The Bounce Back: Profiling, never a good means to an end

By David Dennis Jr.
Contributing Writer

I spent a lot of time in Chicago during my year in graduate school at Northwestern University. Once night, I ran into a guy affectionately named, well, I’ll make up a name: Custard. I’d met him while covering a music video shoot. During a break, he took a few of us out to eat and he and I became decent friends while I was in the Chicago area. Custard was a drug dealer. When I told him that I was at Northwestern, he made sure to let me know he wanted me to keep with my education and if I needed anything to let him know. He’d offered to look after me while I was in school and pay for anything I needed.

I never took Custard up on the offer because I never found myself in a bind or a need for him to do anything for me. But if I would have needed anything, I definitely would have called. Though Custard was on the wrong side of the law, part of a machine that serves to pollute our neighborhoods, he also is intensely concerned with pushing the kids he sees as having potential for success out of his ‘hood.’

DeSean Jackson grew up around men like Custard. And now he’s getting punished for it by the NFL.

DeSean Jackson was a wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles and one of the most talented athletes in the league. A few days ago he was cut from the team as a result of a story by NJ.com that he has gang-related associates. The story was nothing less than a hit job on a player’s reputation by a team looking for a convenient reason to get rid of a fan-favorite athlete. The story revolves around Jackson’s association with gang members from his home town of Long Beach, California. This “association” stems from the fact he has childhood friends who were members of gangs.

Jackson grew up in a rough neighborhood, surrounded by gang members and violence. But much like Custard did for me, Jackson was seen as the one who could “get out” at an early age, so he was supported and protected by those connected in his neighborhood. While they may have been on the wrong side of the law, they showed him love and support as he ascended to his professional career. Naturally, Jackson maintained these friendships even though he left “the hood” and became a millionaire. The Eagles organization took it upon themselves to punish and assassinate Jackson’s character based on these friendships with the people who supported him as he grew up.

Of course, the LAPD has reported that Jackson has zero connections to any gang activity or unlawful actions. He’s never been suspended. He’s never had so much as a run-in with the law. Yet, he’s been profiled due to his relationship with the people he grew up with. The Eagles haven’t hidden their disdain for Jackson — some of appears justified – as he’s perennially late for team meetings and less than a leader on the field. That should have been enough for the Eagles to want to cut Jackson, but capitalizing on his past and relationship to soften the blow with their fans who would otherwise be upset is disgusting. The team even went so far as to suggest they didn’t feel it would be morally acceptable to trade him to another team and burden that team with his baggage. This is unequivocal BS as the Eagles had been trying to trade Jackson a month leading up to his release.

If it’s later revealed that Jackson had actual demons and goes down the wrong path later in his career, I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong. But as it stands, he’s just been targeted based on his upbringing and surroundings as a thug. The scary precedent here is that the NFL could do this to half its players. So many athletes came up from the same environments De­Sean Jack­son came from, with the same types of friends. While it’s easy to tell them to just ditch their buddies with suspect pasts, it’s hard to tell these guys to just leave their childhood friends behind, especially after these friends worked so hard to help these athletes get where they are.

Think about any number of athletes from any number of bad neighborhoods in New Orleans. How will they be protected when someone wants to dig into their “criminal pasts” just based on where they grew up. Our young athletes just need to remember that the millions won’t protect them from the same profiling the rest of us go through every day.

This article originally published in the April 7, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.