“If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him!” tweeted CNN’s Roland Martin during the Superbowl.
Shit, meet fan, because next thing you know, GLAAD is tweeting back, “ @rolandsmartin Advocates of gay bashing have no place at @CNN #SuperBowl #LGBT”
It’s not that Martin’s comments were homophobic because, from where I stand, they were more boneheaded than anything. To say that the Superbowl is about football and not about seeing David Beckham in skin tight undies is a point that most impassioned football fans would make. For them, it’s all about the Bud Light and the end zone, and I’m fine with that.
Even though I know that the scourge of homophobia still runs thick in the African-American community, I really don’t get that from Martin’s comments. Problem is, when a man tweets about how men shouldn’t be ogling over other men’s drawers during the Superbowl, he’s still tweeting about another man’s drawers during the Superbowl. And for a man who is a trusted CNN commentator, this sort of thing probably shouldn’t happen.
For the most part, I just feel that refraining from commenting on another man’s nakedness is probably a good idea. And I don’t feel, as do so many in the black community, that this is a nonissue, because professionalism is always at issue. It’s probably best for African-American men and women of stature to take the backyard barbecue one liners and yo’ mama jokes off Twitter.
Yvette Carnell is a former Capitol Hill and campaign staffer turned writer. She is currently an editor and contributor to Yourblackworld.
