Baffoe: Cam Newton Is Aware Of You

By Tim Baffoe--

(CBS) With an understanding that there's really no way for me to write it without sounding painfully white, Cam Newton is woke.

If you don't know what "woke" is, you aren't woke. Most days, I know I'm not, if I've ever been at all.

The Super Bowl-bound Carolina Panthers quarterback is aware, in tune, not oblivious to the climate surrounding his existence as … let's call it "anti-establishment figure" so that some people don't X out of their browsers right now and tweet me "WHY YOU GOTTA MAKE IT BOUT…"

"It wasn't going to be instant grits, quick grits," Newton said following the 49-15 demolition of the Arizona Cardinals in Sunday's NFC Championship game. "It's going to be a process like long-cooked collard greens. I think those collard greens are brewing right now. You can smell it from a mile away."

Grits and collards aren't a metaphor used to appeal to the Middle America that buys into the "Football is family" NFL PR campaign. Neither is using the expression "This, that, and the third," as he also did that evening.

But Newton doesn't much care if he appeals to Middle America (whatever that is anyway). This isn't to say he's intentionally trying to bother anyone -- and if he is, good on him -- but more like he just doesn't care anymore if he does. The presumed comfortable mold of acceptable podium quarterback isn't going to make him dress unloudly or speak in platitudes any more than it will stop him from using colloquialisms, which shows that he's quite comfortable and is so on his own terms regardless of anyone else's.  

I mean, Newton's in the Super Bowl and favored to win. And you're not.

His wokeness isn't new. It was thrust upon him as a draft prospect in 2011, particularly in the now-infamous assessment of scout Nolan Nawrocki, then of Pro Football Weekly, which called Newton the following:

"Very disingenuous — has a fake smile, comes off as very scripted and has a selfish, me-first makeup. Always knows where the cameras are and plays to them. Has an enormous ego with a sense of entitlement that continually invites trouble and makes him believe he is above the law — does not command respect from teammates and will always struggle to win a locker room . . . Lacks accountability, focus and trustworthiness — is not punctual, seeks shortcuts and sets a bad example.  Immature and has had issues with authority. Not dependable."

Such a scouting report is sadly laughable in retrospect, considering both how Newton hasn't lived down to it at all and how anyone with any shred of social conscience (and understanding of discrepancies between how "certain" players get talked about) can't read it without having the coded language scream at him or her. Newton was still the top overall pick, but it coincided with an awakening to how others were going to talk about him then, now and probably after he retires and to how he would then have to take some stock of himself.

"It was very disgusting," Newton said in a 2013 TV interview about coming to terms with perceptions of his personality flaws. "That's as blunt as I can be. I could say other words as well. We went back on YouTube and looked at Cam Newton's postgame interviews. I was like 'Oh, my God,' I see what people see. I see how people are viewing me. When they see this selfish player or see this childish temper tantrum that I was throwing, I'm like 'That's why people look at me like that.'"

So, some modifications were made. But the awareness didn't mean changing for them, us, whomever the dictators of culture might be. It was for his teammates and himself, to become a better teammate, not a better celebrity. He didn't discard the genuine Cam Newton. He stayed woke.

Hence the appointment television that is often his postgame attire. The Superman thing. The giving of touchdown balls to kids. Naming his son Chosen. The messing with opposing fans. The smile that's especially wide and therefore especially rankling when he's crushing your team because there's nothing worse than witnessing a man enjoying his work at your expense. His now-phenomena dabbing that has crossed various arenas and genres.

After the Panthers drafted him, Newton expressed an awareness of what was coming.

"I understand it's not something that's going to be instant, like instant grits," he said in late April 2011. "It's more like collard greens. You've got to let it sit and wait. But at the same time it's going to be a fun process. I know that."

And it has been fun for him. It's his fun, not anyone else's constructed acceptable fun. Now he's in the Super Bowl, being himself as he got there. The slow cooking of Cam Newton has come full circle.

Five years apart with the same soul food reference? At a time when he absolutely knew the Cam Newton Narrative Machine had been switched to Hyper?

Tell me that's a man unaware of himself or of us. I dare you. If you don't know what woke is, Cam Newton is it.

Tim Baffoe is a columnist for CBSChicago.com. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimBaffoe. The views expressed on this page are those of the author, not CBS Local Chicago or our affiliated television and radio stations.

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