They Don't Get Odell Beckham Jr's Timbs In The Summer

If you are alive, are a sports fan, have a Twitter account, listen to sports talk radio or watch it on television, then you’ve heard all about how Odell Beckham Jr. and some of his New York Giants teammates snuck off to Miami for a quick one-day vacation earlier this week.

If you’re smart, you understand that this is a meaningless story seemingly meant to irritate Giants’ fans into a link-clicking, sports-talking frenzy before Big Blue’s playoff visit to Green Bay this Sunday.

Mission accomplished. A trip to Miami on a day off has been a topic of discussion for two full days.

As asinine as that may be, the most frustrating part of the coverage to me has been the focus on what the rain-dodging players were and were not wearing.

As faux concerned as many media members are about players having the audacity to have fun on their day off, there seems to be genuine concern or bewilderment about the wardrobe choice of the people in the now infamous picture on the boat.

Black guys in jeans and Timberland boots on a sunny day in Miami seemed to shock the conscience of the mainstream white media. For a black guy like me, it was simply a routine fashion statement, nothing strange about it.

Yes, I’m from Brooklyn, New York, likely the birth place of the aforementioned fashion statement – of which I partook in my younger days – so, I am perhaps more familiar with the style than others. But, for god’s sake, have people not paid attention to hip-hop and its culture for the past thirty years?

That was a rhetorical question. I know they have. I’ve seen the numbers.

So, what’s so shocking or noteworthy, or even funny about black guys in Timbs and jeans on a boat?

It is surely no longer a shock to me when I see white guys in shorts and flip flops on a cold day in Chicago, or when I see “that fat guy” with no shirt on in freezing temperatures, that we are sure to see this weekend, cheering on the Packers.

Sometimes you just have to shake your head and say, hey, I may not get it, but do you! Express yourself!

The guys in that picture looked sharp to me. Jeans, boots, sneakers, skullcaps and all, they rocked it well.

Maybe some good will come out of this “coverage.” Maybe the next time white people see a picture of rich black guys in a warm climate wearing boots and hats it’ll be recognized as a style and not held up to ridicule.

I won’t hold my breath, but it’s a nice thought.

After all, we let collared shirts tucked into jeans live. So hey, let jeans and Timberlands with no shirt and a skullcap live, too.

Let us live.