Colin Kaepernick, Tatted Up Freak

Surprised that I didn't see anything yet on this column, so here it is. Getting a lot of buzz on Twitter. Thoughts, people?

It gets worse from there, and I have absolutely no use for tattoos myself.

http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2012-11-28/colin-kaepernick-tattoos-49ers-qb-start-alex-smith-stats-contract-draft

 

Tom Brady has a kid out of wedlock, but no tattoos.

 

Not to mention there's a hell of a lot of tatless CEOs in prison. Hi, Jeff Skilling!

 

I normally love Whitley's stuff, but this was just dumb.

I've been saying for two weeks that the NFL is ready for a tattooed QB.

Can someone post the "old man yells at cloud" photo?

 

Did Bobby Layne have tattoos?

 

I fail to understand the outrage by many other writers. He's writing a column that reflects his opinion, and which for that matter reflects the opinion of a lot of people, albeit mostly older, white, close-minded people. Personally I think tattoos are stupid, and I think people who cover themselves in tattoos are immature and dumb (unless they're Henry Rollins).

I see a lot of people registering their disgust with Whitley's article bc they want to seem hip or open-minded, which is fine. But Whitley is not exactly putting forth a lone wolf opinion. That being said, he should have chopped off the first three grafs:

"San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick is going to be a big-time NFL quarterback. That must make the guys in San Quentin happy.

Approximately 98.7 percent of the inmates at California’s state prison have tattoos. I don’t know that as fact, but I’ve watched enough “Lockup” to know it’s close to accurate.

I’m also pretty sure less than 1.3 percent of NFL quarterbacks have tattoos. There’s a reason for that."

And started with this: "NFL quarterback is the ultimate position of influence and responsibility. He is the CEO of a high-profile organization, and you don’t want your CEO to look like he just got paroled."

He would have still sounded like an out of touch white guy, but a little less racist.

 

Isn't the tone, once you get into the column, that Whitley is kind of making fun of himself for being old and out of touch?

 

Wait til he sees AJ McCarron's chest tattoo at the Senior Bowl weigh-in next year.

 

You know the difference between people with tattoos and people without tattoos. The former don't feel the need to be unnecessary judgmental every time the subject comes up.

 

http://www.statisticbrain.com/tattoo-statistics/

According to this, 36% of people ages 18-25 have tattoos. Forty percent of people ages 26-40 have at least one tattoo. Forty-five million people overall have at least one tattoo.

Whatever Whitley thinks tattoos represent, they clearly don't.

 

He's certainly not taking himself too seriously. And while I understand why some people can be horrified by some of these athletes, Kaepernick seems like a nice, well-adjusted guy. I'd rather have him be a low-key superstar with tattoos than a prima donna asshole who is ink-free.

 

Why? He's a sexist, moralizing troll.