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The videos are grainy, the figures difficult to make out even in the shot from a closer angle. There’s a kid in a hallway, talking to a security guard. The kid takes a step away. The guard moves in aggressively. The kid shoves him. The guard grabs the kid, and they begin to grapple with one another.
The kid slams the security guard to the ground with such force that the sound of the impact is audible even in the clip shot at from some 15 feet away.
And with that slam,17-year-old Jayru Campbell, the 6’ 3”, 190-pound Cass Tech junior quarterback with two state titles and an offer to attend Michigan State University, became the latest poster boy for a sports world that lately can’t get its fill of tearing into brash, impulsive black male athletes.
No, Campbell’s not Richard Sherman, the stellar Seattle Seahawks cornerback whose boastful, brilliant post-game interview launched a raft of racist insults, sanctimonious scolding and prayers for Peyton Manning to exact vengeance on behalf of offended white masses.
Where Sherman invoked white rage — and a measure of black embarrassment — with his mouth, it was the raw, frightening physicality of Campbell’s actions that sent streams of invective flowing into a sea of Facebook feeds, Twitter posts, comments sections and message boards.
Demands for MSU to Rescind
The video clips had barely begun to circulate before sounding boards were filled with demands that Michigan State rescind its offer to Campbell, that Campbell be tossed out of school and jailed. (This before he's been charged or convicted.)
No, Campbell is not Sherman. But to judge from much of the early response, he might as well be.
A brilliant black man from Compton who has the nerve to excel at his craft and to be willing to let you know about it? “Thug.” “Punk.” And worse. Much worse.
A talented, but troubled, teen from one of Detroit's roughest neighborhoods who had the nerve to make not one, but two, rash mistakes? “Thug.” “Punk.” And much worse.
As much as I loved Sherman’s antics, I’m not looking to excuse Jayru Campbell for going all Coco B. Ware on the security guard. When you’ve got a chance to ride a rocket arm out of the ‘hood and into a college education, you don’t jeopardize it by rag dolling some Top Flight rent-a-cop.
But just because I won’t excuse his reaction doesn’t mean I’m going to eviscerate the kid either.
I don’t know Jayru Campbell. But I do know what it’s like to be 16 and from a neighborhood where the constant threat of violence dictates a set of codes that you disobey at the risk of your very life.
On Jayru Campbell's shirt in the full version of this shot, it says "Sound Mind, Sound Body." (Fox Sports Detroit photo)
I know what it’s like to live in a world where one of those codes is that you don’t ever let anyone you don’t know — especially someone you’ve just been arguing with — walk up on you uninvited and aggressively.
I graduated high school in 1985, from a school where real cops like the genial Officer Fells patrolled our halls and treated us with an avuncular mix of warmth and sternness.
Yeah, I saw them lock up plenty of hard cases. But I also saw them defuse numerous situations peacefully by drawing on the goodwill and respect that some of them had among students -- whatever the community’s larger relationship with the police.
They knew how to talk to you, how to set you straight and how to send you on your way.
Even Cops Know Better
And even hardened DPD officers knew not to just walk up on an angry, strapping kids like they were going to whoop ass — unless they were really about to whoop ass.
When I see the clip of the exchange before the fight, I don’t see Campbell looking to start trouble as much as I see a kid reclaiming his personal space from a man who’s getting a little too close.
No, the teenager shouldn’t have pushed the guard. Yes, he should have walked on out the door.
But I also see a security guard who has the option of calling for an administrator or requesting back up instead of deciding it’s up to him to get in Campbell’s face. I see a guard square off with a kid even as other guards appear to just watch from the sidelines along with the jeering kids.
Is this really an enforcement action or just two dudes woofing and readying to throw hands?
Had that guard walked up like that on any number of the young black men I came up with — hell, had he walked up on those take-no-shit OGs from my uncles’ generations — his ass might well have gotten dropped even before the body slam.
And yes, so you won’t have to wonder, I’m most definitely questioning the security guard’s judgment at least as much as I am the quarterback’s.
Reports say the incident occurred after the guard — apparently an enthusiastic enforcer of the school’s no-hat policy — tried to snatch Campbell’s hood off of his head. (What is it with not-quite-real law-enforcement types and black kids’ hoodies anyway?) But the reports also say it was dismissal time at the school and Campbell was supposedly leaving the building.
Trivial Matter
So if the kid’s going outside into sub-zero temperatures anyway, why mess with him over something so trivial?
Why not just tell him to keep it moving? Is it really too much to ask, too much of a slap at your Securitas-enabled authority, to believe you don’t have to put hands on every mouthy, flip black kid who enters your airspace?
I mean, how do we always arrive at this notion that black children—even the tall ones who’re angry and out of line—always have to be met with some measure of physical force or even the threat of it?
And again, if he really is presenting that much of a problem, why not call in a school administrator or ask another security guard to help you talk him out the door? How is it standard operating procedure for an unarmed guard to tussle with a kid over a hooded sweatshirt?
This isn’t about protecting Campbell because he’s some star quarterback either -- not for me, anyway. If MSU pulls his scholarship, I suspect he’ll still be OK. He’s tall, nimble and far cooler in the pocket than he was in the hallway on Wednesday. He may have to enroll in a JUCO somewhere, but I suspect his talent will land him at somebody’s university eventually, even if it’s not in East Lansing.
Saying the kid deserves a chance to finish school and get on with his life is about acknowledging that, whatever his mistakes, he doesn’t deserve to be thrown away by the rest of us.
The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office is investigating. Campbell almost surely will be punished, but he should not have to disappear simply to sate the vindictiveness of those who would reduce a kid’s humanity to a couple of rash brawls.
In a nation where judges will invent mental disorders to exonerate rich white boys who kill, America finds it far too easy to discard its young black men for far less.
I Can Only Imagine . . .
And black people, too easily shamed into excessive self-flagellation by the prospect of looking frail and human and anything less than the proper Negro in front of others, are often as guilty of this as anyone.
I’m not going to be party to that here.
That said, it’s also a vast understatement to suggest that Campbell needs to get his act together and get a better handle on his temper. He was already starting next season on suspension for punching a Catholic Central kid following a playoff game. He had to be restrained by his coaches after that game.
I don’t know what it’s like to be 16, the star QB of a two-time state champion and a prospect coveted by the likes of Alabama and MSU. I can only imagine what that can do to a kid’s ego and sense of entitlement.
But I do know what it’s like to grow up in a place where athletic talent doesn’t make you bulletproof and where violent outbursts can put you in a prison cell or an early grave.
It’s heartbreaking and tragic to concede that black boys don’t have the same margin for error as others. After all, we’ve all made grievous mistakes in our youth, usually more than once.
And we all deserve more than one chance to outlive them.
