EDITORIAL: Bad Decision – Hulk Hogan enters Black Lives Matter discussion

Hulk Hogan is among the last people who should be entering the Black Lives Matter discussion this week. Yet, he couldn’t help himself.

I’m not getting into the pros and cons of the Black Lives Matter movement and campaign or the merits of how they are promoting their cause. I will say Hogan’s response is, essentially, synonymous with the “Black Lives Matter” saying. When someone says “Black Live Matter,” it’s implied that they believe institutionally black lives aren’t always treated as if they matter equally to others. So to say “All Lives Matter” comes across as completely misunderstanding the rather obvious intent of the phrase “Black Lives Matter.”

“Black Lives Matter” has a nice ring to it, but perhaps it’d have been better to promote the phrase “Black Live Matter Equally” or “Black Lives Matter, Too.” They’re not saying black lives matter more than anyone else; they’re saying black lives should matter as much as non-blacks, and they feel institutionally there are communities where that isn’t the case. Obviously some people are confused by this.

Hogan, when confronted by someone suggesting he stop apologizing (and trying to redeem his public image so he can get back to making money off of “Hulkamania” and his “Real American” image) and instead quietly volunteer for some organization helping the people he demeaned and degraded as unworthy of dating his daughter (unless, of course, they’re rich & famous), fired back with the cliched “How about all lives matter” response. He should have just let the Tweet float by without comment or, better yet, considered the sound advice and looked around for an organization that could benefit from his involvement, perhaps even (*gasp*) out of the public spotlight! Then spend a couple years giving back, quietly, and then in 2017 let that organization step up and tell the media what a great effort Hogan has put forth investing in a cause in an attempt to redeem his prior ignorant, hateful comments.

This is a hot-button issue, and some of you reading this blog are probably worked up about even what I wrote. That’s fine. Good-faith debate and civil discussion on matters like this are healthy, even outside of an NPR or Fox News roundtable discussions. My point, though, is Hogan should have the wisdom to stay out of any race discussions for a long time, rather than reacting defensively in knee-jerk fashion to a critic of his p.r. image rehab campaign that began this week.

I Tweeted this…

I don’t think he appreciated the suggestion as I was blocked by him shortly thereafter.

Speaking of Twitter conduct, I’d also suggest he stop posting pictures of black people telling him how nice he was when he met them in the past. No amount of “being nice to the face of black people” makes up for what he said about them behind closed doors when he felt no one was listening. It’s cool, I suppose, that he apparently successfully suppressed blurting out “Hey, n—–, thanks for buying my merchandise, but stay away from daughter and I hope my son and I don’t get reincarnated as black guys” every time a black fan asked for his autograph all these years. But he doesn’t need to rub it in people’s faces that “I’ve been nice to n—–s all these years!” It’s like he wants bonus points for posing for pictures with them all these years.

But given that he got caught not just saying the n-word, but saying it in the context of demeaning black people as not worthy of dating his daughter (unless they’re rich & famous, because that trumps being a n—–, apparently), he should have the wisdom to just stay out of any hot-button race issues this week. He can’t redeem himself in the ways he wants to by inserting himself into a discussion on racial harmony in this country. He has disqualified himself from that role, at least if his goal is to reinsert himself into pop culture and be accepted somehow once again as a hero for kids and wrestling fans of all races.

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