Just when we think we’ve heard it all from Keyshawn Johnson, we ain’t heard nothing yet.
It wasn’t enough that he was paid handsomely to go away last year. That would have embarrassed better men.
It wasn’t enough that he continued to badmouth the only organization that could win him a Super Bowl ring.
It wasn’t enough that he could run off at the mouth even as his value plummeted with every dropped pass and each public pouting session.
Now he’s lashed out at one of the classiest players to ever suit up for the Bucs — Ronde Barber.
But it was no garden variety insult. Between blacks, it’s a veritable epithet: “Meshawn” called Barber an “Uncle Tom.” In Meshawn-speak, that’s a black athlete who sublimates himself to the identity of the team. Comporting himself with dignity in wins or losses and not using the media as a personal-vent vehicle only compounded it. Hence the insulting plantation idiom.
Ronde Barber an “Uncle Tom?”
Such an outrageous, racist cheap shot only makes sense from the perspective of one who’s a slave to his own malignant ego.