Jaguars’ Barnes isn’t noble

By Anthony Bialy  |   Sunday, March 25, 2007  |  Comments( 1 )

Jacksonville Jaguars
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People of Jacksonville, I sympathize. As a Buffalo resident, I know what it's like when an athlete playing for your city's team who is supposed to exemplify your values goes for a different approach and instead slanders his adopted home. In the Bills' case, though, it wasn't after that same athlete endangered the lives of its citizens by driving while loaded on its streets.

Jaguars offensive lineman Khalif Barnes needs to learn that the only thing worse than doing dumb things is saying dumb things about the people who pay your salary.

There's no reason to hang Barnes when he's willing to do it himself. A police video made available from his November arrest after being pulled over on suspicion of drunken driving is most notable for the left tackle calling a sheriff's deputy a "KKK devil who hates all colored people." The problem with this remark is that I don't really consider the Klan an anti-drunk driving organization: Barnes was going 101 in a 60-mph zone and had a blood-alcohol content of .12, evidence which makes the racism charge a bit tenuous.

Not satisfied with driving recklessly while legally drunk, Barnes turned his wrath to the town that welcomed him as a guest, opining, "This is unbelievable, man, unbelievable being a pro athlete in Jacksonville. I can't wait to get out of here. Can't wait... Of all the places in the world that I came to this hick town. They hate us here...Why you even want to have a pro team here? What's the use? They don't even respect you."

In defense of Jacksonvillians, I wouldn't respect anyone who committed a crime and then spat on my city, either. And "hick town"? Wow. Of course, if a Caucasian athlete made a similar charge about an area with a significant minority population, he would at present be rotting in sensitivity training and would rightfully never be allowed to live down the incident. Barnes' non-legal punishment was sitting a game and facing a smattering of journalistic outcry.

Buffalonians recently endured a similar idiotic comment when erstwhile Bill Willis McGahee mentioned in an interview that he loved the city of Toronto so much that his then-current team should be relocated there. Bills fans likely agreed, hoping that McGahee himself would be relocated anywhere but Western New York, and their dream came true. But it's still rotten when someone from a franchise representing your hometown, someone on your team, insults you. It may be of little consolation to those from Jacksonville, but know that you're not the only ones who are forced to host athletic ingrates.

But maybe there's hope for Barnes. Perhaps he needs to discover more about the city: although he doesn't strike me as a country music aficionado, maybe Barnes' initial impression of it came entirely from that Charlie Daniels song about how the South's gonna do it again, which notes that "People down in Florida can't be still/When ol' Lynyrd Skynyrd's pickin' down in Jacksonville."

He might think classic rock is all Jacksonville has to offer; if Freebird doesn't appeal to him, he should try driving around town looking for interesting restaurants and art galleries or maybe grab a free alternative newsweekly so he can browse local events. Or he could have just said dumb things while drunk, the sort of thoughts a prejudiced father placed in his head years ago that still rattle around; we call that the Mel Gibson Defense. But I'd personally never be that forgiving.

If Khalif Barnes thinks Jacksonville doesn't deserve a pro team, then Jacksonville doesn't deserve this fool, either as a Jaguar or as a resident.
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