On Wednesday, Giants cornerback Janoris Jenkins directed an offensive term at a Twitter critic. On Thursday, Jenkins blamed the incident on his upbringing.
“Where I’m from we use all kind of words for slang,” Jenkins said, via ESPN.com. “If it offends anybody, I’m sorry. It’s a culture that I grew up in where I’m from -- you know what I’m saying? -- we use all kinds of words for all kinds of slang. If you don’t know, it’s a hood thing. Whatever. I’m not calling nobody no name or pick at nobody. It’s just something we use in the hood back at home.”
Jenkins, as of this posting, still hasn’t deleted the tweet. He apologized to coach Pat Shurmur for the distraction on Wednesday.
“I really didn’t seem so bad with it,” Jenkins said. “People like y’all started picking it up and making stories. So I just apologized.”
Shurmur has called the remark from Jenkins “very inappropriate and offensive.”
“I regret it,” Jenkins said Thursday. “But at the end of the day it’s my slang. So if you take it how you’re going to take it, it’s on you. I don’t mean to offend nobody. My dad always told me, ‘Speak freely and own up to what you say.’ So I always speak freely as a man and I speak how I want to speak.”
That’s a weak and flimsy excuse -- one that could be used to nonchalantly justify a whole host of offensive and outdated terms that are or once were commonly used in a given culture or geography. Jenkins regrets it only because it blew up; the fact that he hasn’t deleted the tweets shows that he’s not sorry he did it, and that he won’t think twice about doing it again.