Mismanaging the Narrative While the Moment Slips Away at Morehouse
- Ghetto Philosopher
- 22 hours ago
- 9 min read
Where Things Stand
The image that set this story in motion is already fixed in the public mind: Benjy Taylor, head men’s basketball coach at Tuskegee University, being led off the court in handcuffs following a game at Morehouse College. There were no charges. No allegation of violence. Yet the moment was public, jarring, and deeply consequential.
In the days since, the incident has moved from viral video to institutional response, conference sanction, and now legal scrutiny. Most recently, the president of Morehouse issued a letter to students, faculty, and staff addressing what occurred. That letter now functions as the clearest indicator of how the institution understands this moment—and, just as importantly, what it is prioritizing as the story continues to unfold.
The Incident, Briefly Revisited
Following the conclusion of the Tuskegee–Morehouse basketball game, postgame handshakes were underway when members of Morehouse’s football team—who were not participants in the game—were present on or near the court. According to multiple accounts, obscenities were directed toward Tuskegee players and families.
Coach Taylor asked security to remove the football players, citing safety and game-management concerns. Instead of the situation being diffused, Taylor himself was detained and escorted off the court in handcuffs.
He was not charged. He returned home with his team. But the damage was already done—professionally, personally, and symbolically.
The Letter as a Pivot Point
Ghetto Philosopher News obtained a copy of a statement from Morehouse College President, Dr. F. Dubois Bowman, Ph.D. The prepared letter was addressed to the institution's students, faculty, and staff regarding the postgame handcuffing incident of Tuskegee head basketball coach Benjy Taylor.
Also, the announcement from Dr. Bowman provided clarity for Morehouse's delayed response to the matter.
The Morehouse president’s letter attempts to do several things at once: acknowledge the incident, affirm institutional values, challenge aspects of the public narrative, and push back on the conference’s disciplinary process. In that sense, it is less a resolution than a pivot—from silence to positioning.
The letter confirms that Morehouse issued a direct apology to Coach Taylor on the night of the game and states that his brief detainment “did not reflect the desires that we have for Morehouse.” That acknowledgment matters. It signals that, at minimum, the outcome of the incident conflicted with institutional values.
At the same time, the framing is careful. The issue is presented as an unfortunate deviation rather than a systemic breakdown. The apology is noted, but the conditions that made the moment possible are left largely unexplored.
GP News Analysis of President Bowman's Letter
Executive Read
The letter is carefully defensive, legally cautious, and institution-protective. It is written less to reckon with what happened and more to reassert narrative control after public sympathy moved sharply toward Benjy Taylor.
In short:It is not a reconciliation letter.It is a positioning memo.
What the Statement Does Effectively
1. It Concedes the Core Fact Without Owning the Implication
The president acknowledges:
There was an “escalated incident”
Coach Taylor was detained and escorted off the court
Morehouse apologized directly to Taylor the night of the game
This matters. Once an apology is acknowledged, the institution has implicitly conceded error in outcome, even if it disputes intent or interpretation.
However, the wording is telling:
“the detainment did not reflect the desires that we have for Morehouse”
That frames the issue as misalignment with values, not a failure of systems or leadership. It is reputational triage, not accountability.
2. It Uses Legal Framing to Shut Down Moral Discussion
By stating the matter is now an “active legal matter,” the letter:
Preemptively limits further public explanation
Justifies silence as prudence rather than avoidance
Shields decision-makers from follow-up questions
This is standard institutional lawyering—but it also undercuts the claim of transparency.
3. It Pushes Back on Public Narrative Without Disproving It
The president asserts that:
“Many public accounts have not fully and accurately captured the context”
But no alternative facts are provided—only a claim of mischaracterization.
That’s a rhetorical move designed to:
Create doubt
Reframe criticism as exaggeration
Avoid contradicting video evidence directly
Notice what’s missing:
Where the Statement Weakens Its Own Credibility
4. The “I Didn’t See It” Defense Is a Strategic Mistake
This line is the most fragile part of the letter:
“As an attendee at the game, I did not observe conduct that was clearly outside of what is commonly seen…”
This shifts the standard from policy to personal perception.
But the issue was never whether the conduct was “commonly seen.”
It was whether it violated mandated security protocols.
That move inadvertently reinforces the SIAC’s position: institutional culture normalized behavior that policy explicitly forbids.
5. The SIAC Critique Reads as Deflection
Questioning the SIAC investigation for not soliciting Morehouse input is a double-edged argument.
On one hand, it raises procedural fairness concerns.
On the other, it looks like retaliatory framing once sanctions were imposed.
More importantly, it avoids the core finding:
The conference determined Morehouse failed to meet crowd-control standards
Unfortunately for Morehouse, that finding aligns with video evidence and eyewitness accounts—regardless of process complaints.
What the Letter Does Not Do (And That Absence Is Loud)
The statement never:
Reaffirms Coach Taylor’s authority as a fellow HBCU professional
Acknowledges the humiliation of public handcuffing
Names the power imbalance created when law enforcement supersedes coaching authority
Commits to specific corrective measures beyond “engaging”
For a college that trades on moral leadership, that restraint feels calculated.
Strategic Subtext: What This Letter Is Really About
This letter is doing three things simultaneously:
Preserving institutional legitimacy
Containing legal exposure
Reasserting narrative balance against a moment that visually favored Taylor
It is written for:
Alumni
Donors
Trustees
Peer institutions
NOT for the coach in handcuffs.
Bottom Line GP News Assessment
This is a competent institutional response, but not a courageous one.
It acknowledges harm without interrogating power.
It apologizes without accountability.
It defends legacy without reckoning with contradiction.
Most critically, it never answers the question at the heart of the incident:
Why was a Black coach enforcing protocol treated as a threat rather than supported as an authority?
Until that question is addressed directly—not legally, not rhetorically, but morally—the letter functions as damage control, not leadership.
Legal Framing and Narrowed Accountability
The letter emphasizes that the situation has now become an “active legal matter,” a phrase that serves a clear function. It limits further public comment, narrows the scope of discussion, and places boundaries around institutional responsibility going forward.
This is a common and understandable legal posture. But it also has consequences. When legal framing becomes the dominant lens, moral and institutional accountability tends to recede. Transparency gives way to caution. Leadership gives way to risk management.
For those watching closely—students, alumni, peer institutions—that shift is noticeable.
The Rhetorical Misstep
One line in the letter stands out more than the others. The president notes that, as an attendee at the game, he did not personally observe conduct “clearly outside of what is commonly seen at competitive collegiate athletic events.”
This is where the statement falters.
The issue was never whether the behavior was “commonly seen.” The issue was whether it complied with mandated security and game-management protocols. By grounding the assessment in personal observation rather than policy, the letter inadvertently reframes a rules-based failure as a matter of subjective perception.
In doing so, it creates distance from the conference’s finding and from the video evidence that has circulated publicly. It also raises a quieter concern: when institutional leaders rely on personal vantage points to assess policy breaches, enforcement becomes uneven by design.
The SIAC Sanction—and the Pushback
The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference concluded its investigation by sanctioning Morehouse for failing to meet crowd-control and safety standards. The conference’s action aligned with what many observers had already inferred: the breakdown occurred at the level of event management, not individual misconduct.
Morehouse’s letter challenges the SIAC process, noting that the investigation did not solicit the College’s input before issuing a fine. That concern about process may be valid. But its placement in the letter is telling.
At a moment when clarity and reassurance were needed, the focus shifts toward procedural grievance. The effect—intended or not—is to signal that institutional energy is being directed toward contesting responsibility rather than centering repair.
The Human Cost, Revisited
Lost in the procedural language is the person at the center of this moment. Coach Taylor was handcuffed in front of his players, his family, and a gym full of spectators. That image does not disappear because an apology was issued or because a process is being disputed.
Civil rights attorney Harry Daniels, who now represents Taylor, has emphasized that no crime occurred. That fact alone underscores the imbalance of the response. The consequences of the incident are not abstract. They are reputational, emotional, and professional—and they are borne disproportionately by the individual whose authority was questioned in real time.
Lack of Leadership in the Moment
At moments of institutional stress, leadership is revealed less by tone than by judgment. That is the context in which the response of F. DuBois Bowman deserves closer scrutiny—not as a personal indictment, but as an assessment of leadership alignment with circumstance.
Dr. Bowman’s letter reflects composure, caution, and institutional discipline. What it does not fully reflect is urgency. In a moment where a fellow HBCU coach was publicly handcuffed for asserting safety concerns, the response prioritizes narrative calibration over moral clarity. The emphasis on mischaracterization, process disputes, and personal observation subtly re-centers the institution rather than the incident.
That choice matters.
Presidents of legacy institutions do more than manage crises; they set the interpretive frame for how harm is understood. By grounding his assessment in what he personally “did not observe,” Dr. Bowman narrows the scope of concern to individual perception rather than institutional responsibility. In doing so, he unintentionally lowers the standard from what policy requires to what leadership happened to notice.
Equally telling is what the letter does not directly confront. There is no sustained engagement with the symbolic weight of a Black coach being handcuffed inside an HBCU arena. There is no explicit affirmation of Coach Taylor’s authority as legitimate and professional. There is no acknowledgment that humiliation—regardless of intent—carries consequences that apologies alone cannot resolve.
Instead, the letter leans into procedural defensiveness at precisely the moment when moral leadership was required. Questioning the SIAC’s investigative process may be appropriate in another setting. Here, it reads as a misalignment of priorities—an instinct to contest the finding rather than sit with what the finding reflects.
This is where disappointment sets in.
Morehouse presidents inherit not only an office, but a burden: to lead with clarity when the institution’s values are tested in public view. In this instance, the response suggests an institution more focused on managing exposure than modeling accountability. That is not a failure of intellect or intent—but it is a failure of timing.
Leadership is not judged by how carefully it speaks when lawyers are listening. It is judged by whether it understands the moment it is in.
And in this moment, the question is not whether Morehouse will defend itself effectively. It is whether its leadership recognizes that silence, caution, and procedural critique—however polished—can still fall short of the responsibility the moment demands.
What the Letter Ultimately Signals
The president’s statement is measured, careful, and institutionally protective. It affirms values while avoiding deeper interrogation. It acknowledges harm without fully reckoning with power. It defends legacy while sidestepping the discomfort of the moment.
None of this is unusual. But it is revealing.
Moments like these do not test institutions by what they say. They test them by what they are willing to confront—and what they are willing to change.
You Can’t Untoast the Toast
There is a deeper disappointment running beneath the legal arguments, the statements, and the institutional positioning. It is the realization that some moments cannot be undone—no matter how carefully they are explained after the fact.
Morehouse can apologize.
It can contest findings.
It can engage in dialogue, settle claims, and refine protocols.
What it cannot do is untoast the toast.
The image of Benjy Taylor in handcuffs is now part of the public record. It will outlive this season, this investigation, and any eventual legal resolution. Even if courts determine that his detainment was improper, even if compensation is awarded, even if institutional reforms follow, the visual consequence remains intact.
This is how reputational harm works. It is not adjudicated; it is remembered.
Years from now, if Coach Taylor applies for a position at a major program—Auburn University, for example—his résumé will speak to wins, player development, and leadership. But résumés are not what circulate in background conversations. Images do. And the image that will resurface is not of him coaching on the sideline, but of him being escorted off a court in handcuffs...
...at Morehouse...Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's alma mater.
That is the irreversibility of this moment.
What makes this particularly troubling is not simply that it happened, but where it happened. A Black institution. A Black coach. A space historically meant to protect, affirm, and elevate Black professional authority. Instead, it became the site where that authority was publicly diminished in a way that cannot be fully repaired.
This is the cost that rarely makes it into official letters or legal briefs. It is borne not by the institution, but by the individual. And once that cost is imposed, no amount of clarification can fully retrieve what was taken.
That is why this moment matters beyond process, beyond policy, and beyond public relations. Some harms are permanent—not because they were intended to be, but because no institution, however storied, has the power to rewind the image that the world has already seen.
Looking Ahead
This story is no longer just about a postgame incident. It is about response, priority, and follow-through. The legal process will continue. Conference discussions will unfold.
Statements may multiply.
What will matter most, however, is not what has already been said.
It is what happens next.
Comments