Tom Brady and the Culture of White Crime, a Serious Column

Editor's Note: I have no idea.

The ground is still shaking beneath our feet, but as NFL Nation reckons with the aftershocks of the Wells Report on Deflategate, one question remains unanswered: When will it stop? When will the white community open its eyes, take stock, and move to address the criminal culture that gave birth to Tom Brady?

It's the question everyone seems afraid to ask.

Instead, we've been treated to an avalanche of morally sound, albeit misguided, attempts to craft the ideal punishment for Brady and his co-conspirators. Mainstream sports media, shackled as ever by the handcuffs of "correctness," has left out that both of Brady's cohorts are white. These attempts at discipline are doomed. They ignore the problem for which the white community has long refused to hold itself accountable, a problem that stands as the defining aspect of white culture as a whole.

White privilege.

From childhood, Brady has embodied this very concept of white privilege. His dad brought him to Niners games, where he was able to learn from the great white men, Joe Montana and Dwight Clark. His family grew up without financial pressures. He was never hassled by police or suspected of drug use. Despite a mediocre high school career, he was awarded a full athletic scholarship to Michigan, one of the best football programs in the country. There, Brady played only two seasons, neither of which warranted much attention. His combine performance was far below the acceptable benchmark for a professional athlete.

But the NFL was his birthright, and Brady was drafted into the NFL and kept on New England's roster as a fourth quarterback, a rare move for any pro team. At every stage, Brady was given the benefit of the doubt. How many black players would have been given so many chances despite a lack of production? How many black players would have advanced to the next level despite never standing above the crowd?

Brady was given the benefit of the doubt because he is a charismatic white man, and because all the other white men in charge of Brady's fate chose to see the best in him. In doing so, they failed to see the rest of him—and the true depths of his depravity, which the Wells report laid out in harsh white. Perhaps they didn't want to look too hard in the mirror. Brady often has spoken about making up for his athletic shortcomings with hard work and study; each and every time, he has omitted the nefarious plot he designed and commandeered to give himself a competitive advantage, and failed to acknowledge that he has abused the trust of others in order to succeed. Brady exposed his subordinates to the risk of tampering with the game balls, and then enjoyed the fruits of their white labor.

This was nothing new. For generations, the white man has been stealing from those who toil in this country. Brady's is just the latest in a long line of plunders. His life has been a lie, a sham to perpetrate his personal well-being; he honed his good-guy image even as he used subterfuge to undermine the integrity of his sport. He is a man without remorse. He is the Frankenstein creation of the values that birthed him, the hero that white culture deserves.

So the question remains: when will white culture say "no more" to its own self-destructive impulses? When will they finally put something, anything, ahead of their own selfish interests? It is time, past time, for white people to realize that only they can fix what is wrong in the white community, and that only accountability can undo the damage they've done.

The place is here, the time is now. There is only one acceptable punishment. Brady must become the ultimate cautionary tale, so his crimes can echo through the ages.

Tom Brady must be suspended for at least two games.