Let Cam Newton be himself

Cam Newton demands attention. His skills, looks, personality, immense size and determination to be the best at what he does refuse to be ignored. The gravitational pull of his intense celebrity will tug you into his orbit. You can’t hide or feign ignorance of a star burning this brightly. He’s become a staple in the national conscious and cultural conversation, an unavoidable topic even among those who’ve never heard him speak.

Last week, ahead of the biggest moment of his career to date, Newton addressed the media, finally voicing his perspective on what it’s like to stand at the center of extremist debate over his person and the meaning of his success.

“I’ve said this since day one,” he started.

“I’m an African-American quarterback. That may scare a lot of people because they haven’t seen nothing that they can compare me to.”

His coach, Ron Rivera, in an attempt to deflect some of the pressure off his Super Bowl quarterback, said, “I don’t think he wants to be known as an African-American quarterback. I think he wants to be known as a quarterback, and a great one at that.”

Unfortunately that race qualifier -- a double-edged sword that harms the athlete more often than it defines -- is inescapable when it comes to Cam Newton or any other black quarterback.

The grand irony of that fact is that in 2016 it should be easier than ever to define Cam Newton on individual terms. Information has never been as readily available to the public as it is now. Under the 24-hour news cycle and with TMZ and cameraphone-armed fans, most privacy is gone. There are countless profiles, interviews, Vines and GIFs that can be used as a window into Newton’s, and any athlete’s, mind. This should be the age when individual complexity is most apparent. Yet, the information we have that should give insight into Cam Newton’s identity is instead used as a buttress for willful ignorance. We refuse to see him as anything more than we have predetermined that he is or what we think he should represent.

A video of him dancing/“pipin’ it up” in front of a few Tennessee Titans defenders after scoring a touchdown is used as an example of his unapologetic exuberance in victory. Then the same clip is held up by the opposing side as evidence of his brash arrogance. There’s no reconciliation of the human being, capable of exhibiting both qualities in the heat of the moment.

In this age of constant and overbearing exposure, every characteristic is thought to be visible, and personality traits which are not readily apparent aren’t identifiable. If it’s not demonstrable it does not exist. So the self, the idea of interiority, is more compromised than ever and the personhood of Cam Newton is a community affair rather than a solitary ownership.

Cam Newton is black, and since his birth he has suffered the consequences of that burden. The more he grows in the public eye, the more he achieves, the more he smells the collard greens and speaks of grits, the more he dabs, dances, brings out rappers to his big games, brashly challenges the opposition to keep him out of the end zone, the more he becomes property of the public and less Cam Newton.

Standing behind the podium and addressing race head-on, Newton acknowledged the limits of classifying his talent by that measure. After all, “African-American quarterback” is a descriptor that can rightfully be applied to Robert Griffin III, Teddy Bridgewater, Warren Moon, Russell Wilson, Michael Vick, Donovan McNabb, Steve McNair, EJ Manuel, Doug Williams, Geno Smith, Colin Kaepernick, Tyrod Taylor, Randall Cunningham, Tarvaris Jackson, Vince Young, Thad Lewis, Joe Webb, Josh Freeman and Josh Johnson, among others.

Newton’s transgressions are theirs as well. When he smiles, it’s a show of their collective hubris. Every incompletion is another stick on the pyre on which the black quarterback is burned. This was the case before he even took a professional snap in the NFL and it’s the case after every one since, as it was with all of his predecessors.

Some early criticisms of Newton were warranted, if familiar: his throwing mechanics were “lazy,” he wasn’t “quick thinking” enough to run a pro-style offense. The words that he was bludgeoned with were the same used to undermine other black players at his position: thug, arrogant, moody, bad role model, and all the other coded words that reinforce the belief that being black and being a quarterback are mutually exclusive qualities.

By that thinking, even Cam Newton’s atypical successes are described with a negativity that reinforces stereotype. In celebrating an almost unbroken string of victories in a competitive sport he is unironically deemed classless; effectively exploiting defenses by running, rather than sitting in the pocket, is laughably determined to be an unintelligent strategy. His race is always the prism through which his successes and failures are viewed.

Booker T. Washington, over a hundred years ago, summarized the dichotomy excellently: “When a white boy undertakes task, it is taken for granted that he will succeed. On the other hand, people are usually surprised if a Negro boy does not fail. In a word, the Negro youth starts out with the presumption against him.”

He was never just Cam Newton. He was black and he was a black quarterback: a runner who can’t throw from the pocket. A dual threat when they want to be kind.

The other extreme of the fight over Cam Newton’s identity is the blind resistance to any attempt at discrediting him. In order to shield Newton from unfair assessment, like a mother protecting her child from the world, we uphold him as a small deity, infallible on all levels. In celebrating every single Cam Newton action, we commit idolatry, the flipside of dehumanization.

So each time he gives a ball to a child in the audience, it’s a testament to his saintly character. His dances are our dances and become a craze that sweeps the nation. He dabs, we dab. He becomes the savior sent to free us from the notion of ancient, prototypical quarterbacks who “play the game the right way,” who shows that being capable of solving a problem in numerous ways isn’t a disagreeable thing. It’s perfectly feasible to improve as a pocket passer while also barreling into, jumping over and going through defenders. We love him so hard that we diffuse ourselves into him for our vicarious enjoyment. But as Gail Carson Levine writes, ”“I trust you to find the good in me, but the bad I must be sure you don’t overlook.” To truly love and understand Newton is not to worship a false image of him, or our reflections in him. Nor is it to ignore his faults.

No person can live up to this collective partitioning. He will fail at some part of it all, as he has done before, as people do all the time. He will succeed at some parts of it, as particularly resilient, skilled and dedicated people do. Whether either of those outcomes constitutes disaster in entirely dependent on which of the numerous selves you think Cam Newton embodies.

What Ron Rivera got wrong in suggesting that Newton wants to be remembered as a great quarterback rather than an African-American quarterback is that not only is that impossible, but the decision is not up to him. The gesture is sympathetic, yet it’s insincere: Newton even states confidently before him that he’s an African-American quarterback who scares people because he’s incomparable. His race, the problems it presents, the anger and bitterness that it elicits are all part of his identity, warranted or not.

It’s the effort to compare him, to categorize, tame, break, to make him fall in line with old stereotypes or emblematic of a new generation, that is the issue. Whether we canonize or vilify Newton based on one part of his identity, we strip him of the chance to err and to correct himself as all other humans are allowed to do, to sometimes be arrogant, moody, bratty without it being the sole marker of his complex self or justifying that behavior as universal of any group.

The discussion of Cam Newton stopped being about the man a long time ago and remains a continuation of a war much older than him. It is fair to once in a while step back and consider that even while containing multitudes, he is ultimately still his Cam Newton and not ours. He is many things but his individuality belongs to him: his own personal dreams, goals, quirks, moods, strengths, weaknesses, and habits are particular to him. His only responsibility is to be Cameron Newton.