What will it take to restore Riley Cooper after racial slur?

“I’ll fight every Nigger here,” that’s what Riley Cooper was recorded saying on a video at a Kenny Chesney concert. He was yelling at a black security guard.

What is the proper response to Cooper’s threat?

Bring it on? Or, no he didn’t.  Or, nodding in disbelief?

Cooper, a receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles, has profusely apologized for spewing a racial slur that could cost his career.  How can he return to a game where 85% of the players are black after boasting to fight all of them?

It was stupid.  Those who know him best say the comments are out of character. Betty, his grandmother, called him to task for threating to fight a crowd of black men. Gramps isn’t backing Cooper. 

“[Riley] brought it upon himself, she told a reporter with TMZ. “And he has to deal with the consequences.”

Officials for the team say Riley has been sent threats after the video went viral.  The team fined Cooper before he left to seek counseling.

"Riley Cooper made us aware of the tweets when the video became public," the team said in a statement. "He told us that he did not know about the video. He informed us he blocked the tweets because he did not know the person nor understand the context of what that person was threatening.”

No one should be surprised by the threats. He offered to fight all of the Niggers. Not one, not two, but all of them.

The brothers are lining up to take their shots.  The problem that Cooper faces is a bunch of big dudes willing to take hard shots.  The game they play allows them the right to take their vengeance out on the field.  Expect hard hits aimed to make a point.

Cooper is facing not only if he will play again, but what to expect if he plays.

“Hey I'm putting a bounty on Riley's head. 1k to the first Free Safety or Strong safety that light his [profanity] up! Wake him up please.....,” Marcus Vick, the brother of Eagles quarterback Michal Vick, wrote on his Twitter page.

Big brother Michal was quick to lash out against his brother for his tweets and stated that he doesn’t agree with, and that they don’t represent how he feels.  That may be true, but how will the league protect Cooper from being the recipient of some old fashioned street justice?

"Riley is still my teammate and he just stood in front of us and apologized for what he said,” big brother Mike said.  “Somewhere deep down you’ve got to find some level of respect for that. To people in the outside world who don’t know how we’re dealing with it, they’re going to forge their own opinions, but my brother has to not show a certain level of ignorance himself.”

Having Michael Vick on your team may be the saving grace for Cooper.  He’s respected in the Eagles locker room.  He’s also respected among NFL players who rallied behind him after he spent time in prison for cruelty to animals. 

No one understands forgiveness and second chances like big brother Vick. He’s the best person to, no pun intended, call the dogs off of Cooper.  As leader of the Eagles, he’s the best person to bring Cooper back into the fold.  He’s also the best person to protect Cooper from the huge men chomping to take a hit.

Vick is the one person who can lead the black community in forgiving Cooper.

If that happens, there should be a standing ovation for Vick.

All of us deserve a second chance - even after a request to fight all of the Niggers.

Another chance for Vick?

I believe a person deserves a second chance. God knows all of us have made our share of mistakes. As I say during my sermons, but for the grace of God.

Second chances come after cheating on a spouse, a divorce, getting caught with drugs, theft and, yes, training dogs to attack one another and taking bets. With all the bad press related to Michael Vick, he too deserves a second chance.

The hardest part in forgiving Vick is the stupidity that went into his actions. With all that cash on the table (over 150 million in lost income) it’s hard for most of us to understand and forgive a man stupid enough to allow his homeboys and his obsession with animals at war to jeopardize all of that.

It’s difficult to forgive and to understand why a person who made his way out of the hood could risk all of the comforts that come with the biggest contact in NFL history. Vick was in the process of revolutionizing the way people viewed the quarterback position. He was more than the traditional drop back passer; he was a combo quarterback/running back. He was set to go down in history as the man who had General Managers searching for athletes who brought the same depth to their team.

Vick follows a long list of great athletes, with legendary already posted in the history books, who threw it away for reason hard for us to understand. Pete Rose sold his birthright to the Hall of Fame for a few bets. O.J. Simpson may have done it out of jealously. Mike Tyson did it because-that’s one I will never understand.

Vick did it because of street credibility. There was simply too much hood in him to overcome. A few years back the attention was on his little brother, Marcus, who kept getting in trouble at Virginia Tech. He was finally kicked off the team for kicking another player. The public looked at big brother Mike as the role model Marcus needed to help stir him in the right direction.

Shortly after Marcus kicked his way out of Virginia Tech, Michael made an obscene gesture toward Atlanta fans who heckled the team as it came off the field after a 31-13 loss to New Orleans. Vick apologized profusely, paid a $10,000 team fine and donated another $10,000 to charity.

Then in January, Vick reluctantly surrendered a water bottle to security at Miami International Airport that smelled like marijuana and contained a substance in a hidden compartment. He was not arrested and was allowed to board an AirTran flight that landed in Atlanta.

"We are an organization that prides itself on not having off-the-field issues," Rich McKay, general manager of the Falcons, said at the time of the incident. "I think we have done a pretty good job of bringing the right people in here so we don't have to face these types of issues. We don't like it. We don't accept it. It is not what we want."

The Falcons have every right to be upset. They invested $137 million on Vick. They believed he would be the man to lead them for the next 10 years. They expected him to lead the team on and off the field. Smoking weed, flipping off fans and participating in dog fighting is not what they anticipated.

Not to mention he lied to the owner and commissioner about his participation in the dog fighting ring. His arrogance in this matter makes it difficult for those with young children to forgive. We trusted him by embracing his bad boy image. He proved, we thought, that there’s a place in the NFL for a brother to hold onto his street ways while leading a team with credibility.

What is my message to Michael Vick? We’re mad at you. Mad because you have let us down. We believed in you, stood by you, embraced your hip-hop image and desire to keep it real. We fought for the legitimacy of that image. We saw it as a way to educate others on the good that can come out of embracing that culture.

Vick has legitimized what many already felt. Despite all of that money and status as a true role model, he threw it all away for his street ways. That is difficult to forgive. He broke laws. He carried weed on a plane, raised dogs to kill and watched them fight

I could argue that it’s no worse than deer hunting or bull fighting. I could stand in defense of Vick by correlating his actions to those perceived as valid sporting games. I could do that, but this issue goes much deeper than any of that. This is not about the race of the man or the duplicity of the system. This is about a man's willingness to throw it all away for his right to play by his own rules.

Yes, he deserves another chance, but I’m still angry. With all the people in the world who suffer due to lack, he tossed it all away for reason hard to understand. He took it all for granted and now must suffer the consequences of his actions. Be it because of his friends or be it because of his own weakness, it is hard to forgive walking away from all of that.

With that being said, he deserves a second-forgive me-a fourth chance.

Homeboys and Pitbulls

Someone help me understand what’s wrong with Michael Vick. How does a person turn their back on millions of dollars to make a few bucks watching pit bulls go at it until one of them dies? Of course my statement assumes the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons is guilty of the federal dog fighting charges he faces in Richmond.
Nike suspended its lucrative contract with Vick on Friday, while Reebok stopped sales of his No. 7 jersey. This on top of not being able to draw from his contract with the Falcons while he waits for a verdict on the charges facing him.
It is true that one is innocent until proven guilty. For all we know Vick was clueless that his cousin and homeboy’s were using the property he owns in rural Virginia to train 66 dogs, including 55 pit bulls to go to war. Yes, he may be that stupid. One thing is clear. If that is true, Vick, like many black men enamored with maintaining street credibility, is guilty of surrounding himself with people willing to use his resources in a way that could destroy everything he’s worked hard to build.
This is another example of being careful when choosing your friends. I’m down with not judging a person too soon, but shucks, if you hang with pigs long enough eventually you’ll end up smelling like your home is a pigpen. Vick is guilty of thinking, “Yo, those my homeboys”. Whatever. Truth is, as much as Vick wanted to be down with his boys, one thing prevails- he had much more to loose than they did. He is living with a higher level of responsibility, and, as a consequence, needed to deal with the burden of carrying people unwilling to protect his interest.
What is Vicks interest? He’s an African American quarterback in the NFL. For those of this Hip-Hop generation that’s not a big deal. For me and others who can remember back in the day, it means so much more. I will never forget the tears flowing from my eyes when Doug Williams led the Redskins to a Super Bowl win. Never mind I hate the freaking Redskins. I grew up a St. Louis Cardinals fan. The Cardinals, before they were shipped out to Arizona and the Rams replaced them in St. Louis, were in the same division as the Redskins. Those Deadskins were our divisional rivalry, but when it came to that game I wanted them to win because of Doug Williams.
As a former quarterback I fought to overcome the view that black quarterbacks lacked the stuff to succeed at the position. It was assumed that our natural place was to run and catch the ball, and to do a silly dance once we got to the end zone. The quarterback position required intelligence and leadership. Williams proved that black folks could do the job. Others followed to solidify the claim.
Then comes the knucklehead named Vick who lacks an appreciation for the history of the struggles to secure his right to stand behind the center. Too many people fought for his right to be there. How can he forget Joe Gilliam, the former quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers who was set to start ahead of Terry Bradshaw before getting hurt? How can he forget that Warren Moon was forced to go to Canada to play because no one was willing to give him a chance in the NFL. He went on to post Hall of Fame numbers.
The position denotes responsibility. We should never forget the sacrifices that went into his right to play the game and make the money that comes with getting that chance to play. His boys don’t care. They wanted to make their own way by playing games. The problem is they used dogs instead of pigskin. It’s sad how your friends can get in the way of your progress. Sometimes you simply have to let them go.

Carl W. Kenney II,