McNabb's dumb comment

I thought the "black-on-black crime" statement was ludicrous and hurt McNabb. Bill Conlin wrote about it and got this reply from a reader:

Others argued the point that while McNabb's use of "black-on-black crime" was unfortunate, the underlying message addresses an outgrowth of success that is troubling to the African-American community.

Nobody cut to the heart of a complex problem better than Steven Richardson, 43, an African-American veteran of Desert Storm. He was raised in Harrisburg, an Eagles and Steelers fan, and currently lives in Charlotte, N.C., where he works as a part-time loader at FedEx and a part-time UPS package scanner/handler. Richardson has closely followed the Owens-McNabb morality play and this is part of his take:

"Donovan screwed up with his choice of words. My ex-wife's grandfather was a victim of black-on-black crime. He was murdered in his shop over twenty years ago before this term became fashionable. What he's really talking about is 'crabs-in-a-barrel.' Meaning that crabs in a barrel pull one another down as they are trying to get out of the barrel. It is usually used to describe a prominent black figure tearing down another black in the national media. It can also be applied to everyday working-class people, too. That's how I took it...

"Michael Irvin was guilty of starting this whole thing when he made the statement that the Eagles would be undefeated with Brett Favre at quarterback and fellow loudmouth T.O. agreed. No doubt that Brett Favre is a great quarterback and a first-ballot Hall of Famer. There is no way that the 2005 Eagles would have been undefeated at that point of the season with him at quarterback instead of McNabb...

"By calling Donovan McNabb a 'company man,' T.O. was uncharacteristically tactful. He was euphemistically calling McNabb a 'house Negro.' Was that black-on-black crime? No.

"I hope that this will blow over eventually. It is truly a shame when a man like Donovan McNabb has to be raked over the coals because of careless and stupid comments by two self-centered and selfish individuals like Michael Irvin and Terrell Owens. Irvin was a great wide receiver as is Owens, but these men need to be taken to task, as well, particularly Irvin.

"How can a man with Michael Irvin's history ... still be on the air at ESPN? ... Just my feelings on the whole unfortunate matter."