Adrian Peterson played on Sunday just hours after his 2-year-old son was murdered. Phil Mushnick thinks it’s because he’s an uncaring criminal. Phil Mushnick should mind his own business.
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By now you have probably heard that Adrian Peterson, a running back for the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League, lost his 2-year-old son over the weekend. It has been reported that the child was murdered, and that the suspect in the case is the current boyfriend of the boy’s mother. The relationships involved sound complicated, but they are not important—the only thing that matters is that a little boy is dead.
Phil Mushnick, a sportswriter for the New York Post, begs to differ. He has written a piece so full of self-righteous race baiting and blatant disregard for human decency that it actually surprised the Internet—and that is saying something.
Mushnick has painted a picture of Peterson that equates the athlete to a common criminal, and insinuates that much of his alleged delinquency comes as the result of his upbringing. I do not know Adrian Peterson, but I do know that it is not my place to speculate upon his life and/or character based upon my own preconceived notions and empathetic shortcomings.
That role, apparently, belongs to Mushnick.
Mushnick has taken Peterson to task for playing in a football game just hours after his son died. He then makes a case for holding Peterson accountable for the tragedy that occurred, and frankly, he’s a real dick about it.
Thankfully, I have never been in the position that Adrian Peterson has found himself in, and while I have theories as to how I would react in that situation I cannot use unknown concepts as the basis to begrudge another parent their own way of grieving.
Mushnick does not cater to such sentimentality.
“Maybe Peterson’s son is just one more stands-to-reason murder victim,” he wrote. “Just another child born to just another “baby mama,” one more kid who never had a shot, anyway. Maybe, by now, even if we can’t accept it, we can expect it.”
Whether or not any of us believe that Adrian Peterson should have played on Sunday is irrelevant. We are not in his shoes. We are not feeling his pain. We should respect that his actions do not have to be our actions. Everyone copes with loss and sadness differently. That’s a fact.
I do not know Phil Mushnick, but I would argue that he is free to write anything that he wants. It is his column, and he is paid to give his opinion just as I am paid to give mine, and here it is: Mushnick, you’re doing it wrong. All of it.
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Image: Flickr/Joe Bielawa
I don’t care one way or the other about AP other than thinking he’s an incredible running back, but those three hours on the football field may have been the only three hours he hasn’t spent distraught or thinking about the what ifs or crying by himself, who knows?
“Everyone copes with loss and sadness differently. That’s a fact.”
You’re absolutely right, Whit! Adrian Peterson should be left alone. He doesn’t owe anyone an explanation for his reaction. People who tell others how they should grieve should mind their own business.