Why Mike Ditka’s response to the Miami Dolphins’ bullying situation perpetuates a harmful myth.
Note: This piece won’t address Mike Ditka’s comment that the way to handle the situation would be to take the bully to “fist city.” It won’t address Dolphins general manager Jack Ireland’s comment that Martin should have punched Incognito to resolve their issues. And it won’t address the grey areas of defining bully — though these issues as backdrop will enrich the read below.
***
Where there is a bully there is not a baby.
A few days ago I sat down to watch ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown to see if they’d discuss the bullying situation between Miami Dolphins players Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin. They did. And Mike Ditka dropped the following:
“I want to say one thing. If I was the coach, I wouldn’t have either Incognito, the bully, or the baby, Martin, on my team. That’s me.”
There’s an awful lot of speculation out there. Even the deepest, most beneficial conversations on this issue are full of it. Few, if any, know the full picture of this particular situation. The NFL’s investigation into the matter is ongoing. What we know is that Martin said he’d been bullied by Incognito for one and a half years and that bullying includes, among other things, this confirmed voicemail from Incognito:
“Hey, wassup, you half n—– piece of [expletive] . . . I saw you on Twitter, you been training ten weeks. [I want to] [expletive] in your [expletive] mouth. [I’m going to] slap your [expletive] mouth. [I’m going to] slap your real mother across the face (laughter). [Expletive] you, you’re still a rookie. I’ll kill you.”
But when Mike Ditka used the “baby” tactic – a classic trademark move of the bully – I thought of my next-door neighbor.
A young teenager, he’s suffered some horrendous bullying situations. On one occasion he was beat up, stomped on and called a “baby” when he was assaulted by a group of boys in the restroom at his school. He’s a brilliant young kid with an inquisitive, inspiring personality, but he’s undersized due to being born with a heart problem. He recently had a heart transplant and is doing remarkably well. This is to say: the kid is a hero in my book.
And he’s not a baby. He’s probably the toughest dude I’ve ever met. And the thousands of kids who endured and are enduring one of the many guises of humiliation right now as I type? They aren’t babies, either.
Where there is a bully there is a victim.
To the countless kids around the country who heard Mike Ditka make that accusation, who cringed at the word “baby” because that’s what they were called as they were being spit on, and to the younger me, whose father screamed “Get up, you baby!” as he was being beat with ski poles…Don’t buy it.
You are you far more than the bully who hurt you. You are here. You are carrying on the best way you know how. And for that you are warriors.
–Photo: S.Babikovs/Flickr
There are fewer scenarios that spark my fury more than the kind of bullying described by the author of his next door neighbor. Sometimes I think I could see a bully like that take a bullet to the face and it wouldn’t bother me one bit; that sounds terrible, but when people seem to offer nothing more to the world than pain, anger, hate, stupidity…OK, not a bullet, but some kind of forced karma or redemption would be nice. That said, it occurs to me that there is such a thing as a “baby.” It’s definitely not the poor kid… Read more »
Excellent reply! 🙂
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Frankly, I’m more concerned about the pro-bully sentiment in this country, as epitomized by Mike Ditka, and the pernicious impact such sentiment has in the lives of bullied kids.
“Many people will overlook flawed character if you are talented enough.”
This is one of the reasons I’m not a football fan.
Martin may have a harder time getting another job in the NFL because teammates will not be able to trust him because he broke the code of the locker room that says that issues in the locker room stay in the locker room to figure out. While I don’t think Ditka did anyone any favors by calling Martin a baby, I do think that a lot of people have an issue with how Martin handled the situation. If Martin never reached out to anyone in the locker room or the organization about what was going on, then he needs to… Read more »
Great piece, thank you.
Thank you very much for your statement, Cameron. 🙂 Morally speaking, I never had a good impression of Mike Ditka. So, I’m not surprised by his contemptible pro-bully, anti-victim comments. I fail to understand why I’m supposed to admire public figures like Ditka. I see no reason why I should have any respect for him or anyone like him. Some victims of abuse fail to learn from their experience and become abusers themselves. They bear personal responsibility for their actions. In the last century a particular frail German boy who was bullied would eventually achieve some prominence as a man… Read more »
Mike Ditka has spoken about his childhood many times on Chicago airwaves to explain, in more words or less, that his fatherwas a physically abusive bastard. And, of course, “That’s just how it was back then…” Ditka is one of the unfortunate victims of abuse who uses it as a point of pride: I’m masculine and tough and valid and strong because my abuse made a man out of me. If it hasn’t made a man out of you, it’s because you’re not tough and solid enough and you’re a baby. It’s transparent and tragic. He’s no more masculine than… Read more »