Nation’s Dave Zirin on NFL: ‘Homophobia’ Is Not Acceptable ‘Trash Talk’

HARRIS-PERRY: "So Dave, let me ask you about this. There’s a point here to be made that like trash talking is like the core reality of sports in spades. But is this, you know, is this going beyond trash talking to a kind of hate speech?" 
ZIRIN: "Oh, absolutely. In the NFL, these issues, they’re less Progressive than the flintstones. And any effort they try to say otherwise is ridiculous. They don’t do any kind of training. To try to say to players, wait a moment, gayness is not trash talk. Another side of this story which is disturbing. The very next week Josh Norman was absolutely torched by Julio Jones of the falcons. A lot of his teammates said his mind was out of the game because of how Odell Beckham responded at the end of that giants game by hitting Josh Norman with his helmet and then catching a tying touchdown. In NFL circldell Beckham’s violent response has been valorized which has its own odd feel to it. Because it’s, like, how do you best respond to homophobia, with violence, and if you do that, that violence is valorized. The last thing we need in the NFL is more valorized violence."