Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
On Aaron Hernandez, homosexuality in sports and the role of media
Some fascinating reporting from The New Yorker on the role Hernandez's sexual orientation may have played in his death and the treatment of that topic by some members of the media in the days leading up to his suicide. Granted, it's not easy to muster a great deal of sympathy for a murderer like Hernandez, but the frivolity and crass nature directed at homosexuality in pro sports in 2017 leaves much room for progress, still!
(Investigative journalist Michele McPhee and Boston sports radio hosts Kirk Minihane and Gerry Callahan) then jokingly riffed—in a cringe-inducing manner familiar to most listeners of American sports radio—on the suggestion that Hernandez was sexually attracted to men. Using football metaphors to insinuate his preference, the men referred to Hernandez as a “tight end on and off the field,” adding, “then he became a wide receiver.” This went on, with McPhee adding that Hernandez kicked “with both feet.”
Two days later, and just hours before his former team stood with Donald Trump at the White House in honor of its Super Bowl win, Hernandez hanged himself in the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, in Shirley, Massachusetts, after inking a Bible verse on his forehead and placing cardboard under his cell door to make it difficult for guards to intervene, as was detailed in the Boston Globe and in McPhee’s subsequent reporting for Newsweek.
McPhee looks back on the radio appearance with a mix of regret and rationalizing. “I was with people that I trusted and knew,” she said recently. “And they brought it up on the air, his sexuality.” She went on, “What I said was really inelegant of me, and it’s not something I would have done if I wasn’t on a sports-radio show. It’s not a laughing matter, in any way, shape, or form. But I would certainly hope, in 2017, that Aaron Hernandez was more troubled by the fact that he killed his close friend, the boyfriend of his fiancée’s sister, than his sexuality.” She added, “His conscience should have been much more haunted by killing his friend.”
McPhee has no regrets about the Newsweek piece itself, which was published on April 21st, under the headline “Aaron Hernandez’s Sex Life Probed as Murder Motive, Police Source Says.” It was the first major national story to focus on Hernandez’s sexuality, which, McPhee told me, “was one thousand per cent being explored as the motive of the murder, which is the only reason why it’s relevant.” Citing “multiple law enforcement officials,” the piece reports on Hernandez’s longtime marijuana use, an “intimate relationship” he had with a male high-school classmate for whom he allegedly set aside “a large amount of money” prior to his arrest in the Lloyd case, and conversations in which Hernandez associates called him a “smoocher” and “limp wrist.” The piece does not provide comment on these claims from any of Hernandez’s family members or associates. Three letters were found in Hernandez’s cell following his suicide; McPhee reports that one was addressed to his fiancée, another to his daughter, and a third to his “prison boyfriend.” There is now general agreement in the press concerning the first two recipients, but the identity of the third recipient is still in dispute.
Two days later, and just hours before his former team stood with Donald Trump at the White House in honor of its Super Bowl win, Hernandez hanged himself in the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, in Shirley, Massachusetts, after inking a Bible verse on his forehead and placing cardboard under his cell door to make it difficult for guards to intervene, as was detailed in the Boston Globe and in McPhee’s subsequent reporting for Newsweek.
McPhee looks back on the radio appearance with a mix of regret and rationalizing. “I was with people that I trusted and knew,” she said recently. “And they brought it up on the air, his sexuality.” She went on, “What I said was really inelegant of me, and it’s not something I would have done if I wasn’t on a sports-radio show. It’s not a laughing matter, in any way, shape, or form. But I would certainly hope, in 2017, that Aaron Hernandez was more troubled by the fact that he killed his close friend, the boyfriend of his fiancée’s sister, than his sexuality.” She added, “His conscience should have been much more haunted by killing his friend.”
McPhee has no regrets about the Newsweek piece itself, which was published on April 21st, under the headline “Aaron Hernandez’s Sex Life Probed as Murder Motive, Police Source Says.” It was the first major national story to focus on Hernandez’s sexuality, which, McPhee told me, “was one thousand per cent being explored as the motive of the murder, which is the only reason why it’s relevant.” Citing “multiple law enforcement officials,” the piece reports on Hernandez’s longtime marijuana use, an “intimate relationship” he had with a male high-school classmate for whom he allegedly set aside “a large amount of money” prior to his arrest in the Lloyd case, and conversations in which Hernandez associates called him a “smoocher” and “limp wrist.” The piece does not provide comment on these claims from any of Hernandez’s family members or associates. Three letters were found in Hernandez’s cell following his suicide; McPhee reports that one was addressed to his fiancée, another to his daughter, and a third to his “prison boyfriend.” There is now general agreement in the press concerning the first two recipients, but the identity of the third recipient is still in dispute.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/the-worrisome-reporting-on-aaron-hernandezs-sexuality
