Written by a scholar of color, whose intellectual and moral authority in the culture stem not from the force of his argument, but from the concentration of melanin in his skin cells—John McWhorter’s article, “Let’s Not Make Thug the New N-Word,” exemplifies the banal, racial back-and-forth that parades as “debate” in the US.

In the wake of the manufactured Richard Sherman brouhaha, Dr. McWhorter waxes fat and fuzzy on TIME over the artificial, politically dictated linguistic laws that govern discourse in this country (and explain why “dumbassery” is the norm). This racial roundabout proceeds, always, from the premise of compliance with preordained linguistic standards or laws.

When they rabbit on about race, America’s chattering classes—blacks, whites, Democrats, Republicans and the silliest of libertarians alike—exhibit an unthinking habit of mind. These are individuals (for they are not individualists) who’ve been trained by their political and intellectual masters to respond in certain, politically pleasing ways.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea what the fuss is over what Sherman said after the Seattle Seahawks’s victory over the San Francisco 49ers. What I know about the game is dangerous, but it appears that the Seahawks cornerback was merely commenting on an aspect of the game:

“I’m the best corner in the game. When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that’s the result you gonna get. Don’t you ever talk about me!”

The man was pumped, as men ought to be in such a testosterone-infused game. But Sherman’s boisterous bit of theatre set in motion some racial, national free-association, which for the life of me, I can’t follow. Truly.

I’ll say this much: Sherman was correct to point out that his “outburst,” following the “defensive play that sealed his team’s trip to the Super Bowl,” was an extension of “his game-time competitiveness.”

The rest is of a piece with the mindless racial merry-go-round manufactured by America’s media types.