“Truth to Power:”? No Truth or Empowerment in Jason Whitlock’s Tweet

“Truth to Power:”? No Truth or Empowerment in Jason Whitlock’s Tweet

by the Collective | The Feminist Wire | NewBlackMan

We come together to express our collective disappointment over Jason Whitlock’s recent tweet about Jeremy Lin.  We hope that our voices, our analysis, and our anger demonstrates not only our opposition to this sort of rhetoric but the ideologies and stereotypes that provide a foundation for people like Whitlock to stand upon.  His tweet is a symptom of a larger problem and therefore warrants analysis and condemnation in an effort to transform the very culture that produces these sorts of comments each and every day.

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Perhaps Jason Whitlock is suffering from (L)insanity. Or, perhaps on a much more politically incorrect level, Whitlock is on that bull.

His tweet wraps misogyny, stereotypical phallic fantasy, and race into one awkward 'joke' that provides enough side eye for years to come. Perhaps most disturbing is the crude attempt at humor with little to no purpose and situating it within politics of (ir) respectability. Further complicating (complementing?) the peculiarity of this tweet is the imposition of digital anonymity/privacy of Whitlock and his followers: because I'm behind a screen name (or lack thereof), is it cool to laugh and 'joke' about such sensitive and taboo topics? Is it respectable?

Does Whitlock have (social) responsibility? Damn right. Why wouldn't he? Because, in an offsetting way, Whitlock's crudeness is a representation of the public dismissal of race as a marker of American cultural discourse. And, simultaneously, how jacked it is – Regina Bradley

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Male professional sports, like the military, have long been valued for its ability to allow talent to flourish, in spite of the realities of race and ethnicity.  Professional sports are often viewed as the most natural of American meritocracies, though such opportunity, as it were, rarely extends beyond the field into the realms of management and ownership.  This is not to suggest that racism, sexism, and homophobia are non-existent in professional sports, but that impact is largely muted by performance.

One location where intolerance remains unfettered, is of course, within the arena of commentary where sports-talk radio and the comments sections of sports sites recall the kind of racist, sexist and homophobic rhetoric that many believed went underground generations ago.  Ironically such rhetoric has proved big-business for big Media, creating celebrity in hosts and sports journalists, whose bad behavior is celebrated as “realness” and who somehow think that thoughtful and reasoned analysis and commentary are towing some invisible line of political correctness. 

In this regard, Jason Whitlock is not alone—his now infamous idiotic, racist, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic rants are part of his brand, and it’s a brand that apparently serves him and his employer Fox Sports, very well.  Bless them.  And while I feel no real need to compare Whitlock’s recent comments about Jeremy Lin—as misogynistic as they were racists—to the ill-advised comments on twitter by journalist Roland Martin, I would at least expect that the same fervor in which GLAAD demanded that CNN punish Martin, and that many of Martin’s Black peers demanded that Martin be reinstated by his employer, would be deployed to protect a young Taiwanese-American basketball player, who is simply doing his job to the best of his ability within a meritocratic structure that we all claim to value – Mark Anthony Neal

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Appalled. I find myself rendered nearly speechless in the face of the harmful and repulsive comments of Jason Whitlock and many others with regards to Jeremy Lin. We, however, cannot remain silent about such racist and misogynistic comments. Relying upon deeply infuriating racial, sexual, and gender stereotypes to “celebrate” Lin illuminates not only the absurdity of a post-racial society or national, cultural imaginary, but makes apparent the most disgusting and deeply entrenched stereotypes that are foundational to social and cultural discourses on race in the United States. To merely disregard Whitlock’s or other comments about Lin that pivot around deeply problematic racial, gender, and sexual stereotypes as “jokes” or “harmless sports banter” minimizes the dehumanizing nature of such comments. In the same breath that we laud Lin, let us also collectively deplore the words of those who rely upon damaging stereotypes in their commentary - Treva Lindsey

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There are so many levels on which Whitlock's (knee)jerk attempt at satire was sad and wrong; most of them have been covered by others, including the boorishness of greeting a player who's risen to the toughest of challenges by ceremonially unmanning him; the pathetic symbolism of a man whose race has historically suffered because of sexual mythology unleashing the tools of such distortion and degradation on a man of another race that has so suffered; the almost antique misogyny of Whitlock's phrasing and innuendo. So I'll focus on something I haven't seen raised: The enormity of Whitlock's imposition of the darkest stereotypes of the modern celebrity athlete on a young man who clearly is anything but. Lin is humble, hard-working, clean-cut almost to a fault -- and a deeply, deeply devout Christian who has spoken of joining the ministry after his playing days are over.

Forget the ridiculous anatomical slur: The suggestion that he might celebrate a victory he dedicated to God by having random sex with a "lucky lady" is almost certainly what would offend and horrify Lin more.

Now, given that his employers at Fox will likely lose little if any sleep over Whitlock's arrant racial offense, the question I ask is this: Will FSN -- whose sister networks carp endlessly about the war on faith -- punish Whitlock for demeaning Lin's deep, professed Christian beliefs?

If so, I'll take it - Jeff Yang

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Jason Whitlock's tweet brings me back to a time in the early 70's when I was playing on a football team comprised of players from Harlem, the Upper West Side and an Italian Restaurant near Lincoln Center. The only way people could communicate was exchanging ethnic slurs and boasting about sexual conquests, a discourse that reduced me to total silence. It is sad to see how much that atmosphere, so deeply entrenched nearly 40 years ago, still dominates sports journalism and shapes the way men immersed in competitive sports construct their masculinity, irrespective of their racial or cultural background. Needless to say, that atmosphere creates a camaraderie rooted in fear and suspicion on the field. It also promotes violence off the field toward those who are targets, especially women, who are viewed as appropriate subjects of sexual aggression following sports victories, and inhibits real relationships based on candor and trust. In short, it is really bad, and really sad. I had hoped that younger people had moved beyond what I had grown up with, but apparently not. Predatory masculinity is alive and well and living in America –Mark Naison

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At what point will we resist re-assigning markers of difference that have worked to asphyxiate our identities as people of color for centuries? And, when will we realize that our deployment and projection of racial fantasies and stereotyping toward our selected “Others” not only destabilizes our ability to flourish as humans, but also are antithetical to our own personal and political interests? Further, on what occasion will black men and boys construct masculinities that are courageous enough to loosen the yoke of cultural (mis)re-presentations and broad enough to embrace the complex subjectivities of both self and others?

Jason Whitlock’s recent tweet regarding Jeremy Lin is obscene. And for those who want to dismiss it as normal sports talk, shame on you! Whitlock’s tweet is part and parcel of a larger, inter-textual grand narrative on classificatory violence, which aims to categorize things that feel out of place—in order to bring us back into a so-called normal state—or worse, get rid of the “problem” by thrusting it into the realm of “the spectacle.” Does this sound familiar? It should. Herein lies where identities, of both the signified and the signifier, get reinvented. However, in the present age of hyper-social-media, it is also where public discourse turns into a theater of fetishized display, where bodies serve as indisputable evidence for racial, sexual, ethnic, and gendered difference. This is where the signifier hopes to mark himself as “normal.” However, sadly for Whitlock, he too is part of the joke. He too is problematically fixated at a level of genitalia; no longer a black man, but a penis (pun intended) - Tamura A. Lomax

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Jason Whitlock’s tweet fails not only the racism/sexism test but also the satire test. The racism is obvious--though it should be pointed out that the alternatively “positive” and “negative” stereotypes of Asians and Blacks (e.g. nerds v. athletes) have always been designed to complement each other and reinforce white supremacy. I might even be more offended by the pathetic attempt to be funny. It seems that any time someone breaks through a major public color barrier that America is required to go through an initial cycle of exorcising all of the most tired stereotypes before we can adjust to a whole new condition. So congratulations, Jason, you made the list alongside the birthers and Fuzzy Zoeller’s “fried chicken” (he forgot to add “pad thai”) comment about Tiger Woods – Scott Kurashige

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Jason Whitlock might as well have pulled up the corners of his eyes and said, “ching, chong, ching, chong,” like the kids who used to taunt me on the playground as a kid. (And I'm not even Chinese; I'm Filipina).  In less than fifteen words, he managed to dredge up the most tired racial, gender, and sexual stereotypes associated with “oriental” people: the hypersexuality and ready availability of Asian women, and the effeminacy and queerness of Asian men. His comments play into the longstanding techniques of divide and conquer that have pit people of African and Asian descent against each other since colonial times. We have much more to gain in working together to combat white supremacy, not just in the United States, but also across the globe. Whitlock's comment does nothing to encourage the development of these types of solidarities – Theresa Runstedtler

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U.S. racial discourses remain arrested in that primal scene of childhood violence: the schoolyard. For so many of us, the schoolyard “wisdoms” about which Jason Whitlock tweets are not just a bad memory but a daily reality. It is especially painful to hear such “wisdoms” repeated by a black man. Whitlock’s chauvinism denies Jeremy Lin’s body the capacity to represent the nation as well as more obviously the NBA and the high stakes capitalist world of sports celebrity. Bodies like Lin’s can never measure up. But in a sense neither can Whitlock’s. This was the terrible irony that left me feeling more saddened and broken than angry. Whitlock participates in the very logic that demeans his humanity. His comment suggests that he has embraced racist notions of black sexual prowess as the sorry (mis)measure of his own masculinity and self-worth—his fantasies about Lin’s body, inversely reciprocal, certainly speak to such unhappy investments – Hiram Perez

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Jason Whitlock’s racially insensitive tweet about rising Asian-American NBA superstar Jeremy Lin betrays an investment in an impoverished Black masculinity narrative that pivots upon the erroneous and scientifically disproven idea that Black men have bigger penises than every other group. Whitlock’s need to re-establish Black masculine potency vis-à-vis narratives of athletic and sexual dominance suggests the presence of a threat. But why is the presence of an Asian American kid who can ball his ass off so threatening? Perhaps because Lin’s presence in the Black male dominated space of the NBA rightly demands we rethink our tired and dangerous investment in the myth of biological Black male athletic superiority. Coupled with the homophobic tweets of news commentator Roland Martin, it is clear that the logic of hypersexual Black masculinity is dangerous (e.g. lynching, myth of the Black male rapist, etc) not only to Black men but also to other subjugated masculine subjects, be they Asian men, gay men (Black and otherwise) and women, who become the targets of straight Black men’s misguided need to re-establish dominance – Brittney Cooper

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What makes Whitlock’s tweet funny? First, of course, there is the nod to the social construction of Asian men as feminine and sexually passive, which then gets played out in our (oh so necessary) cultural discourse on the size of their penises. So that’s funny. Then, there is our collective racial imagination of basketball as a sport in which Black men demonstrate a certain aggressive kind of masculine performance. So the presence of a Chinese American in this sport demands that he be assessed for his ability to perform race consistent with our imaginations, both on the court and off. He impresses us with his on-court moves, but we are obsessed with whether an Asian male can compete with (naturally) virile Black ballers when it comes to really laying it down. So that’s funny, right? Oh, and of course, we all know women can’t help but fight over dick, especially the dick of a basketball player, which, as we’ve already concluded, is huge because it's black.

Unless…ha ha… it’s not. And what (all) women really want at the end of the night is to be “lucky” enough to score a big dick, so they can feel the “pain.” So Whitlock’s tweet is also about this woman lying there prostrate, sexually frustrated because Lin couldn’t deliver, which, of course, she should have known because he’s Asian. So once again, women are not only insatiable in bed, but are also naïve, particularly about sex. Which just confirms what we already know about women. And that is hilarious, no? – Michael J. Dumas

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It makes me wonder about you, Mr. Whitlock, that you assume Jeremy Lin should celebrate his stellar performance on the court last night by inflicting “pain” on a woman. Is that how you celebrate your tweeting achievements? It is amazing that you could be so unaware of the irony of racially stereotyping Lin’s anatomy and linking it to sexual violence, given the ugly history in which “southern justice” has been justified again and again through fantasies of black men, their genitalia, and their supposed propensity to inflict sexual pain on women. But then again, given your “achievements” as a sportswriter in the past, your cluelessness is not all that surprising – Anoop Mirpuri

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My response is flavored by spending the past few days immersed in a discussion of the liberation that is to be experienced with Post-Blackness. In the age of social media, I remain amazed by the lengths bullies, masquerading as “writers,” are willing to take to demonstrate their ability to use micro-aggressive means to exert their supremacy over others. As a Baby-Boomer, I’m left with questions. Is social media a mechanism used by the socially inept to exercise their “voice” that is impossible in a face-to-face environment? Does some social media exacerbate the breadth and depth of stupidity possessed by the owner? Does it foster stupidity; perpetuate it? I believe that all of the world via the blogosphere is a stage and juxtapose this medium against an old school warning that I received in the 1980s to avoid emulating a colleague who was a wild cannon in the work place because with that person it was always “what comes up, comes out.” But in those days, what you said was only heard by those within hearing distance. Should you think before you tweet? Jason Whitlock’s “performance” at perpetuating racial stereotypes is flawed on way too many levels to begin to articulate – Valerie L. Patterson

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Jason Whitlock, who describes himself on his twitter page as “too honest” and someone who “speaks truth to power” once again showed the power in speaking hurtful untruths based on stereotypes, assumptions, and systemically produced biases.  Jason Whitlock has made an entire career in demonizing Others, disseminating the ideologies of white supremacy, and peddling sexism.  He once refereed to Serena Williams as an “unsightly layer of thick, muscled blubber, a byproduct of her unwillingness to commit to a training regimen and diet that would have her at the top of her game year-round.”  This is the same man, who has described “hip-hop culture” as “nothing more than prison culture,” and who once provided this assessment of black youth:

We have a problem in the black community, and it didn't make its debut at All-Star Weekend Vegas. What was impossible to ignore in Vegas was on display in Houston, Atlanta and previous All-Star locations. With the exception of Louis Farrakhan's 1995 Million Man March, it's been on display nearly every time we've gathered in large groups to socialize in the past 15 or so years. The Black Ku Klux Klan shows up in full force and does its best to ruin our good time. Instead of wearing white robes and white hoods, the new KKK has now taken to wearing white Ts and calling themselves gangsta rappers, gangbangers and posse members. Just like the White KKK of the 1940s and '50s, we fear them, keep our eyes lowered, shut our mouths and pray they don't bother us. Our fear makes them stronger. Our silence empowers them. Our lack of courage lets them define who we are. Our excuse-making for their behavior increases their influence and enables them to recruit more freely. We sing their racist songs, gleefully call ourselves the N-word, hype their celebrity and get upset when white people whisper concerns about our sanity. And whenever someone publicly states that the Black KKK is terrorizing black people, black neighborhoods, black social events and glorifying a negative, self-destructive lifestyle, we deny and blame the Man. I don't want to do it anymore.

The recent tweet about Jeremy Lin is a continuation of more of the same from Mr. Whitlock, leaving me to wonder if he would be better-suited writing stump speeches for the GOP or better yet keeping his “honesty” to himself – David J. Leonard

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Whitlock's tweet was a cheap shot of the basest proportions. He's an embarrassment to the writing establishment – Oliver Wang

Contributors

Regina Bradley is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Florida State University

Britney Cooper is a Ford Postdoctoral Fellow at Rutgers University

Michael J. Dumas is an assistant professor of Education at New York University

Scott Kurashige is the Director of Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies at University of Michigan

David J. Leonard is an associate professor of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University

Treva Lindsey is an assistant professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Missouri

Tamura A. Lomax holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Vanderbilt University is co-founder of The Feminist Wire

Anoop Mirpuri is an assistant professor of English at Drew University

Mark Anthony Neal is professor of African and African American Studies at Duke University

Mark Naison is professor of African American Studies and History at Fordham University

Valerie L. Patterson is an assistant professor of Public Administration at Florida International University

Hiram Perez is an assistant professor of English at Vassar College

Theresa Runstedtler is an assistant professor of American Studies at SUNY Buffalo

Oliver Wang is an assistant professor of sociology at Cal State Long Beach

Jeff Yang is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal Online and can be heard regularly on WNYC 's “The Takeaway.”

Jason Whitlock’s Ideal America?

Jason Whitlock’s Ideal America?

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

One of the common arguments offered during the NBA lockout was that David Stern and the owners had to initiate the lockout in an effort to make the league better.  Citing the success of the NFL, these advocates predicted that the NBA would be more successful economically, more important culturally, and just a better game if it adopted the rules and policies of the NFL.  Such arguments have not died down with the end of the lockout or with the start of the NBA season.

Embodying this logic is Jason Whitlock’s recent column, “NFL is model for American success.”  Whitlock argues that NFL is a model of success not just for the NBA, but the nation.  With a salary cap, revenue sharing, a requirement that players attend at least three years of colleges, its amateur draft design, its “emphasis on teams over individuals while making room for superstars” and “a free-agent system that allows franchises to retain their marquee players”, the NFL offers “the perfect blend of capitalism and socialism.”  He remarks further:

One hundred years from now, when scholars analyze the rise and fall of our dynasty, the NFL might be considered America’s greatest invention, the cultural and economic force that should’ve been our guide to 200 more years of global domination.

If only Pete Rozelle had been our president rather than the architect of the modern-day national pastime, Americans would understand the value of restraints on capitalism, revenue sharing and a system that strengthens the poor.

There is so much wrong with the argument and the analysis that it is hard to know where to start.  The idea that the NFL’s age restriction leads to a better or more successful system, even in absence of any sort of evidence, is reflective of Whitlock’s propensity to sell myths as fact.  The ample success of NBA players, whether those who skipped college or those who were “one-and-done” ballers, runs counter to the rhetoric offered by Whitlock. 

Likewise, the premise that NFL is superior because it emphasizes teams over individuals, which has led to increased fan interest, erases the overall popularity of NBA stars throughout the world.  Whereas LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Michael Jordan are transnational icons, whose talents generated profits for the NBA and its corporate partners, the same cannot be said for the NFL.  Think about it, can you name an NFL player that captures the global imagination?

When Michael Jordan was playing, he was one of the most recognizable people in the world; Kobe Bryant’s visits to Asia lead to mass hysteria.  Would any NFL player – past or present – elicit such reactions?  Despite the fact that the NBA erases these global realities from its economic picture, the NBA global success is very much a result of its emphasis on individual stars over teams. 

Likewise, the ascendance of dynasties within the NBA – Bulls, Lakers, Spurs, Celtics –, which has certainly enhanced the NBA’s brand, is reflective of the structure of the NBA.  In many regards, the NBA system is superior even though David Stern and the owners seem intent on slowly undermining what has been successful for the league in so many ways.      

What is most striking, however, is Whitlock’s celebration of the NFL as an ideal model for the entire nation.  Should the NBA and the nation at large emulate the model provided by the NFL given that: 21 former NFL players recently sued the NFL for not protecting players against the harms of concussions. In the lawsuit, they “accuse the NFL of deliberately omitting or concealing years of evidence linking concussions to long-term neurological problems.”

Is the NFL the ideal business and social model, given that: according to a 2006 Study in the St. Petersburg Times, for every year an NFL player spends it the league, it takes 3 years off his life expectancy.  In other words, given that the average career of an NFL player is 4 years, his life expectancy will be 55 (as opposed to 75, the national average for American males).  Put succinctly by Greg Doyle, “The NFL is killing its players, literally leading them to an early grave -- and now the NFL is trying to kill them even faster.  That's a fact, people.”  While some may call this rhetoric incendiary and hyperbolic, consider that in 2010, almost 280 players spent time on injured reserve, with 14 suffering head injuries, 13 experiencing neck injuries, and one dealing with spine injury. 

Hey, Jason, is this the model of success you are speaking of? Or are you writing about the poverty, joblessness and despair facing former players.  According to studies, “78 percent of former NFL players, two years after their last game are either bankrupt, divorced, or unemployed.”  Given that recent NFL players see poverty rates twice as high as those comparable non-athletes (with similar college education), it is hard to imagine someone advocating replicating this system. Yet, we get this piece.  Evident in the heightened levels of poverty, unemployment, and inequality throughout the United States, Whitlock may get his wish as all industries seem to mirror the organization of the NFL.

Whitlock also regurgitates the often-cited claim about NFL “strengthening the poor.”  Given the above statistics, the NFL clearly doesn’t “strengthen the poor,” but rather profits off the labor of not only the players but also the many near minimum-wage workers that fill the many jobs in stadiums across the United States.  Beyond the inequalities between owners and all other workers within professional sports, the sports-media-industrial complex thrives because of government subsidies and public investment.  NFL owners, and not America’s poor, have benefited from a system build upon public support, tax-breaks and other financial incentives for stadium construction. 

As noted by Dave Zirin, “The building of publicly funded stadiums has become a substitute for anything resembling an urban policy.”   The promise of jobs and redevelopment has been a fairytale, told over and over again as the owners increase their profit margin.  One has to wonder if Jason Whitlock really wants to see the NFL style of governance transcend the gridiron into all walks of life, because one can only imagine our society going from one ruled by the 1% to one ruled, owned, and controlled by the .1%. 

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis.  Leonard’s latest book After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness will be published by SUNY Press in May of 2012.

Putting the “Run Away Slaves” Ahead of the Plantation: Parity, Race and the NBA Lockout

"Basketball and Chain" by Hank Willis Thomas

Putting the “Run Away Slaves” Ahead of the Plantation: 

Parity, Race and the NBA Lockout

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

In wake of LeBron James’ decision to take his talents, along with those of Chris Bosh, to South Beach to join forces with Dwayne Wade, the NBA punditry has been lamenting the demise of the NBA.  This only became worse with the subsequent trades of Deron Williams and Carmelo Anthony to New Jersey and New York respectfully.  Described as a league “out of control in terms of the normal sports business model” where player power “kills the local enthusiasm for the customer and fan base,” where superstars leave smaller markets with no hope of securing a championship, where manipulating players and agents have created a game dominated by “players whose egos are bigger than the game,” much has been made about player movement.

Commentators have lamented how players are yet again destroying the game from the inside, thinking of themselves ahead of its financial security and cultural importance.  In “NBA no longer fan-tastic,” Rick Reillylaments the changing landscape facing the NBA.  Unlike any other sport, the NBA is now a league where “very rich 20-somethings running the league from the backs of limos,” are “colluding so that the best players gang up on the worst. To hell with the Denvers, the Clevelands, the Torontos. If you aren't a city with a direct flight to Paris, we're leaving. Go rot.”  In other words, this line of criticism have warned that “the inmates are running the asylum,” so much so that the league “is little more than a small cartel of powerful teams, driven by the insecurities and selfishness of the players who stack them.”  

While such rhetoric erases history (of trades – players of the golden generation have certainly demanded trades; the same can be said for other sports as well) and works from a faulty premise that parity is good for the economics of the NBA (the very different television monies for the NBA and NFL proves the faultiness of this logic), the idea that the league needs more parity remains a prominent justification for the NBA lockout.   “The owners believe that the league should be more competitive and that teams should have an opportunity to make a profit,” notes David Stern. Similarly, Adam Silver, deputy commissioner, argues, “Our view is that the current system is broken in that 30 teams are not in a position to compete for championships.” 

Such rhetoric and Stern’s ubiquitous statements about the NBA needing a dramatic restructuring builds upon argument that the NBA’s future is tied to its ability to thwart players like LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Deron Williams, and potentially Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, and others from taking their talents anywhere.  The cautionary rhetoric was evident in Jason Whitlock’s “NBA players are wrecking their league:”

This whole NBA scenario — from LeBron’s Decision to Melo’s Madness to Deron’s Escape — reminds me of the American housing bubble. . . .

For close to a decade, NBA players have walked the thin line between love and hate with their customers. The players crossed it when Ron Artest and several Indiana Pacers climbed into the stands to brawl with spectators. Commissioner David Stern instituted a string of new rules — dress code, tougher restrictions prohibiting fighting, 19-year-old age requirement for the draft — to push the players back on the other side of the line.

Those Band-Aid policies are starting to break. The players, many of whom have never grasped the need to understand and satisfy their customer base, are beginning to unwittingly push back.

Soaked in the arrogance of fame, wealth, immaturity and business ignorance, the players have dramatically reshaped the league with their free-agent and impending free-agent maneuvers.

In doing so — in destroying basketball in Cleveland, Utah and Denver — LeBron, Melo, Amar’e and Deron reinforced the perception among fans that teams don’t matter.

“As a player, you have to do what’s best for you,” Wade told reporters in reaction to the Carmelo trade to New York. “You can’t think about what someone’s going to feel or think on the outside. You have to do what’s best for you, and that’s what some players are doing. I’m happy for those players that felt that they wanted to be somewhere and they got their wish.”

That pretty much sums up the mentality of the modern-day American and modern-day pro athlete. Pleasing the individual takes precedence over everything else. It doesn’t matter that the collective strength of the NBA made Wade rich. Wade and other NBA players must be concerned only with themselves. That’s the American way.

He, like others, has called upon David Stern and the owners to protect the league, the game, and the players from the players themselves.  And that is what we are seeing with the NBA lockout.  Yes, it is about money – yes, it is about free-agency, the mid-level exception, hard versus soft caps, splits in revenue, and countless other issues but in the end this struggle is one that is about power and control.  It is a struggle to reverse if not end free agency, to guarantee profit and competitiveness (and lower salaries) through limiting player movement.  It is about reversing the victories  of past collective bargaining agreements and even Curt Flood.

It represents a struggle from the owners to make sure the future LeBron James’ doesn’t have the ability to take his talents to South Beach; it is a fight to make sure the next wave of stars doesn’t follow in the footsteps of Carmelo and Deron Williams who purportedly used the mere prospect of free agency to lead to force a trade.  It is a fight about restricting the power of the NBA’s 40 million dollar slaves from exercising what little power they possess.  

While the issues at work certainly relate to notions of parity, small market versus big market, and countless other issues, the scorn and rhetoric sounding the alarms plays upon fears resulted from the increased perceived power of black athletes.  The fears, the accusations, and the speculation as to the demise of the league, all which play on the purported selfishness, lack of intelligence, egos, and overall attitude of today’s (black) players builds upon longstanding stereotypes regarding black masculinity.  It is the living embodiment of the infamous words said between two cops regarding Malcolm X: “that’s too much power for one man to have.”  The NBA players, its primarily black players, have exhibited too much power, leading to widespread panics and condemnation; it has led to action in the form of the NBA lockout. 

We can understand the NBA lockout by looking at the work of Herman Gray, who argued that blackness exists as a “marker of internal threats to social stability, cultural morality, and economic prosperity.” It is similarity evident in the writings of Homi Bhabbi who persuasively described blackness in the white imagination as “both savage (cannibal) and yet the most obedient and signified of servants (the bearer of food); he is the embodiment of rampant sexuality and yet innocent as a child; he is mystical, primitive, simple-minded and yet the most worldly and accomplished liar, and manipulator of social forces.”   The NBA lockout is justified by the ideas that blackness is “simple-mindedness” that blackness is childishness, and that blackness is a space of manipulation, all of which threatens the long-term success and profitability of the NBA product.  The lockout is an effort to get that under control, to prevent anymore runaway slavesfrom putting themselves ahead of the plantation, I mean the game.   

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris.

Is the NBA Lockout About Race?

Is the NBA Lockout About Race?

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

I thought I would write a follow-up to my piece, “Bill Simmons and the Bell Curve: The ‘limited intellectual capital’ of the NBA’s Players” which has elicited a significant reaction.   It should be clear from the outset, I am not interested in conversations about individuals, intention, or motivation.  To paraphrase the always-brilliant Jay Smooth, the conversations should focus around what has been said, what has been done, and what all of this means in a larger context rather than the individual actors.  The discussion needs to be about how ideology, narrative, and frames operate within these larger discussions. 

One of the common responses to Bill Simmons’ commentary and more specifically the criticism directed at me for reflecting on the racial meaning in those comments has been that Simmons was talking about all NBA players, not just those who are black.  Given the racial demographics of the league and the racial signifiers associated with basketball, it is hard to accept the idea that “NBA player” isn’t a mere code for blackness.  In other words, blackness and basketball become inextricably connected within the dominant imagination, akin to Kathryn Russell-Brown’s idea of the criminal blackman.  Just as the “criminal Blackman” exists as contained identity within the dominant white imagination, the blackballer functions in similar ways. 

The process of both essentializing and bifurcating the black baller is evident in the very distinct ways that the white racial frame conceives of both white and black players, playing upon ideas of intelligence and athleticism.  Whereas the blackballer is imagined as athletic, naturally gifted, and physically superior, white basketball players are celebrated for their intelligence, work ethic, and team orientation.  In Am I Black Enough for You, Todd Boyd identifies a dialectical relationship between racialization and styles of play where whiteness represents a “textbook or formal” style basketball, which operates in opposition “street or vernacular” styles of hooping that are connected to blackness within the collective consciousness.   In both styles of play, notions of intelligence, mental toughness, and mental agility are centrally in play. 

A second and widely circulated denunciation against those critical voices has been our lack of fairness or the double standards of this portion of the discourse.  Whereas I honed in on Simmons’ comments, little has been made about those of Jason Whitlock (Bryant Gumbel has been the at the center of media commentary).  Lets be clear: the comments of Jason Whitlock, irrespective of intent, are worthy of criticism in that his recent commentary plays upon and reinforces dominant narratives and frames about race and blackness.  Looking at his comments, alongside with those of Simmons, further illustrates the ways in which ideologies are circulated, and how commentaries such of these cannot be understood outside of these larger contexts.

A belief in the superiority of white intelligence has been commonplace within American history.  This remains the case today.  In one earlier study (during 1990s; see here for another source) about the persistence of racial stereotypes, the author found the following:

More than half the survey respondents rated African Americans as less intelligent than whites. Fifty-seven percent of non-African Americans rated African Americans as less intelligent than whites and thirty percent of African Americans themselves rated African Americans as less intelligent than whites. Sixty-two percent of the entire sample rated African Americans as lazier than whites and more than three out of four survey respondents said that African Americans are more inclined than whites to prefer welfare over work.

In a 2010 study about race and politics, researchers at the University of Washington found that stereotypes about blacks as it relates to intelligence, work ethic, and trust-worthiness remain prominent. Another recent study about race, politics, and stereotypes found that while there has been slight progress in terms of the rejection of longstanding prejudices, they remain constant within the national discourse. 

These studies point to the power of the white racial frame and the persistence of racial realist arguments.  Tim Wise describes this line of thinking in the following way:

  

The primary arguments made by the so-called racial “realists” are as follows:

1.    Race is a scientifically valid category of human difference;

2.   Racial differences are not only real but meaningfully connected at the biological and/or genetic level with important human traits, most notably, intelligence;

3. Intelligence is measurable using standardized IQ batteries and other mechanisms;

4.   Blacks are generally less intelligent than whites and Asians, and this is due to biological and/or genetic differences between the races.

Flowing from these premises, the racial “realists” argue that social policy should take these “truths” into account. This means that we should cease all efforts to create greater social or economic equity between the races, since they are inherently unequal in their abilities. It also means that personal biases on the basis of these truths — even those that perpetuate deep racial inequities in the society — are not unfair or unjust but rational. It is rational, for instance, for employers to favor white job applicants for high-level jobs, since they are more likely to possess the talents necessary to do those jobs well. So, in this sense, discrimination should not be prohibited. It should be tolerated, and seen as a logical choice given the science of racial difference. And certainly we should not take racial disparities in income, wealth, occupational status, or educational outcomes to suggest the presence of racism; rather, these gaps merely reflect the persistent human inequalities that cluster along racial lines.

As I read the comments of Simmons, Whitlock and countless others, I am unable to disconnect my reading from this larger social, ideological, and political context.   The larger discourse exists inside the words, in the interpretations, in the meaning, in the reception, and in the larger ramifications.   It is within this larger context that I read Jason Whitlock’s “Players need to stick to their day jobs”

Referring to the “foolishness of basketball players” and players as “a group of spoiled, entitled, delusional kids who learned boardroom manners from watching episodes of “The Apprentice?,” Whitlock concludes that the players are out their league.   Arguing that the players are not victims of racism or David Stern’s “plantation mentality” (reference to Bryant Gumbel’s recent comments), he offers the following:

But these NBA players are not victims during this lockout. Not of David Stern.

They’re victims of their own immaturity, stupidity and delusion. They have the wherewithal and resources to stand toe to toe with commissioner Stern, but they are improperly using and undermining their power. Gumbel’s commentary on HBO’s "Real Sports" won’t help them realize and effectively utilize their power. It will assist the players in curling up in a fetal position and playing the victim.

That’s what we, African-Americans, do all too often in the aftermath of the civil-rights movement. We have no real understanding of the effort, courage and disciplined strategy Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and their supporters used to win the freedoms we now take for granted.

Here we see that Whitlock’s criticism of these “silly players,” “a bunch of kids with sycophant publicists and groupies,” who are acting “stupid” is rooted in criticism of African American youth.  By contextualizing the NBA lockout within a larger discourse of the hip-hop generation betraying the struggles, sacrifices, and the politics of respectability, Whitlock links this discussion to a wider discourse.  Playing upon hegemonic ideas regarding the American Dream, hard work, and disciplinarity, Whitlock’s comments also resonate with larger narratives about meritocracy and bootstraps ideology.  Writing about sports as a powerful institution for mythmaking about the American Dream, C. Richard King and Charles Springwood argue that:

The commonsense notions of the self-made man, and the American dream work against personal and collective engagement with the materiality of racial difference.  Individuals, effort, and ability to obscure the conditions and effects of racial hierarchy . . ..  These life histories map out opposite itineraries, success, superstardom, and the American Dream juxtaposed with failure, obscurity, and a societal nightmare.  They individual, they assert, makes his or her fortune based on his or her effort and ability.  The system is open, fostering upward mobility for individuals with talent, character, and DISCIPLINE (my emphasis) (2001, pp. 31-32, p. 34).

In other words, the riches, fame, and “the game” itself of the NBA are available to the players, even during this lockout.  What precludes the fulfillment of the American Dream is the “character” and lack of “discipline” of the players during the labor negotiations.  While blame can be spread around, in the end, it is the players’ fault.

Whitlock, unlike much of the media punditry, offers a level of honestly here, making clear that public discussions of NBA players or the NBA is indeed a public debate about blackness.

Another striking aspect of Whitlock’s column rests with his effort to invoke the metaphor of “the animal kingdom,” describing the NBA lockout as a battle between two distinct species.  He writes:

We ignore the laws of the jungle that we live in.

Racism, classism, sexism, power imbalances, etc. aren’t going away. They’ve been here since the beginning of time. They’re part of our flawed nature. No different from a lion’s nature to prey upon zebras, buffalos and wildebeest.

Have you ever seen zebras hold a news conference on “Animal Kingdom” demanding that lions quit attacking zebras? No. Zebras train their young in ways to avoid lions and other predators.

As such, the NBA players are conceived as Zebras who are subjected to the rules and laws of nature. 

Dictated by the laws of nature, David Stern (Whitlock ostensibly erases the owners from the discussion here), as the lion, will be the aggressor with the players.  Rather than “complain” and try to battle the lion (David Stern), the Zebras (the players) need to realize that they are incapable of defeating the more powerful, fierce, and fit King of the NBA jungle.  They must retreat and allow their lion to face-off with David Stern. 

The invoking of this rhetoric is striking in its imagination of the players and the commissioner as two distinct species with predetermined qualities, characteristics, and skills.  Zebras and lions don’t acquire their skills and place in the jungle hierarchy because of their own actions or training, but because of nature. 

It is difficult to ignore the large racial implications of Whitlock’s discussion of the “animal kingdom” given the ways in which biology and differences-grounded-in-nature have been central to racial discourse through history.    

In two recent episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher (one including Toure, who also discusses the matter), Bill Maher spoke about how the denial of racism has become the new form of racism.  The race denial card is the most powerful and widely circulated in the deck, evident by the fact that I as someone who merely tried to reflect on the racial meaning and implications was blamed for infusing, interjecting, and otherwise playing the “race card” (is denying race also playing the race card?)

“Racism” functioning as the denial of racism is nothing new (see Bonilla-Silva’s Racism without Racists) and so often works in conjunction with cultural racism.  According to Bonilla-Silva, “Cultural racism is a frame that relies on culturally-based arguments” (2003, p. 28).   According to Ben Carrington and Mary McDonald, “cultural racism posits that although different ethnic groups or ‘races’ may not exist in a hierarchical biological relationship, they are nevertheless culturally distinct, each group having their own incompatible lifestyles, customs and ways of seeing the world” (2001, p. 1).  Likewise Nancy Spencer describes cultural racism as being “predicated on an understanding of culture as a whole way,” which “has implications for racism in sport” (2004, p. 121).    While we can see both the “denial of racism” or the dismissal of the significance or race and cultural racism in its operation, we also see the powerful ways the biological notions of difference continues to operate within this context. 

The lockout illustrates the powerful ways that the black NBA player is conceptualized, imagined, and represented as a “‘bad boy Black athlete” (Collins 2005, p. 153), defined by being “overly physical, out of control, prone to violence, driven by instinct, and hypersexual”; the white racial frame ubiquitously imagines NBA black ballers as “unruly and disrespectful,” “inherently dangerous” and “in need of civilizing” (Ferber 2007, p. 20).  Whether focusing on “intelligence,” “levels of education,” “maturity” and “disciplinarity,” the NBA lockout discourse is a reminder of the powerful ways that the white “gaze” subjects blackness to “the prison of prior expectation” (Williams 1997, p. 74).

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop(SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris.