I don’t like words like “ratchet” or “ghetto.” In short, they are reductive, marginalize a community, and tend to assign race to behaviors that are demeaning and demoralizing. Furthermore, they're stereotypical language that tends to segregate us. I believe it’s elitist to sit back and ascribe language to a person’s behavior and attribute that to a class of people. Poor people are not ghetto or ratchet because they are poor. And poor behavior should not automatically be attributed to those who fall into a different socioeconomical bracket than the user of such offensive terms.
As such, I don't use either of those words.
But I must say that Miko Grimes, wife of Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Brent Grimes, is “batchet” and “bou-ghetto” as hell, and I love her. She is absolutely the breath of fresh air that we all need in this day of new NFL protest and punditry about said protest. I’m surprised that Mona Scott-Young hasn’t already scooped her up and started on the reality show of their life. The Grimeses don’t need co-stars.
They’re Grime-y.
Don’t believe me? Watch this clip in which Vice Sports went along with the couple for a drive. Everything is going well right until about the 3:00-minute mark, where Brent explains that some of his best games are coming right off of “one.” What is “one,” you ask?
Let Miko explain: “Right off this p—sy.”
She explains that in order for her husband to play well, he has to “release that,” and so she goes with him on road trips.
Recently, a Miami Herald reporter wrote a piece noting that the Grimes family owed some $200,000 in back taxes. Miko took to Twitter and told the writer to “eat her a—.”
How can you not love her?
Truthfully, I hesitated in writing this piece because their unabashed love feels like my little secret, and almost all of the stuff Miko Grimes has done isn’t fit to print. Like the cake she gave her husband for his 30th birthday, which showed cartoon figures of Brent and Miko engaged in a sexual act.
It's rumored that when Brent Grimes was a member of the Miami Dolphins, Miko’s rants got him booted from the team. She would often take to Twitter to berate players, owners, media and fans of the squad her husband was playing for!
One time, she called a writer for the Miami Herald a “f—k boy” and added that three reporters that she believed were in favor of quarterback Ryan Tannehill could … well, I can't print it here, but you may read it here if you like. Let’s just say that it involves sex and an incurable virus.
Another time, she said that Tannehill was a bum and that fans that believed in him … well, you can read that here. But let’s just say that it involves ejaculate and baby birds.
In 2015, police arrested Miko at a Dolphins game after they claimed that she refused to adhere to several commands not to walk through an area that was sectioned off. Video of the arrest went viral because Miko was cussing up a storm and she’s the wife of a Pro Bowl cornerback. In all truth, it shouldn’t have gone down. Miko is a thin woman, and cops handling her like she was an armed criminal was entirely too much.
Alas, the days of a good ole Miko Grimes Twitter rant will have to be approved because Miko has since changed the privacy settings on her Twitter, but a note in the bio section clearly explains her feelings about her right to speak her truth: “Silence IS Betrayal!”
Seriously, how do you not love her?
Stephen A. Crockett Jr. is a senior editor at The Root. Follow him on Twitter.