In the age of what seems to be an increasingly progressive internet community, the trials of being a black man are being exposed to the world on a seemingly weekly basis. Trayon Martin, Mike Brown, Levar Jones etc are weekly headlines with robust hashtag-activism campaigns that take the internet by storm. When people like famous-white-girl Sky Ferreira are posting #Dontshoot pictures, it would seem that now is the best time ever to be a person of color in the United States.

But progressivism doesn’t stop at racism – it seeks to end the disenfranchisement and abuse of all people, including women, gays, and children. In this capacity, black males are as often the villain as they are the victims of racism. Ray Rice was an ugly look into the household of a troubled superstar and equally troubled wife, but Floyd Mayweather’s comments are, without doubt, some of the most disgusting words ever to be uttered by a human being. He claimed that the NFL overreacted by suspending Ray Rice because “I think there’s a lot worse things that go on in other people’s households, also. It’s just not caught on video, if that’s safe to say.”

In short, that isn’t safe to say, because it is the most disturbing thing I have heard in a while, and I think of as the true headline of this story. Floyd himself had been convicted on numerous occasions of domestic violence, and, rather than hide in the filthy shadows where he belongs, decided to undermine the right of a woman not to be abused yet again because, I guess, it was the most natural answer for him. Because why suspend a guy for punching a woman when there are probably countless other women being hit way harder and more often by people like me, without cameras? What makes it even more sickening is his own repeated self-defense method of claiming that, without picture evidence, there is no way to prove he is a domestic abuser (despite a plea deal). To put it bluntly, it’s becoming clear that Floyd Mayweather is a disgusting abusive pig who deserves no respect whatsoever, let alone continue to remain the best-paid athlete in the world. Whose fight 2 weeks after his comment went on as planned with minimal media scrutiny, and netted him around $40 million dollars.

In the aftermath of the Ray Rice re-suspension, there have been two more strangely underrated domestic abuse cases within the NFL (Ray MacDonald and Jonathan Dwyer), and a few more fucked up tweets to go along with them. Paul George’s since deleted tweet “If she ain’t trippin, I ain’t trippin” sums his rant (also regarding Ray Rice) most poignantly. CeeLo Green himself went on a similar victim-blaming rant regarding his own rape case, claiming rape only counts if you remember being raped. Who the fuck is giving these guys keyboards and phones? They belong in a mental institution, in jail, or underground.

Simply put, a few famous black men in America are doing little to better our cause. It is of the utmost irony that the progressive community who mobilizes the internet in defense of discrimination of black males also must mobilize against black males in the defense of women, children, and homosexuals. In what I understand is a heinous oversimplification of the problem I am addressing, it is eerily reminiscent of the “bite the hand that feeds you” proverb, as homophobia, child abuse, and domestic abuse are well-documented themes in the black community and are in no way less subject to judgment and condemnation as they are within white or otherwise ethnic communities.

As a black man who is becoming ever-more cognizant to the short hand that black males are dealt in the United States by simply being born black males, it is often difficult to remain in staunch defense of my peers in cases such as the ones mentioned above. With regards to the Ray Rice incident, two more high profile NFL domestic abuse cases, the comments from George and Mayweather, the CeeLo Green tweets, the Adrian Peterson child abuse case, and the Hannah Graham’s abduction case, all just in the last few weeks, it is becoming tougher than ever.

Maybe also being half-white lends me a level of neutrality that most aren’t able to enjoy. That said, I am becoming more and more critical famous black people that try to downplay discrimination and abuse. Take, for example, Stephen A. Smith, one of the most famous black sports analysts on ESPN, who had this rambling and confusing thing to say regarding Ray Rice recently:

“But what I’ve tried to employ the female members of my family, some of who you all met and talked to and what have you, is that again, and this what, I’ve done this all my life, let’s make sure we don’t do anything to provoke wrong actions, because if I come, or somebody else come, whether it’s law enforcement officials, your brother or the fellas that you know, if we come after somebody has put their hands on you, it doesn’t negate the fact that they already put their hands on you.”

For those that got lost in Smith’s rambling mess of a sentence, the type of which he is wont to say, it is a cautious yet blatant form of victim-blaming mixed into some impossible-to-understand bullshit. And Ravens’ WR Steve Smith, oddly of the same name as above and a former teammate of Ray Rice, when asked about the case, responded “it is not my place to judge anyone. Only God can.” (paraphrasing) Eerily reminiscent of what Floyd Mayweather has said about himself when grilled by Rachel Nichols.

Fuck that. You should judge Ray, Floyd, Paul, CeeLo, and anyone else that stands in the way of basic human rights. They suck and don’t get any sort of free pass because they were raised in bad households, raised poor, or any sort of excuse. Shitty human beings, black or white, deserve to be treated like shitty human beings. Once that is abundantly clear and well-accepted, progress will follow.

— James