Last Monday, Alabama rolled — quite literally — over Notre Dame, crushing the Fighting Irish 42-14, becoming the third team to win three national titles in four seasons. As a UF student, I’d like to say: Congratulations, Alabama. You’ve earned it — like Louisville.
I’d also like to recognize ESPN commentator Brent Musburger for saying what the rest of us would have said (or Tweeted, or Instagrammed), had we seen someone as beautiful as Katherine Webb.
Let me explain.
During the game, a camera caught sight of Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron’s girlfriend, Webb, a former Miss Alabama USA, standing in the crowd, as she watched her boyfriend win Alabama’s second-straight national title. Turning to his colleague Kirk Herbstreit, Musburger jocularly remarked, “You quarterbacks, you get all the good looking women. What a beautiful woman. Wow! Whoa!”
His partner added, “AJ’s doing some things right down in Tuscaloosa.”
Musburger playfully fired back, “So if you’re a youngster at Alabama, start getting the football out, and throw it around with Pop.”
Somewhere, a feminist died. Faster than LeBron James could follow the ravishing 23-year-old on Twitter, people responded to the innocuous banter with juvenile outrage. As the New York Times reported, commentary on the broadcast following the game included words like “creepy,” “awkward,” “uncomfortable” and “heteronormative.”
The article went on to say, “‘It’s extraordinarily inappropriate to focus on an individual’s looks,’ said Sue Carter, a professor of journalism at Michigan State . . . ‘I think there’s a generational issue, but it’s incumbent on people practicing in these eras to keep up and this is not a norm.’”
Not a norm, huh? I wouldn’t be surprised if her doctrinal thesis was titled, “Retrograde Sexual Objectification in Cultural Identity.” But who am I to judge the judgmental?
As our culture embraced tolerance with open, tattooed arms, we witnessed a wave of repressive idiocy and banal demagoguery that trifles our capacity to think narrow-mindedly and objectively. This senseless shift resulted in our society practicing mental gymnastics in order to accommodate the fatuous demands of the open-minded.
The age of objectivity is over. Truth is relative, all beliefs are equal and any effort to explain reality is limited by the progressive, liberal agenda that censures those who espouse truth — even if they’re truthful!
College admissions decisions place more emphasis on achieving diversity than maintaining the students who exemplify superior academic qualifications. Employers are more concerned with your ablility to provide an explanation that elucidates your understanding of empathy than your knowledge of the field. That’s why those who call themselves tolerant lambast people like Musburger. By operating under the rubric of open-mindedness, the terrorants (tolerant + terrorists) tolerate everything — except for what they don’t tolerate, which is everything!
As long as your perception of reality runs in ideological lockstep with these people, you’re fine. Going on a political rant about gun control during Sunday Night Football is fine, as long as you’re not on the sidelines praying to the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible or bantering about beautiful women in the crowd.
We live in a world characterized by a fundamental group who is easily offended by everything, invariably devaluing any instance of being legitimately offended. Acceptance has replaced right and wrong. Words have replaced the notion of sticks and stones.
Last Thursday, my editors at the Alligator pointed out: “There is nothing more admirable than standing up for what you truly believe in, despite what adversity you might face.”
That’s true — unless, of course, you don’t believe in what they truly believe.
Where the hell is this country going?
Erik Skipper is an economics sophomore at UF. His column runs on Wednesdays. You can contact him via opinions@alligator.org.
