COMMERCIALS CAN'T HIDE LEWIS' PAST (So you wanna' talk racial double standard in sports media?)

Ray Lewis came on the television screen Sunday in one of those commercials that's run during an NFL game.

Lewis looked like some sort of a glorified pledge trainer, and the young men clad in football uniforms around him looked groggy from excessive hazing.He was standing amid a huddle of football players, chanting loudly. Lewis would shout, "What time is it?!" and the pledges would answer, in unison, "Game Time!!"

In a similar spot, Lewis, a perennial all-pro linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, tells a locker room full of jittery young men that "This is not a playground" and "This is my business."

It's not that these ads for NFL High-Performance Apparel are anything unusual or offensive. They hardly compel you to keep your eyes fixed on the screen rather than dash to the kitchen or the restroom or wherever you choose to pass the time. It's Lewis' presence here that's a little odd.

It was Monday, Jan. 31, 2000, in Atlanta, hours after the city hosted an otherwise-successful Super Bowl, when Lewis' life became unusual. At 10:22 a.m. that morning, a detective from Atlanta's homicide unit interviewed Lewis in suburban Norcross, Ga., about the murders of Richard Lollar, 24, and Jacinth Baker, 21. The two had died from stab wounds inflicted in a melee about 100 steps away at the Cobalt Lounge, a popular nightclub in Atlanta's Buckhead district.

A limousine carrying Lewis and several others was spotted fleeing the scene. Its driver, Duane Fasset, was later found and placed Lewis at the scene. Bullets riddled the limo. Blood stained its interior.

Lewis evaded the detective's questions. He promised to cooperate with the murder investigation only after returning from Hawaii a week later. Lewis had a Pro Bowl to play in. Atlanta police arrested Lewis hours later. They charged him, and two men named Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting, with murder. Reports say Lewis sobbed as police took him away.

On June 5, Lewis struck a plea bargain with prosecutors. He agreed to testify against Oakley and Sweeting and plead guilty to a count of obstruction of justice in exchange his murder and aggravated assault charges be dropped. During the trial, several witnesses changed on the stand the accounts they first told investigators. Oakley and Sweeting were acquitted.

Lewis has since remained out of trouble. He's become active in charities and done what he could to repair his image. The families of Lollar and Baker have had to go on with their lives. Lollar, at the time of his death, was engaged to a woman who was eight months pregnant with their child. The girl was born March 3, 2001, and was named India. Baker was an aspiring artist. Lollar hoped to one day open a hair salon.

It's unclear how much guilt Lewis carries today, but at the very least, he corralled several participants after the brawl into his "truck," as he called it, and sped off. Meanwhile Baker and Lollar lie in the street, bleeding to death. Some reports said the knives used to kill these men were equipped with a T-shaped handle, which allow the blade to slide through fingers. So in the late-night darkness, what looked like a punch was actually a stab from a blade they couldn't see. Then the knives were pulled down, like the handle on a slot machine.

The murders remain, last we checked, unsolved. If you doubt Ray Lewis knows who did it, you're living in denial.

Maybe, just maybe, as these mindless advertisements fill our television screen on Sundays and promote brain lethargy and stupid stereotypes, this is something to think about it. Maybe we should never forget.

Black conservative ping

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