Dee Liner Flashes Cash and Stokes The Culture Wars
By Tony Breland
Feb 6, 2013; Muscle Shoals, AL, USA; Muscle Shoals High School defensive tackle Dee Liner talks to the media after announcing his intentions to attended Alabama on national signing day. Marvin Gentry-USA TODAY Sports
Alabama Crimson Tide freshman Dee Liner just gave fans of other teams a reason to cry foul, and inadvertently injected himself into the conversation over hip hop culture.
Liner posted onto his Instagram account a photo – which has since been deleted – showing himself and friends holding stacks of cash.
Predictably, Twitter went nuts. This photo was proof positive, so the story went, that Liner – who switched his commitment from Auburn to the Tide – had been paid for his services.
Also this weekend, a Twitter kerfuffle broke out between this BamaHammer writer and fellow Fansided network writer Josh Sanchez over a column Jason Whitlock of FoxSports wrote discussing the antisocial aspects of hip hop culture.
In his column, Whitlock referenced the Pouncey twins, who wore “Free Hernandez” caps in a club recently in support of former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez, who stands accused of murder.
"They’re swept up in a culture they don’t fully understand and don’t fully respect its impact. The rap music industry, the record labels and the commercial artists preach a message to young black people that expressing the most unethical, intimidating, violent, divisive and classless behavior — characteristics necessary to survive incarceration — are success tools in America’s free society."
Whitlock could have just as easily been referencing Liner, for whom flashing cash for the camera isn’t a regrettable act or a confession of an NCAA violation, it’s a proof of manhood and a reflection of status among his peers.
Fansided writer Stuart White penned a rebuttal to Whitlock’s column, in which he argues hip hop culture is not the culprit.
"This creates a problem, then, when Whitlock decides to put “hip hop culture” in his crosshairs; he’s using a vast, multi-faceted term as a filter through which to understand an individual incident, and in doing so neglects to take all the components of that term, especially the components that don’t jive with his perception of hip hop as evil and destructive, into account."
It’s easy for those of us with no street cred to condemn Dee Liner. Crimson Tide fans will call it a youthful indiscretion; fans of other teams will cry to the heavens that Nick Saban is paying players. And it’s also easy to overgeneralize when saying that rap is responsible for antisocial behavior.
But what’s unmistakable is that for one segment of Tide fans, Liner’s actions are reprehensible and represent all that’s bad about sport and culture in general. For another segment of fans, his actions are proof that he’s on top of the world, and that he’s a real man.
Society has become coarser in general, and pop culture is a reflection of the society at large. But music, video games and all the other things we are quick to blame are only symptoms of where we are as a society. Where you come down on this has as more to do with your ZIP code and job description than it does the color of your skin or what’s on your car stereo.