American hurdler Lolo Jones received an unusual, lighthearted request
on her Twitter page recently. "Want to race me," read the note from
Eric LeGrand, the inspirational Rutgers football player who was
paralyzed in a 2010 game.
Jones had never heard of LeGrand or looked at his avatar, which features a picture of him sitting in a wheelchair, and wrote back, "get checked for a concussion. clearly u've been hit in the head... cos u arent beating a track athlete."
Olympian Lolo Jones basically just talked smack to a man in a wheelchair.
It was that sort of quick-trigger, unfunny messaging that got Lolo into hot water the last time she sent a thoughtless tweet.
Back
in July, Lolo suggested Americans would start performing better at the
Olympics when "da Gun shootin competition" started. That tweet came
eight days after one of the worst gun massacres in United States history
at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises.
Neither
tweet was, by itself, intentionally insensitive. Lolo didn't know
LeGrand was paralyzed, nor is it fair to think she was talking about a
crazed gunman winning medals in "da Gun shootin competition."
It
was the the timing, reaction and the lack of awareness of one's
surroundings that made them cringe-worthy tweets. Lolo doing little to
put out her fires didn't help the cause either. Rather than saying
something politically correct like "I'm sorry for the victims of the
shooting and didn't intend any reference," she went on the defensive and
acted like everyone else was wrong for making assumptions about her
tweet. Perception meant nothing.
It's the same thing with LeGrand.
When Lolo found out LeGrand is a quadrapalegic, her first instinct was
to whine about how much hate mail she was going to get for the tweet.
There were no public apologies forthcoming. It took a personal message
from LeGrand to start communication. He said he didn't take anything
personal and understands.
"Thx, Lolo wrote back. "Getting trashed by tons of ppl glad ur not one of em."
USA Today