The morning of the NFL Draft, a few ghosts of Josh Allen’s past came back to haunt him.
Tweets Allen had made as a teenager using racist language started circulating that morning and became a major story in both national and international media. Allen quickly apologized for the tweets and the University of Wyoming quickly followed up with a short statement from the Cowboys’ head football coach Craig Bohl backing Allen up.
“I know Josh has apologized for the Twitter comments he made while in high school,” Bohl said in the release. “As a member of our football team, he had great relationships with his teammates and our fanbase. During his time at Wyoming, he embraced diversity. We wish him all the best on his big night.”
Allen ended up being the seventh draft pick of the night, going to the Buffalo Bills and becoming UW’s highest draft pick in history. He earned it -- there’s not doubt about that fact.
Allen also isn’t the first young athlete whose had their social media history dredged up for all to see and he certainly won’t be the last. While some are willing to chalk the issue up to a young man using racist slang in a short-sighted attempt to be funny or edgy, the fact of the matter is this sort of behavior is rampant on the Internet.
It isn’t something particularly well hidden. Anyone with a search engine can see examples on YouTube, Twitter and a variety of other platforms. The nebulous nature of the Internet confuses things further, where it’s sometimes difficult to be sure if something is 100 percent legitimate or if it’s meant in more of a sarcastic or ironic manner.
Regardless, the take away here is people shouldn’t post that sort of language and expect a free pass because they’re “young and dumb” or trying to be funny. These are words that carry a lot of hate-filled baggage with their use. Anyone with even the slightest amount of social awareness should know the consequences involved with the use of those terms. I don’t doubt Allen made those comments and forgot about them afterward, but the issue is he shouldn’t have typed those tweets in the first place, regardless of intent.
That is the takeaway in Allen’s sudden public relations debacle. Those tweets should not have been made, regardless of if Allen was a teenager when he made them. This is a learning moment for a lot of parents and teens, in that people should be aware of the consequences an errant comment or post can have.
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