Posted on 10/06/2023 6:31:24 PM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
Michael Lewis and the Tuohy family refuse to acknowledge what’s so clear to Black folks — that white people used Oher for their own benefit.
The most frustrating thing about racism isn’t that it still exists, it’s that so many white people refuse to undeniably admit when it happens. Because if your first instinct was to think that Michael Oher was lying or making something out of nothing, you’re the reason why racism is still thriving.
“What we’re watching is a change of behavior,” Michael Lewis, author of The Blind Side, told The Guardian. “This is what happens to football players who get hit in the head: They run into problems with violence and aggression.”
This is what happens when a man with a slave owner’s mentality writes a “white hero” book about a white family that made money off a “poor, homeless, big, and dumb football player.” To someone like Lewis, Oher was nothing until he met those kind and angelic white folks who saved his life. And ever since he’s come out alleging that the movie and book were based on a lie, as the Tuohy family never legally adopted him, it must be due to football — not the idea that Oher finally discovered the truth.
“Google him now, he’s on the dean’s list at Ole Miss, which says a lot about the dean’s list at Ole Miss,” Lewis told an audience about Oher back in 2007. Ironically enough, for all of those who found Lewis’ joke funny, all it did was show how dumb they actually are. Lewis either thinks Ole Miss isn’t a good school — which wasn’t desegregated until 1962 because white people didn’t think Black people were smart enough to hang at predominately white institutions — or he finds it impossible that Oher has the brains to achieve academic achievement. No matter what side you landed on, Lewis disrespected Black and white people.
Given that we now know that a judge has dissolved the Tuohys’ conservatorship over Oher, that Lewis was childhood friends with Sean Tuohy, and that the adoption wasn’t real, we’re left with directions that point us to just how much of a farce this entire situation has been from the beginning — which is infuriating.
To many, racism isn’t real unless there’s a “smoking gun.” It’s evidence, and white America needs countless examples of it, be it graphs, diagrams, or statistics. It’s what they require to somewhat digest that the people they know and love can be upholders of oppression or supporters of hate. If you get killed for playing with a toy gun, they will ask why that was your plaything of choice. If you die because you wore a hoodie to go buy Skittles, they will wonder why you were out at night. When you lose your life because somebody got mad at how loud the music in your car was, they’ll question why you couldn’t just keep it down. And when the world watches your death on a loop because you allegedly bought cigarettes with counterfeit money, a racial awakening will occur — and then it will disappear less than two years later.
In case you were confused by those examples — or too lazy to click on the embedded links — I was talking about Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, George Floyd, and affirmative action.
History has taught us that White America can only be moved when racism is inescapable. Sometimes, it’s videos and pictures, think police dogs and water hoses in the 1960s, or Rodney King in the 1990s. Other times it takes assassinations, think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and Medgar Evers. All of that is needed for the cries of Black people to be heard. Because when the smoking gun is attached, then racism — or the intent of it — can only be validated.
Michael Oher has more than one smoking gun, especially as we learn more about his situation. But when it comes to people like Michael Lewis and the Tuohy family, it still isn’t enough. In court, a jury only needs a shadow of doubt not to convict. In life, Black people need countless examples to show they’ve been mistreated, and even then it can still be ignored.
Racism has never been or will ever be Black people’s problem to solve, given that we didn’t create it nor do we continue to control and refine it. It’s on white people to shut racism down. And while that might sound like a tall task, it’s really not. You can defeat it by doing the small things, like believing Michael Oher and realizing that his skin color is why so many other white people wouldn’t believe what was done to him was what countless white people have done to people who look like Oher for centuries.
In practical matters, while doing good, they also have to protect themselves from whatever negative consequences from their actions.
Doing goodness does not mean a dump truck of manure isn’t heading your way. There are legalities in these issues that can be used against you in ways that you cannot expect.
Too bad that narrative never shows up in print....
I don’t see it as racism at all. I see it as pure greed on the Touhys’ part. From the movie, Oher got 20%. Dad, Mom and the two Touhy kids each got 20%. To me, thats naked, shameless greed. We’ll never know; but now that we’ve seen how they operate, I think they’d have screwed over a poor white kid just as bad as they did Michael. It was in their hearts. They own 50+ fast food restaurants and ritzy homes all over, but they shamelessly hogged up 80% of the movie profits. GREED, regardless of race.
The book was great. The bad guys were the NCAA trying to put a stop to this arrangement every step of the way.
I knew the movie was going to misrepresent the story because everything Hollywood these days is race and homosexuality. They made him out to be a dumb country bumpkin who couldn’t do it without the whites. The movie made more money than the book. The characters involved made little money and Oher doubts it. The big money came when he went into the pros. The. question is what happened to it.
I read Native Son by Richard Wright. This do-good white family of leftists hired Bigger Thomas. Ended up killing their daughter. Might have been an accident I don’t remember. Tried to cover it up. I’m saying there’s no coming together of the races. It will take several generations more and the Great Society is what set them back. Now there’s too much money keeping anger, not hope alive.
The writer (and many conservatives) are missing the point. This is about “white leftism.”
It’s about that movie. (I didn’t read the book.) That movie is a cringe-fest.
Oher didn’t like the way he was portrayed in that movie. I don’t blame him.
The movie is a white leftist’s dream. Conservatives should be slamming that movie.
In interviews, Oher says the Tuohys and other families helped him by giving him a place to stay. But, he didn’t consider himself a victim.
He said he was an athlete before the Tuohys met him, yet Hollywood portrayed him as a simpleton.
For example, watch this scene where Mrs. Tuohy teaches him about football: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-dUSx5ndh4
Tell me you all didn’t cringe at that scene. And that’s just one example.
The actress herself sees black people as victims. Here she is, teary-eyed, with her point of view: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fUR_VOF8_uY
“they shamelessly hogged up 80% of the movie profits. GREED,”
Wow, the Touhy’s sold their business for over 200 million dollars, but you define them as greedy based on their “The Blind Side” cut. How much was that?
Touhy’s movie cut: “The pair, who were also producers of the movie, said the contracts “did not include significant payouts in the event of the film’s success” and therefore, “the notion that the Tuohys were paid millions of dollars by Alcon to the detriment of Michael Oher is false.”
Their company paid about $767,000 to the talent agency representing the Tuohys and Oher, per the statement, which noted there was likely an agency commission removed before the sum was distributed to the five of them. (Sean has said the family and Oher got about $14,000 each after The Blind Side book author Michael Lewis “gave us half of his share.”)”
https://www.eonline.com/news/1384033/the-blind-side-producers-reveal-how-much-money-the-tuohys-really-made-from-michael-oher-story
Seems Michael Lewis is the one who got screwed. Good writer.
What did they get out of it? A movie deal? He is just an backstabbing prick, looking for a bailout. First purchase after he “got his” was likely a huge home, for which he would have to play football for 30 years to make payments. I am glad I never saw the movie, or watched him play. Without the Tooeys he would be selling individual smokes and fentanyl between the ages of 18 till he died 10 years later.
He likely sees Shadeur Sanders 5 million dollar deal to play amateur football, and is jealous. I remember when my favorite College team got sanctioned, because they gave a job to their QB, that he was able to get others to do so he could have spending money. Watering the practice fields and the game fields, and someone got money to live on in exchange. How corrupt is America? Pretty effin bad.
The race card is the tool of scoundrels and fools.
Best not to have any dealings with people who use it. Good that you didn’t fall for his scam.
If anyone “accuses” me of being a Trump supporter, depending on the situation I either laugh, loudly, or announce “We’re done here,” and walk away. They voted to make a dementia patient President; they are not smart enough to do business with me.
Thank you for saying exactly what I was thinking.
blacks always confusing racism with realism.
biggest problem blacks have is that they are the problem and everyone knows it
Awkward choice of phrasing there, Carron. LOL.
Everyone is constantly indoctrinated by the race baiting industry to see racism in everything. And the race baiters have no interest in calming racism, instead they do everything they can to incite racism.
Secondly everyone is discriminated against, like with kids games picking sides, if you aren’t picked 1st you have been discriminated against, or if you didn’t get the job again discrimination. Discrimination is part of life. So just because a black is discriminated against does not automatically mean they were a victim of racism.
Unfortunately victimization has become a cult.
Blacks know it. They use it to extort .... everything. And they count on mentally ill liberals to advance their scam.
Indeed
Amazing how some are determined not to be confused with facts it spoils the agenda.
Media takes a bow
The Obama regime and the aftermath of it has left me increasingly less concerned about racism with each passing year.
We are now tolerating insanity out of fear that someone might accuse us of racism. Not working anymore, at least on me it isn't.
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