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).
***
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.
