Jameis Winston Tells Elementary School Girls To Be "Silent, Polite, Gentle"

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston went to Melrose Elementary in Tampa, Fla., on Wednesday, and what was supposed to be a breezy photo op turned into yet another instance of Winston being a dumb shithead in public.

While delivering a motivational speech to a group of students, Winston went off-script in an attempt to rouse the classroom:

“All my young boys, stand up. The ladies, sit down,” said Winston. So, yeah, not off to the best start here. Things only got worse:

But all my boys, stand up. We strong, right? We strong! We strong, right? All my boys, tell me one time: I can do anything I put my mind to. Now a lot of boys aren’t supposed to be soft-spoken. You know what I’m saying? One day y’all are going to have a very deep voice like this. One day, you’ll have a very, very deep voice.

But the ladies, they’re supposed to be silent, polite, gentle. My men, my men supposed to be strong. I want y’all to tell me what the third rule of life is: I can do anything I put my mind to. Scream it!

Winston has been catching an understandable amount of shit for those comments, and he followed them up with a lame explanation. From ESPN:

“I was making an effort to interact with a young male in the audience who didn’t seem to be paying attention, and I didn’t want to single him out, so I asked all the boys to stand up,” Winston said, according to the newspaper. “During my talk, I used a poor word choice that may have overshadowed that positive message for some.”

You’ll notice that Winston never actually says, “I’m sorry” in that statement, but these kinds of half-hearted apologies are all you can expect from people who are used to getting away with things.

[ Tampa Bay Times]