USC OLB Clay Matthews reportedly created a Facebook group during his junior season called "White Nation," which showed a photo of an African American baby in handcuffs.

Under the picture was a caption saying "arrest black babies before they become criminals." It also said "This group is not for the faint of heart. All members are athletes of Caucasion descent. We are just doing our duty of protecting the Arian brotherhood." Brian Cushing, K David Buehler, and former Redskins draft pick Dallas Sartz joined the group. The athletic dept. billed the group as a joke. Matthews later issued a formal apology. Apr. 17 - 9:21 am et

Wow... I can't even begin to put it into words. It probably was meant to be a joke, but I don't think it matters. It's horribly racist and incredibly stupid to even joke around like that, especially in a public forum such as Facebook. I don't know how this will affect the draft status of Matthews and Cushing, but all the negative publicity of the last few weeks for these guys can't be helping them.

I'm no comedian, but there are only three things that are funny--

fart jokes
poop jokes
arresting black babies

Not necessarily in that order.

Seriously though, not exactly sure what these knuckleheads were thinking.

Plain and simple, if it was a joke, it was idiotic and indicates there are likely some character issues......And if it wasn't a joke, it was idiotic and inidicates character issues.....I love a good joke and I think there is way too much political correctness out there but this was crossing a line.

Just another spoiled son and nephew of an athlete who thinks they can get away with anything. This guy has officially become one of those guys you want to see fail.

from the USC Daily Trojan, 3/16/2007

An athletic department source who wished to remain anonymous said the group was a joke and had no serious purpose. The "joke" began when a black football player nicknamed some of his teammates "White Nation," the source said.

Stefanie Gopaul, a freshman majoring in psychology, discovered the group through her Facebook friendship with Sartz and Cushing and sent private messages to both, expressing her concern.

"Dallas Sartz said that White Nation is a joke on the team and that he's not like that," Gopaul said. "I was still really upset about it."


<<snip>>


Football player Sedrick Ellis sent Gopaul a message explaining that "White Nation" is an inside joke on the team and that Matthews is not racist.


The entire article is here: http://www.dailytrojan.com/news/facebook-g...-water-1.206854

Ellis is black, by the way...


Poor judgment, letting a potentially volatile "inside the locker room" joke out? Absolutely...racist? Doubtful...

Any indignation to the black teammate who initially referred to his teammates as "White Nation?"

C'mon, anyone here who's ever been in a locker room knows that with your teammates, your brothers, you can and do say things that in normal, polite society would be totally inappropriate. His mistake, really, seems to have been letting it out of the locker room.

See no issue here at all, it was a joke but as usual the thin skinned people of today cant take a joke anymore. NFL will have to look into it because well its heir job to but I dont see this affected either of their draft stocks. It was a joke people, get over it and move on.

Which can indicate a lack of maturity and professionalism. Locker rooms are like Vegas, what happens there, stays there.

I'm not saying I wouldn't have him on my team, but he's clearly got asome things to learn, and as the relative of former Pros, you would hav expected those types of lessons to have been taught by now. Either the failure was on them for not instilling such things in a pro-bound relative, or on him, for not taking what they told him to heart.

USC's got an interesting program, no? This, on top of the LenDale White suicide prank which he arranged with Pete Carroll (and was a similarly very public display), tells me that the people running that program have an extremely broad sense of humor, and you kind of have to wonder how far somebody is going to go in the name of "fun".

Seeing as how this "news" is more than two years old and we haven't caught him wearing bedsheets or burning crosses since then, he may have learned.. to me, the re-release of this seems to be just a matter of slamming someone pre-draft...not sure what the motivation is there...

Not saying the guy is a racist and I certainly get the idea that things are said in locker rooms that would never be said in society....but this guy is a higher profile athlete who has a career that can be impacted with his choices.....I think the guy is an idiot...probably not a racist but just plain stupid.....Not sure what thin skin has to do with anything, just people with opinions...This guy is a moron in my opinion. I would still draft him at the right spot but he would be knocked down on my board due to character concerns...

This came out two years ago I believe. I know it was a big deal for about a day and then it all blew over. Hard to believe it's resurfacing. Bad idea? Yes. Racist or intended to be hurtful? No. People have to remember that while these guys are high profile athletes, they're also 18-22 year old college students who tend to do stupid things. I'd say in the last two years he's likely matured a great deal and has probably learned from his mistake. I guess being a draft candidate is similar to running for political office. They dig up any dirt they can find.

Agreed completely. Pretty amazing this is coming out again.

Exactly......it came up again because teams are doing their investigating and vetting of the potential draftees, and old news is coming back out.

The joke is the author is a college student and still made 3 spelling mistakes in statement containing less than 40 words.

"This group is not for the faint of heart," read the group's description. "All members are athletes of Caucasion (sic) descent. DISCLAIMER: In no way are the following memebers (sic) intolerant of others, we are just doing our duty of protecting the Arian (sic) brotherhood."

I doubt that is the same group they are talking about, I searched it earlier and found that as well.

This wasn't teams doing their investigating. Rotoworld linked to an item that was first published in March, 2007. I have been able to find nothing else recent, no teams commenting on it leading up to the draft...

Put it into context, these are 3 white guys playing on a team with mostly black players.

I can totally see how this is just a joke, they probably did this in response to getting jabbed all the time with jokes.

Bad judgement.....yes, but not a big deal.

If it were real they would have had their asses kicked at USC, not to mention the royal ass beatings they would get once they arrive at the pro franchise.

gotta agree. only issue is the one the media makes. Just think back to all the stupid crap you did as a college student, and you didn't even have to be on a team or a frat to do it

All great points but still, I just think there are certain lines you don't cross...When I was 18 years old I did and said many dumb things but I still had enough awareness to be sensitive to certain issues...I am sure many of their black teammates thought it was funny but I guarantee you there will be some who didn't find it that amusing. Yes, we should all have thicker skin but that is easy to say if certain issues haven't personally impacted your life or the life of people you care about in a significant manner. But if this all happened two years ago, its obviously a non issue now.