Indianapolis legend and Alabama A&M alumnus Robert Mathis has weighed in on the social media post that has had the HBCU community on fire for the past 24 hours. The official Indianapolis Colts X page shared a photo of linebacker Zaire Franklin displaying a fraternity hand sign, causing controversy as the sign was misinterpreted due to its resemblance to his jersey number, 44. Even worse, many people felt if the move showed a lack of cultural sensitivity as the error occurred on Juneteenth.

Franklin shared the original tweet with photos of himself in his fraternity gear from his college days. He captioned it, “For those curious, yes I am a proud member of the Kappa chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., from my days at Syracuse University.”

Robert Mathis looked at it from a different, more humorous perspective. Mathis is also a member of Omega Psi Phi, having been initiated into the Nu Epsilon chapter of the organization at Alabama A&M. After graduating, he went on to have a legendary career with the Colts from 2003-2016 and often repped his fraternity after big plays. According to him, the Colts fans didn't understand what he was doing.

“I remember Colts fans thought I created a new colts signal my rookie year 03-04 & started throwing up hooks at me” he posted on his X page with several laughing emojis.

However, unlike Mathis, many rushed to condemn the Colts.

“It’s essential to have black creatives somewhere on your creative and social team…” X user @jaydynjenaya noted.

“This stuff really isn’t that difficult man. He’s not throwing up 4’s. He’s a part of Omega Psi Phi. It’s a historically black fraternity. Asking the athletes these questions before posting is important, welcomed, and necessary if you don’t know these things,” posted @Dom_Palumbo9.

“I feel like atp it’s intentional. This makes the third time an @NFL team got a NPHC Divine 9 org hand sign/symbol wrong and labeled it something it wasn’t lmao smh. @Colts like BFFR” shared @andreharris89.

“In the day and age of social media… am I the only person that thinks this was done on purpose? How many adult White people left in the US that don’t know about BGLOs? I don’t buy it,” @Coach_Moore_CG wrote.

“The black person in the social media department must've been off for Juneteenth. That's the only explanation,” posted notable HBCU sports analyst BJ Jones.

“Y’all need to get some diversity on your social media team. He is honoring his fraternity, not the number 44,” posted @clarencehilljr.

“At this point it’s clearly a choice to be ignorant. And I’m usually not a pile-on girl ESPECIALLY when it comes to social media managers but this has got to stop,” posted @itsagreenthingg.