digging into someone’s personal life? It was something that Adrian Peterson said that I believe opens himself up for such scrutiny.
They asked him why he played on Sunday and he said…
God wants good to come from it.
I am not overly religious, but if you are going to put yourself out there as a man of God, then there are certain standards that people are going to hold you accountable for.
When Adrian Peterson said he would be uncomfortable with a gay teammate he was given a pass, he wasn’t treated as harshly as Mike Wallace who said something far less inflammatory. That bothered me, because like I said I just want everyone to be treated fairly, but that wasn’t happening.
Adrian Peterson is engaged to the mother of his 2-year-old son, but on at least on two occasions he has had unprotected sex with women and had children with them. The latest being a 3-month-old-girl from a waitress he met at a nightclub. Cheating is common in sports or life and it is reported on daily, not just by TMZ and blogs. Ask Tiger Woods or Lamar Odom how they feel about the mainstream media reporting on their personal lives.
We put athletes on a pedestal and then are hesitant to see some things that are right in front of our face until it is too late (see: Dwight Howard) or we just throw them under the bus as soon as we possibly can (see: RG3). Unlike Mushnick I am not saying Peterson is a criminal or even a bad person. I am saying just like you and I aren’t perfect, neither are athletes, but there is a price when you put yourself and your religion front and center.
This isn’t about the hypocrisy of Adrian Peterson, it is about the hypocrisy of us, media and fans. In the grand scheme of things I could care less if Peterson got 10 women pregnant (reports there maybe at least 6 kids with only 2 publicly claimed), if that is what he wanted to do. My issue is we pick and choose who we will vilify and who we will protect and frankly that is wrong. If this was Chris Johnson or DeSean Jackson how would these stories have been written and how would they have been perceived? I am not going to treat Adrian Peterson any differently, because he has that untouchable pass from most of the media.
In the end that is why my pause didn’t cause a complete stop, because I know deep down if this was any other player I would have said the same thing, because you have to learn to look at the situation, without being blinded by the name on the back of the jersey.