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**A Black Football Player Reclaims His Story**

**** A book and hit movie depicted Michael Oher as a Black kid saved by
adoptive white parents. Oher says that's not the real story.

When the movie

**The Blind Side** came out in 2009, it was a verifiable hit. The "feel
good" film grossed $300 million worldwide, ten times its budget, and
earned Sandra Bullock multiple accolades, including an Academy Award,
for her co-lead. The social impact the movie has had in many areas is
wide-reaching, but the deeper human impact is only just now being
investigated thoroughly, 14 years after the film's release.

In August, Michael Oher, the subject of the movie, filed a claim against
Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, who were depicted in the film and the book on
which it was based as his "adoptive " parents from his teen years. In
his suit, Oher alleged that he was never adopted-a cornerstone of the
picture's narrative-but instead placed into a financially binding
conservatorship; that he was tricked into signing away the proceeds from
his name and image for the past 19 years, and that he received no money
from

**The Blind Side**'s global success.

As ESPN reported
,
the 14-page petition that Oher filed in Tennessee states that "the
couple tricked him into signing a document making them his conservators,
which gave them legal authority to make business deals in his name."
Oher alleges that the Tuohys then struck a deal to pay themselves and
their children from the movie's royalties, and that they completely
excluded Oher from this deal. The Tuohys have stated, at various times
,
that they made either no money or very little from the film. Whatever
they received, Oher is contending that he got nothing for his own story.

Oher went on to become a decorated offensive linebacker at the
University of Mississippi and later on with the Baltimore Ravens, on
whose 2013 Super Bowl championship team he played. Now, he wants the
conservatorship struck down. But he is also asking the court for an
accounting of all the money the Tuohys made off of his name, and for the
court to bar them from using it any further.

In their response to the filing, which Entertainment Tonight

reported on, the Tuohys "vehemently deny" any deception, and frame the
conservatorship as the key to Oher's future with the University of
Mississippi. The Tuohys' response argues that they "never intended" to
adopt Oher, and that Oher was always aware of the true legal nature of
their relationship. The Tuohys have also accused Oher of attempting a
$15 million "shakedown
"
(read: blackmail) of them before filing his court petition.

**The Blind Side** is centered around the Tuohy family and their
relationship with Oher, and is particularly focused on Leigh Anne and
Sean Tuohy, a wealthy white couple from Memphis, Tennessee, who took in
and supported Oher at a critical moment for his burgeoning football
career.

This is how

**The Blind Side** presents the situation: Oher, an academically
challenged but physically gifted Black student with a rough home life,
garnered the attention of the Tuohys. Oher was portrayed as a "gentle
giant," and the representation of his intelligence is questionable at
best and calling him stupid at its worst.

The movie wants the viewer to believe that Leigh Anne was compelled by
his gentle nature, and that she saw potential in Oher that no one else
did. In the context of the movie, Oher's career is a direct reflection
of the support (particularly the financial support) and stability the
Tuohys provided him as a high school student. In other words, Oher would
never have gotten as far as he did without them.

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The reality is, as always, more complicated. But it is worth noting that
even in 2009, there was reason to be concerned about the narrative of

**The Blind Side**. It is a classic example of the "white savior
complex" (or "white saviorism
"), of which the
Black community is all too aware. A literal example would be instances
where white Christian missionaries travel to Kenya to spread the
religion and "save" the poor Black children, but

**The Blind Side** is no less clear an example. Even if Oher's
allegations had never come out, the Tuohys' motives and the overall
message of the movie were always worth scrutinizing. Pedantically, the
film is about a wealthy white family pushing a "stupid" Black boy to
sell his body as a career.

Oher alleges that he was actively deceived into believing he was a
legitimate member of the Tuohy family, but that he was instead
essentially used as a cash cow. He has taken issue with the portrayal of
his intelligence, publicly, since at least 2015, when he told ESPN,
"People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie
... They don't really see the skills and the kind of player I am."

It is true that Oher had a rough home life, and probably did need
support in various ways. But he was always a skilled athlete, including
in football, before the Tuohys entered the picture. He is now the author

of two memoirs, and his NFL career is not something to sniff at. The
film makes it seem as though Oher knew nothing about the game, and that
the family had to teach Oher football and basic academics.

The film also seems to posit that Oher would not have gotten into Ole
Miss without the Tuohys, but he had other scholarships. It just so
happened that the Tuohys were alumni (and donors) at the school.

It's not just the Tuohys who have profited off of Oher's life story.
If it is true that, as the Tuohys alleged in their response, the NCAA
said Oher had to be a part of the Tuohys to play there, the NCAA is just
as guilty as the couple for pushing Oher into an unnecessary
conservatorship. Michael Lewis, the author of the 2006 book the film is
based on, needs to take responsibility for the film's framing of the
story; so, too, do Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove, co-founders of
the movie's production company, who instead defend

the narrative.

Whether the Tuohys made money off of the film is actually a secondary
concern to all but Oher himself; the fundamental scandal is that they
hijacked his story. They gained nearly two decades of unquestioned
fortune and fame. They bolstered the reputation of the University of
Mississippi, went on speaking tours, and wrote books on the selflessness
of charity work
.

For his part, Oher went on to a respected football career, but he was
still missing the one thing that they had promised him-a functioning
family. Now, under scrutiny, it turns out that he was their son only in
a "colloquial sense
,"
not the legal sense the world has believed for years. Oher's pain, his
sense of betrayal, is unlikely to be erased by a payout.

Now, Oher's lawsuit shines light on how his story can be inspirational
for so many reasons distinct from the Tuohy family. It refutes the
notion that the marginalized should be grateful for the crumbs and
attention they get from the privileged.

The public may have never known that story-Oher's real story-had
he not stood up for himself. The Tuohys may have hijacked his
achievements, but Oher is taking them back. May we all have that
tenacity in the face of racist assumptions and deeply set white
supremacy.

~ RAMENDA CYRUS, JOHN LEWIS WRITING FELLOW

Follow Ramenda Cyrus on Twitter

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