Shirts & Skins: Randy Moss Is the Fresh Prince of New England

TAN (The Assimilated Negro) makes jokes and broad sweeping generalizations in Shirts & Skins, his weekly exploration of race and sports. His opinions, like this tagline, may change at any moment.

One of the NFL's major stories this year could be an American sitcom called the "The Assimilation of Randy Moss."

At the start of the season Moss was a down-and-out malcontent; a tarnished diamond in the rough of the NFL projects known as the Oakland Raiders. Then he gets shipped off to a New England boarding school, shares a room with Captain America Brady, throws on the blazer, button-down shirt, and tie (in J. Crew's fall catalogue this look is called The Patriot) and shapes up his act. From there his exponential development could only be properly expressed through video montage.

Now motivated, Moss is putting his abundant tools to good use. Assimilation successful: Touchdown! Still sassy, funny and smart -- but no longer a menace to society -- Randy Moss has become the Will Smith of Wide Receivers. The Fresh Prince of New England.

Now this is the story all about how
Randy Moss's life got flipped turned upside down
and I'd like to take a minute just sit right there
I'll tell you how he became the prince of a town called ~~Bel Air~~ ... New England

We're gonna start at the beginning, but in Oakland instead of West Philadelphia. The Raiders franchise needs to do some major PR work, 'cause this Randy Renaissance makes them look like the South Bronx of the NFL.

The organization's cycle of hopelessness wears on a guy. Kills his psyche. Remember when Lamont Jordan was an up-and-coming running back? Remember when Jerry Porter had promise? Yeah, Charles Woodson is back .... now that he's in Green Bay. When he lived in the hood, he was just another loser.

Now in hindsight, Moss's low Oakland output is emblematic of the "ghetto condition" for young black men across the country. The Raiders have become a franchise that fosters disenfranchisement. We should consider it a success that Randy didn't get Justin Vargas pregnant, and sell crack from the corner of the end zone.

What else are you gonna do when your professional existence is rendered meaningless? When you have nowhere to go but back to bed? The Raiders might as well set up liquor stores and ghetto-style Chinese restaurants on the sidelines in place of cheerleaders. These days when Lane Kiffin gives a speech in front of the locker room it feels more like a bootleg sequel to Dangerous Minds, not something for NFL Films.

I pulled into Mass about 7 or 8
and I yelled to Jerry Porter, "YO HOME SMELL YA LATA!"

Smell ya lata, indeed. But movin' on up is not the end of the story. There's always a naysayer waiting, a Carlton to Moss's Fresh Prince. This week, he is played by Jerry Rice.

Carlton/Jerry is smug, set in his ways, and a little bit irked whenever someone steals the spotlight from him. Randy gets saucy about proving the media/doubters wrong, media spins it and Jerry comes in with his shirt buttoned up, probably doing the Carlton dance, and rains on the parade by making sure to point out, that Randy broke the record in 16 games, not 12 like Rice. And, OK, that's something to discuss, but not when the moment isn't about you.

Then Carlton/Jerry ups the ante with the personal jab, "that's typical Randy Moss." It appears that despite a report card without blemish this year in New England, Randy's bad boy rep has stuck to him like white on rice. Jerry Rice (zing!). Randy's been working at a Fortune 500 company for a year now, and Jerry still wants to bring up the projects. Sigh.

Which brings up two thoughts:

1. Why do only black athletes deal with this House Negro-Field Negro dynamic? I want to see some House Honky-Field Honky stories. Where are the bad-boy problem-child white players? Can Brandon Stokely or somebody take some Grey Poupon out after their next TD? Maybe throw some khaki pants at a referee or something.

Tom Brady throwing it back at Anthony Smith is a nice start, but we need more. This could be just as important as the Rooney Rule. We could call it the Cooney Rule. Caucasians coon too, y'know.

2. This familiar trope of race politicking was exactly what made The Fresh Prince of Bel Air an important show. It set up the traditional dichotomy of poor/disadvantaged/ malcontent to rich/privileged/entitlement, only to subvert it all via the skewering of Carlton, and the overwhelming individual charm and charisma of The Fresh Prince. Which is a long way of saying: You wanted to be rich, but not Carlton. You wanted to be Will, but not poor from the projects.

Before this year it would have been a no-brainer to choose Rice's career built on dignified affluence over Moss's inconsistent and petulant perseverance. But now on track and flying high in New England, if you choose Rice over Moss it feels a little like choosing Carlton over Will. Moss is smart, works hard, his teammates love him, and appears to be in all ways a man of character and talent, as good if not better than Rice. Plus, he's cooler.

Randy is the Fresh Prince: a case study on the transforming effects of a "winning" environment. After a few more seasons, his time in the projects will be a distant memory, and we'll enjoy him for the unparalleled superstar he is.

... Looked at his kingdom he was finally there
to sit on the throne as the prince of ~~Bel Air~~ ... New England.

This Week's Racial Scoreboard: 1/11/08

The Racial Scoreboard awards (or takes away) "Culture Points" based on sports news you may have thought had nothing to do with race, but most certainly did. Afterwards we all shake hands and go out for drinks.

Roger Clemens Takes on the Media

Roger Clemens arranged the '60 Minutes' interview, but somehow managed to look like Mike Wallace just sprung up out of nowhere with two chairs and a camera crew.

He was antsy and drinking gallons of holy water. Not convincing at all. Bottom line here: Team B, in need of a Bonds, got one. Speaking of Team B, this story would have been bigger-than-Obama if McNamee were black.

You'd have the southern white moralizing blue collar-turn-cheater guy, versus the black drug dealer who snitched, and now is trying to get his life back together. But since it's just white-on-white crime, it ain't so bad.

Culture Points: Team W loses 5 Brett Favre handsome stubble-faces.

Eli Manning's Clutch Victory:

Manning is one of the great names in sports, a name capable of swaying bar arguments, wiping out legions of black QB's with a single utterance.

But as Eli goes so goes the power of the family name. Archie was a wash cause he never won, Peyton is a plus, so if Eli doesn't live up they lose some marquee value. So this is a big game against Dallas coming up. If Eli wins, black QB's will need a Super Bowl victory to be mentioned in the same conversations.

Culture Points: + 2 Brent Barry dunk contests AND 1 Christian Laettner buzzer beater, Team W ...

KT Lynch Mobb

So this caused a bit of a ruckus, but the struggle was definitely half-hearted once Woods came out and acknowledged her as a friend. But in light of this incident Team W may want to consider dropping the word "lynch" completely.

For one, it's kind of dated at this point; like saying "dungarees" or "pantaloons" instead of "jeans."

And for two, it's a little much, for something where you might not even get the desired effect. Lynching someone now would sort of be like hiring Grady Jackson to stop the children from running all over the house. Ok, sure. Part of the rationale makes sense, but it could backfire, and there are surely better solutions.

Culture Points: +3 Cedric Ceballos Slam Dunk contest victories, Team B ...

Seattle's Crushing of the Redskins

I think the loss of Sean Taylor made the Redskins a squad playing for Team B. Their season is like an episode of The Wire.

Can I get an Amen! And appropriately their season ended without any grand storybook ending. It's just over. All in all the Sean Taylor drama has been a powerful positive for Team B, and if Todd Collins would have taken the team to the Super Bowl it would have turned into a possibly insurmountable boon of good luck for Team W.

Culture Points: +1 Doug Williams Super Bowl run AND 2 Michael Strahan freebie sacks from Favre, Team B ...

Joe Gibbs Retiring

On the surface you might think Team B comes out in front. But then you realize that Gibbs was the Mr. Drummond for a lot of young black Arnolds out there, including the now-legendary new-model Sean Taylor.

Even though Clinton Portis has fallen off the landscape a bit as a runner, I seem to like him more now as a person. Also, Joe Gibbs on-field skills had receded to the point where he was less scary opponent and more a good clip/test for black coaches on the come-up. So we're going to score this as a loss for Team W and Team B.

Culture Points: Team W goes -1 Larry Brown NBA Championship; Team B +1 Lawrence Taylor but - 2 lines of coke AND +1 Herm Edwards Extension

... And that's all for today. Thanks for playing.