If you weren’t forced to read Lord of the Flies in junior high or high school, here’s a brief summary: kids survive a plane crash on an island. They attempt to form something of a society to survive and get rescued, and it almost immediately goes awry. Eventually, they turn on each other with several of the kids dying before they’re rescued.
On Monday, in his weekly Football Morning in America column for NBC Sports, Peter King quoted a “person close to [Drew] Brees,” describing a variety of sports personalities (including several current and former Brees teammates) as reminding him of “Lord of the Flies”.
Predictably, that reference was edited out of the column once people started noticing, but it was preserved online.
Umm… Peter. Nah. https://t.co/quK2k7PlqA pic.twitter.com/VPTlb1dYbU
— LookingForBlackSupremacy (@KirkWrites79) June 8, 2020
In the column as it currently exists online, the 3:35 PM blurb now ends with the sentence about Jenkins’ Instagram post.
3:35 p.m. Today’s sports culture is interesting. Instead of reaching out to Brees and saying, Hey, that’s insulting to us, teammates and foes alike killed Brees on social media—first wideout Michael Thomas, then safety Malcolm Jenkins, finally LeBron James. Brees got flash-bombed everywhere. “Sometimes you need to shut the f— up,” said teammate and Players Coalition leader Malcolm Jenkins, in an Instagram post he later deleted.
And here’s what was deleted, in case you didn’t feel like clicking the above tweet to get the full screengrab.
As one person close to Brees told me, the social-media rip jobs reminded him of “Lord of the Flies.” In that book, normal British boys get stranded on a desert island and have to fend for themselves, and they spiral into savagery to survive. Sounds about right.
While the Lord of the Flies reference from the Brees-centric source wasn’t great, King’s postscript was worse. The implication that Brees is normal (and the players who called him out are not) is shitty. Equating social media criticism of Brees with “savagery” (a word with some less than ideal racial connotations) is even shittier.
Several people criticized that part of King’s column on Twitter.
This is disgusting. Drees was no victim. Those players don’t have to give him the respect of a call, just like he didn’t give Kaepernick respect and mischaracterized kneeling. Also, comparing Black players to villians (savages) in LOTF is VERY tone deaf, especially now. pic.twitter.com/wxpNCUxZmd
— LookingForBlackSupremacy (@KirkWrites79) June 8, 2020
Peter, I love your columns, but the 3:35 TikTok is a bit questionable. Equating the people, particularly people of color, who rightfully responded emotionally to savages from Lord of the Flies… does not feel ideal.
— Pete Schramm (@pete21982) June 8, 2020
Peter King, this is a disgustingly anti-Black take. Why would the onus be on Black players to reach out? If anything, Drew Brees should have declined answering the question pending his own outreach to Black colleagues. This white normative media BS is part of why we have unrest.
— collette watson (@_collettewatson) June 8, 2020
Criticism on social media = savagery? Nah. Nope. (Sorry for my “savagery”)
— Nick Taylor (@Taylor_Nick_L) June 8, 2020
real interesting choice of words here, peter, equating the fight against police brutality as a "spiral into savagery." let alone the comparison of grown, adult black men to fictional white boys. they have every right to be incensed. your condescension here is really something.
— Ursus Maije Solitarius (@ursusmaije) June 8, 2020
Conparing the black men who expressed their frustration at Drew Brees comments to “savages” in Lord of the Flies? Yikes Peter. Major yikes. You may be having your own Drew Brees moment.
— Dylan MacKinnon (@DylanFMackinnon) June 8, 2020
Peter, in saying "sounds about right" regarding Brees, are you actually cosigning the insane assertion that what happened to Brees was indeed akin to what those kids did to the boy they dubbed "piggy?"
— The mad computer scientists errant simulated human (@MadCPUScientist) June 8, 2020
Nearly 12 hours after the column went live (and after tweeting it out and getting thrashed with criticism *three separate times*), King tweeted that the awful Lord of the Flies comparison had been deleted, apologizing and saying that he’ll “be more conscious about the full meaning of analogies.”
Re FMIA:
I am removing the reference to "Lord of the Flies" upon hearing from so many who found it offensive. I apologize for using it. I understand why some are hurt by it. You should be. I'll be more conscious about the full meaning of analogies.
Thanks for keeping me honest.— Peter King (@peter_king) June 8, 2020
This is less about the “full meaning of analogies,” and more about just not knowing what the hell you’re talking about. If you can’t understand an analogy, don’t use it. If you’re talking about racial politics, REALLY DON’T use coded language like “savagery” when trying to describe the shitty analogy.
I can’t believe this is so complicated, but here we are.