“Even Sugar Got Free…”: Black Athletes and the Contradictions of Free Agency

“Even Sugar Got Free…” *: 
Black Athletes and the Contradictions of Free Agency

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

One of the common narrative frames of the 2012 playoffs was how the Oklahoma City Thunder did things the “right way.”  Ignoring the team’s move from Seattle, a fact that left Sonics fans with a bitter taste in their mouth, Thunder mania stemmed from the fact that the bulk of their roster was made-up of draft picks and players who arrived via trade.  Embodying a “rags-to-riches” ideology, one that celebrates individuals and institutions that supposedly pull themselves up by their bootstraps (or draft-picks), the celebration of the Thunder makes perfects sense given our national imagination about sports.  In praising the Thunder for choosing to trade several players to acquire endless draft picks (a fact that surely also had to do with the pending sale of the team and dumping salary), fans and media pundits reimagined the Thunder as creating their own destiny. 

This celebratory tone was amplified during the 2012 finals, which pitted the Thunder against the Heat, an organization imagined as everything wrong with sports.  “The fact that we equate the Heat with evil and the Thunder with good reveals one big truth: sports fans and media hate it when a player chooses where he plays, and love it when a player has no choice over where he plays,” writes Nicholas Schwartz. “Writers and fans simply approve when a player has absolutely no choice over where he can play — like the Oklahoma City players dealt through trades — and disapprove when a player has a choice in which uniform he puts on. The criticism of the Heat ‘model’ for winning reveals that sports fans simply don't want athletes to have any power over the course of their careers.”

What is clear from this “logic” and the celebration of the Thunder is that fans and media alike don’t like free agency.  Worse yet, they don’t approve of players, particularly young African American men, determining their own future.  In wake of LeBron James’ decision to take his talents to South Beach, William Rhoden noted the oppositional nature of free agency for the black athlete: “There are many lessons contained in the James free-agency drama. The first is controlling the game, not allowing the game to control you. Here is James, a 25-year-old African-American man with a high school diploma, commanding a global stage.”  The response that he should “shut up and play” where he is told to play reflects the hegemony of white racial framing.  The message is clear: professional basketball players are lucky enough to earn millions of dollars for playing a game, and that the least they can be is grateful, appreciated and loyal to their fans and city. 

The contempt for player movement within the NBA has been on full display in recent years.  The condemnation directed at LeBron James both typified this mentality all while perpetuating the idea that free agency is destroying the league.  On The Bleacher Report, Asher Chancey named James the #1 worst traitor in sports history (the Sonics/Thunders’ owners are no where on the list). “By holding a prime-time news conference to announce to the world that the City of Cleveland was losing one the best athletes in professional sports, LeBron showed all the qualities we suspect our favorite athletes possess but hope they do not,” he notes. “LeBron showed the entire world that he has an enormous ego, he cares about himself first and all others second, and that the game of basketball is just that to him, a game.” 

In other words, in holding a nationally held press conference that millions of people chose to watch, by raising money for the Boys and Girl’s Club, and in exercising his rights under free agency, he was denigrated (and dehumanized) as a traitor.  He was said to be worse than owners who moved their teams to other cities or franchises that fire its workers because of a lockout. 

Telling, no? 

With jerseys burning in the background and fans ranting in virtual spaces, Dan Gilbert made clear his feelings about James and the enterprise of free agency:

As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier.  This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his “decision” unlike anything ever “witnessed” in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment. Clearly, this is bitterly disappointing to all of us…. his shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown “chosen one” sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And “who” we would want them to grow-up to become. But the good news is that this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called “curse” on Cleveland, Ohio. The self-declared former "King” will be taking the “curse” with him down south. And until he does “right” by Cleveland and Ohio, James (and the town where he plays) will unfortunately own this dreaded spell and bad karma.

Ray Allen’s recent decision to join the Heat has prompted similar outrage.  Fans have burned his jersey; Jarrett Jack took to twitter to call him a traitor; he has been called “Benedict Allen;” “Judas Shuttlesworth” has become such a common reframe that t-shirts are now available.  He joins, James, Carmelo Anthony and Deron Williams, who both found their way to New York (although traded, they are still condemned for not being loyal), and Dwight Howard, whose indecision has not masked his determination to leave Orlando, as the cited examples of what is wrong with today’s NBA player.  Absent from the list of “traitors” bandied about within the national media has been Steve Nash, who despite ample criticism from fans and media within Phoenix is not required to take the loyalty litmus test.

Charles Moriano sees the power of whiteness within these differential treatments from the national media:

To simply honor Nash’s greatness without studying the incredible white privilege that he receives is to disrespect and dishonor his NBA colleagues. Nash is not only the most under-criticized NBA superstar to never reach the finals, but his smooth escape to LA, candor about the importance of money, and bold statements on “no true loyalty in sports” with no national debate has redefined “Disney World” for Dwight Howard [1].

Allen knows better than to utter Nash’s words, and Lebron’s act (not manner) of joining other stars to chase a ring brought labels of “coward“, “fraud“, and “scared little kid” deserving of an “asterisk” on future titles — and that’s just one article! If Steve rides Kobe’s coattails to a title, will it be tainted? Will it even be debated?

Such actions from Black ballers are regularly met with “get-back-in-your-place-you-spoiled-ungrateful-fill-in-the-racial-code-word-blank” media backlash. Whereas Steve Nash seems to get a pass because he is doing it “for his kids,” the (black) ballers of the new generation are once again cast as selfish pollutants to the league.  

Whether citing loyalty or noting rivalries, owners, fans and sports media continually display their contempt for player movement?  While acknowledging the right of players to take their talents anywhere, Jemele Hill waxes nostalgically for a time where rivalries was part of the NBA fabric:

But I don't know if I'm comfortable with such cozy collaborations among supposedly irreconcilable foes becoming the norm in the NBA. If a player could so easily jump to a team that just beat him in the Eastern Conference Finals -- even if part of the motivation was sticking it to the team that tried to trade him -- that doesn't say much about the state of player and team rivalries in this league,” writes Hill.  “In-season rivalries haven't blocked career decisions in some time, but can you blame me for being Pollyannish and wishing that they still did?”

Players going from one team to a rival is nothing new – Rodman to Bulls and then the Lakers; Horace Grant to the Lakers; Karl Malone and Gary Payton to the Lakers; Robert Horry to the Lakers and then the Spurs; don’t forget Shaq?  Additionally, beyond presuming that the players have all the power in the process, why isn’t Hill and others demanding changes to the collective bargaining agreement, which encourages players to seek out big markets (to make money outside of the sports) all while limiting the ability to teams to retain its role players.  The failure to address these various issues reveals the discomfort and anxiety about (black) players determining their own futures, exercising power in the face of overwhelming white ownership, overwhelmingly white media commentators, and white fans.

One has to wonder if CBS or NBC asked any sports commentator to join their enterprise, would they cite loyalty in declining their offer?  Where is the outage at coaches that coach for rivals, CEOS that parachute from one company to the next, or companies that race to the bottom?  I know they are too busy lamenting Ray Allen to the Heat but the hypocrisy and double standards are thick. 

In 1970, Curt Flood’s life would forever changed and so would the American sports fabric when he wrote the following to Bowie Kuhn:

After twelve years in the major leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes.  I believe that any system which produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with the laws of the United States and of the several States. It is my desire to play baseball in 1970, and I am capable of playing.  I have received a contract offer from the Philadelphia club, but I believe I have the right to consider offers from other clubs before making any decisions.  I, therefore, request that you make known to all Major League clubs my feelings in this matter, and advise them of my availability for the 1970 season (Flood, 194-195).

Denounced as disloyal, as leading to the destruction of baseball, as being selfish and everything wrong with athletes of his day, Flood’s courage brought about free agency across the sporting landscape.  One has to wonder how those who often celebrate Flood, who invoke his name as evidence of a once politically engaged athlete, can denounce and demonize the players who are merely standing on the shoulders of Flood and Spencer Haywood.  One has to wonder how the blogosphere, how the twitter generation, and how the 24-sports industry that spans ESPN and sports talk, would have treated Flood.  The contempt for player movement and the outrage directed at players who “take their talents” elsewhere is telling in this regard, begging the question of what is “free” in “free agency.”  

***

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 was just published by SUNY Press.

* Paul Mooney

Athletes and Race in the Last Century

The Leonard Lopate Show (WNYC-FM)

Athletes and Race in the Last Century

Theresa Runstedtler and David J. Leonard discuss race in sports. Runstedtler is the author of Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner: Boxing in the Shadow of the Global Color Line, about the first African American World Heavyweight Champion (1908-1915) and his battles with racism around the world. Leonard is the author of After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness, about the 2004 “Palace Brawl,” a fight between NBA players Ron Artest and Ben Wallace that dramatically altered outside perceptions of the sport.

“High” Performance: Black Athletes and the “War on Drugs”

“High” Performance: Black Athletes and the “War on Drugs”

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

Some days the sports media seems obsessed with drug use by athletes.  Whether recreational drugs or performance enhancing drugs, sports pages are often dedicated to lamenting and bemoaning the dialects between society and sports as it relates to drugs.

Stepping into a culture that obsesses over drug use amongst athletes, Courtland Milloy highlights a recent study - Cannabis in Sport: Anti-Doping Perspective”– from Marilyn Huestis, Irene Mazzoni, and Oliver Rabin.  In spite widespread media condemnation of athletes accused of smoking marijuana and the drug testing policies of several professional sports league, Milloy concludes that there may be good reason for players to smoke marijuana.  “Whenever a professional athlete is suspended for smoking marijuana. . . a question usually arises: Why would they risk so much for so little? Turns out, the benefits of taking a few puffs aren’t so little,” he writes in “For pro athletes, the risks of smoking pot are high — but so are the benefits.”  He then quotes the authors, who offered a lengthy discussion of the issues at hand as they relate to sports:

That when smoked in small amounts by athletes,  “cannabis can decrease anxiety, fear, depression and tension. Furthermore, cannabinoids play a major role in the extinction of fear memories by interfering with learned aversive behaviors. Athletes who experienced traumatic events in their career could benefit from such an effect. . . . . Athletes under the influence of cannabis indicate that their thoughts flow more easily and their decision making and creativity is enhanced.  Health professionals have encountered athletes including gymnasts, divers, football players and basketball players who claim smoking cannabis before play helps them focus better.

The conclusions should be of little surprise given the widespread research on the medicinal properties of cannabis.  Likewise, the story of Rickey Williams, who reportedly smoked marijuana to treat his social anxiety, which is debilitating to all but particularly difficult for public figures, is testament to the conclusions here. 

Yet, its importance rests with its effort to challenge the narrative that criminalizes today’s athletes.   This study and the column itself disrupts the “the fusion of black athletes, rappers, and criminals into a single menacing figure who disgusts and offends many blacks as well as whites,” (Hoberman 1997, p. xix).  By imagining potential marijuana use as a response to the physical and mental strains associated with professional sports as well as a “performance enhancing drug,” Milloy disrupts the pathological/criminal/race-based narratives that guide the convergence of the front and back pages.      

Yet, the article leaves a sour taste in my mouth.  Trying to connect with decriminalization efforts, Milloy misses an opportunity to highlight the ways in which the war on drugs/the criminalization of marijuana has been a war on communities of color. In Washington D.C., African Americans are 8 times more likely to be arrested than whites.  In California, 62% of arrests for marijuana are against people of color, notwithstanding lower levels of usage.  In New York City, 1 in 7 arrests are for marijuana possession with the burden of the war on drugs directed at youth of color.  According to a recent report

Between 1997 and 2007, police arrested and jailed about 205,000 blacks, 122,000 Latinos and 59,000 whites for possessing small amounts of marijuana. Blacks accounted for about 52 percent of the arrests, though they represented only 26 percent of the city’s population over that time span. Latinos accounted for 31 percent of the arrests but 27 percent of the population. Whites represented only 15 percent of those arrested, despite comprising 35 percent of the population.

Government surveys of high school seniors and young adults 18 to 25 consistently show that young whites use marijuana more often than young blacks and Latinos. The arrests also are heavily skewed by gender. About 91 percent of people arrested were male.

Given the criminalization of marijuana usage within black and Latino communities, it should be of little surprise that marijuana use by professional basketball and football players elicits media outrage and league intervention.  The fear, the outrage, and the criminalization of marijuana in certain sports are merely an extension of the criminalization, profiling, and inequality of the war on drugs throughout society. 

The racially-based selective enforcement of drug laws in society at large extends into the sports world.  The ways that race, sport, and drug intersect is on full display for a 2003 article in The New York Daily News:

Most pro athletes flee from anything that smacks of controversy, but [Bob] Burnquist, 26, and O'Brien, 24, feel compelled to stand up for marijuana. Legalize it, they say - marijuana can be used for fuel, for medicine, even for food. Oh yeah, they add, it also makes people feel good. “There is so much we can do with it,” Burnquist says.

It's hard to imagine NBA and NFL stars publicly embracing marijuana. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws has tried to coax pro athletes to speak out for pot legalization, but the only player who has stepped forward is former Dallas Cowboy All-Pro center Mark Stepnoski, now the president of NORML's Texas chapter.

Skateboarders and other extreme or action sports athletes, including those in motocross, snowboarding and surfing, don't feel so inhibited. O'Brien even appeared on the cover of High Times magazine last year, holding a big, fat bud. “I believe it's God's gift to us,” says O'Brien, who won't say if she actually smokes pot. Burnquist says he's an occasional toker.

“We smoke all the time,” says motocross rider Beau Manley. “It's part of what we do – ride and get stoned with our bros.”

This article is indicative of the ways in which whiteness insulates, rationalizes, and decriminalizes white use of marijuana.  Whereas drugs are seen as a natural extension of the culture of extreme sports, and therefore harmless, the intrusion of drug use within football and basketball is seen as harmful, evidence of the criminal grips on its sporting culture.  While Milloy’s column and presumably the research itself reflects on drug usage by athletes across a myriad of sports, both the public concern and the overall policing within the United States has been reserved for those sports overwhelming played by African Americans.  As with the war on drugs, the war on marijuana use by athletes has been a war on African American athletes.  To fail to acknowledge this larger context, and to ignore the fact that marijuana use amongst whites, athletes or not, is already accepted, represents a missed opportunity.

***  

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.

The Passion of Tiger Woods and Contemporary Black Poetry February 27th 'Left of Black'

The Passion of Tiger Woods and Contemporary Black Poetry February 27^thLeft of Black

Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined in-studio by Professor Orin Starn and via Skype© by Professor Thabiti Lewis.  Authors of The Passion of Tiger Woods: An Anthropologist Reports on Golf, Race, and Celebrity Scandal (Duke University Press) and Ballers of the New School: Essays on Racism and Sports in America (Third World Press),  respectively, Starn and Lewis analyze how Tiger Woods has differed from many other Black male athletes in terms of how he is un-racialized and re-racialized at various moments.  Later the scholars discuss the meaning of Woods’ identification as Cablinasian.  

Later, Neal is joined also in-studio by poet Darrell Stover who currently a program director at the North Carolina Humanities Council, a position her formerly held at the St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation| Hayti Heritage Center.  Author of  the new collection of poetry Somewhere Deep Down When, Stover considers how history has shaped the meaning of being a poet, shares his poetic influences, and discusses the importance of reaching out to the larger  community through poetry.  Stover and Neal talk about Amiri Baraka’s immersion in multiple art forms, and discuss the legacy of Gil Scott Heron.

***

Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on the Ustream channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/left-of-black. Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation with Neal and featured guests while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive. 

Left of Blackis recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.

***

Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack

Follow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan

Follow Thabiti Lewis on Twitter: @ThabitiBaller

Follow Darrell Stover on Twitter: @Scipoet1000

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Rashard Mendenhall Offers Contrast to the Apathetic Black Athlete

Rashard Mendenhall Offers Contrast to the Apathetic Black Athlete

by Mark Anthony Neal | The Atlanta Post

Like many Americans, professional football player Rashard Mendenhall was moved by the announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US military personnel.  Yet what moved Mendenhall to speak out in the hours after the announcement was his disgust with the celebratory antics of folk who gathered across from the White House and at Ground Zero in New York City.   On his Twitter feed Mendenhall wrote “What kind of person celebrates death? It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side…”  Mendenhall, who plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers, also expressed some concern that many who were celebrating in the streets didn’t really know the full story.

Reaction to Mendenhall’s comments was swift, most notably by Steelers team president Art Rooney II, who quickly distanced the team from Mendenhall’s comments. “The entire Steelers organization is very proud of the job our military personnel have done and we can only hope this leads to our troops coming home soon,” he announced. And just recently, Mendenhall was dropped as a spokesman for the sports apparel company Champion.

On Sports talk radio—never a bastion of thoughtful commentary—the reactions were to be expected: athletes should keep their opinions about anything other than the game, to themselves.  As Thabiti Lewis observes in his book Ballers of the New School: Race and Sports in America, sports are intended to “divert us from conversations of political, economic, or social criticisms and analysis, while cultivating jingoists—intense patriots.” Yet, underlying even those nominal responses is the belief that Black athletes, in particular, should shut-up and, to quote rapper and activist Jasiri X, “just run the ball boy.”

Read the Full Essay @ The Atlanta Post

Shut up and Play, or Just Shut Up: Lessons from the Panic over Rashard Mendenhall's Tweets

 

Shut up and Play, or Just Shut up:

Lessons from the Panic over Rashard Mendenhall's Tweets

by David J. Leonard and C. Richard King | Special to NewBlackMan

It has become almost cliché to condemn and demonize contemporary black athletes for their purported lack of political activity.  Celebrating the courageous stances of athletes like Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, and Curt Flood, it is commonplace to see contemporary praise alongside of the demonization of today’s ballers.  Here are but a few examples of the ways in which the modern athlete, defined and represented through the black athlete, are ridicule for political cowardice and apathy. 

Jaymes Powell Jr., in “Severed from the Struggle,” argues that, “many athletes of African-American descent haven’t embraced activism the way previous generations did.  They say there are no modern-day counterparts to Jim Brown, Tommy [sic] Smith, Arthur Ashe, and former N.C. A & T quarterback Jesse Jackson, athletes who took leading roles in the battle for civil rights” (2007).  Similarly, Greg Mathis in “Where is Today’s Muhammad Ali?” concludes that sports no longer generates activism, “fall[ing] victim to the slave mentality of ‘take the money and shut up.”  He notes further, “From athletic shoes to sports drinks today’s major athletes can and do hawk everything under the sun. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to political and social issues, these celebrities are uncharacteristically silent.  It was not always that way” (2004).   Greg Jayne agrees, arguing that today’s athletes, unlike Smith and Carlos, Curt Flood, or Ali, have turned their backs on the tradition of athletes taking a stand.  “They’re wealthy, they’re prominent and they’re alternatively revered and reviled for their uneasy position as role models.  Athletes are among the most visible members of society.  Yet along with the riches and the fame and the status as style-makers, there is a wealth of silence” (2003).  Scoop Jackson in an effort to highlight the efforts Etan Thomas to speak truth to power, put it this way:

We live in the era of the soundless athlete. An era in which the highest-profile figures in sports not only say nothing about the condition of the sociopolitical landscape their fan base resides in, but worse -- they have nothing to say. They'll speak of love and hate in Nike commercials, they'll save women falling from buildings in Adidas spots. They'll dunk cantaloupes in carts in grocery store isles, they'll chase Afro'd dolls through parties trying to get a Sprite. They'll put tats on their bodies proclaiming love for loved ones and those they've lost; they'll go on “Oprah” or “Jay Leno” and shed tears about their past and how they were lost; they'll do one-on-ones with chosen sportscasters to promote their CDs; they'll form opinions about dress codes. Saying nothing.

And, bottom line? Ain't none of them wrong. That's what they are supposed to do. Their silence has emancipated them. Taken them places past their American dreams. Made them our heroes. Some our leaders. To them we look for answers; answers we find in their silence. We applaud their performances, make sure our kids always choose them on "NBA Ballers”; Live '06 them, Xbox them, DS them, PSP them. All the while accepting their silence (2006).

While many commentators see the silence as organic, as a reflection of the dysfunction of today’s (black) athletes, as their refusal to accept the baton of their forbearers, and even the changing economics of sports, they, like so much in the media, ignore the mechanism that discipline and punish (black) athletes for speaking up, for challenging the status quo.  As Scoop Jackson notes, “And, bottom line? Ain't none of them wrong. That's what they are supposed to do.”  Better said, it is what is required of them: “Shut up and play”! 

To grasp the power of this equation, we need look no further than the current frenzy and the denunciation surrounding Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall, who in the wake of the announced killing of Osama Bin Laden and national celebrations, took to his twitter page, where he offered the following:

What kind of person celebrates death? It's amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We've only heard one side...

@dkeller23 We'll never know what really happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style [USA Today reports that this has been subsequently removed]

I believe in God. I believe we're ALL his children. And I believe HE is the ONE and ONLY judge.

Those who judge others, will also be judged themselves.

For those of you who said you want to see Bin Laden burn in hell and piss on his ashes, I ask how would God feel about your heart?

There is not an ignorant bone in my body. I just encourage you to #think

Not surprisingly his remarks have triggered an avalanche of criticism.  Art Rooney II, the Steelers’ owner, publicly condemned his comments, seemingly questioning his patriotism, going as far to link his comments to support for the troops.  "I have not spoken with Rashard so it is hard to explain or even comprehend what he meant with his recent Twitter comments. The entire Steelers' organization is very proud of the job our military personnel have done and we can only hope this leads to our troops coming home soon."  Others followed suit focusing on the one conspiracy tweet to depict him as a crazy, ignorant, and otherwise out-of-step with reality.  Described as a “meltdown,” “Football's Newest Villain,” as someone whose “mouth and tweets are simply disrespectful,” as someone who “sounds ridiculous (again),” as irrational and not presently on earth, as sympathetic to Bin Laden,  as a defender of Bin Laden and another “dumb jock.”  Much of the discourse focused on his questions that fit with those conspiracy theorists and not on many other tweets about the meaning of and celebration of the assassination.

Rick Chandler seemed to capture the sentiment and animosity best with his column:

Last night I had a very vivid dream. An elite team of Navy SEALs flew two Blackhawk helicopters into Rashard Mendenhall’s residence. After encountering token resistance from the dog (neutralized by Snausages), the elite special forces team located the Steelers running back in an upstairs bedroom, where he was in the process of tweeting a friend (not a euphemism). The SEALs confiscated his cell phone — and all others in the house — and then departed as quickly as they had arrived.  So, hopefully, there will be no further retarded tweets such as this.

On Foxnews.com, comments consistently questioned his intelligence, calling him a “moron,” an “idiot,” “a clown” and “garbage” who couldn’t have gone to college.  One poster made clear the power of white racial framing, noting, “Gee, and I thought the NFL only harbored rapists, murderers, and dog killers.”   Many who posted on the site called for his release and/or a boycott of the Steelers.  Similarly, on ESPN.com (and on Huffington Post there was more support for Mendenhall especially regarding the condemnation of celebrations of death) which as of Tuesday had elicited over 8,000 comments, he was referred as a “moron,” a “terrorist,” “an idiot,” and someone who just needs “to shut up.”

Several commentators also linked his tweets to his past comments about the NFL and slavery.  Responding to comments made by the Vikings’ Adrian Peterson, Mendenhall stated, “Anyone with knowledge of the slave trade and the NFL could say that these two parallel each other."  In posts and in comments, his remarks about 9/11 and the killing of Bin Laden are connected to his comments about the NFL not only in an effort to demonize him as a radical but to reduce him to yet another ungrateful black athlete who spits on his profession and country.  Columnist Gene Collier epitomizes this rendering of Mendenhall as he openly mocked him and his intelligence in a recent diatribe, lambasting the running back for his lack of understanding of sport management, structural engineering, and history.

Last I checked, no one was dodging the NFL draft by fleeing to Canada. No one is forced to play football, Rashard. This must have played well in Dublin, where the United States ambassador to Ireland is only the man after which the Rooney Rule is named, only the first-born son of The Chief, one of the first NFL owners to have African-Americans on his roster.

In short, Collier and seemingly countless others find Mendenhall to be ignorant and ungrateful, laughable for his lack of common sense and easily dismissed for not knowing his place. As Collier quipped, "It's better to remain silent and thought a fool than to tweet and remove all doubt."  In other words, shut up and play; don’t trouble us with your thoughts, especially when they run counter to conventional wisdom, challenge the white racial frame, and upset management and the fan base.  As Collier concludes, refiguring the star athlete as a terrorist, “As an American, Mendenhall has rights. Because it's a great and confounding country, he has a right to his mouth just as he has a right to an AK-47. How 'bout don't go shootin' 'em off.”

Mendenhall is not alone in feeling the public wrath’s for not only being politically vocal but for speaking out in away that challenges dominant assumptions and ideologies.  Carlos Delgado, Toni Smith, Josh Howard, Steve Nash, and Etan Thomas (see Dave Zirin for more discussion), among others, have also been targeted for their outspoken challenges to imperialism, war, and systemic violence.  It is not a politically active athlete that is undesirable, but one who challenges the conventional wisdom, especially when said athlete is a young African American.  

Dave Zirin, in “Shut Up and Play? Patriotism, Jock Culture and the Limits of Free Speech,” reminds readers about the historic blindness in today’s celebration of activist-athlete of year’s past: If you look historically at athletes who today are admired for their courageous honesty—people like Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, Jim Brown, and Bill Russell—they were all told by the sports columnists of their day that they should button their lips and just play.”

This conclusion raises a troubling question: What exactly does the nostalgia for political athletes of the past mean today? Sadly, it may mean that those selected for celebration fall on the right side of history, presumably with “us.”  Their once objectionable observations now resonate with common sense assessments of race, justice, and society. In celebrating them exclusively, while remain silent about, or worse attacking, objectionable expressions by athletes today, encourages both a confirmation of the status quo and a demonization of those few who do speak up.  More broadly, the panic around Mendenhall’s tweets further underscores the deep entanglements of sporting spectacles and national narratives. 

Few complaints were heard when the NFL (to take but one example) amplified its inculcation of patriotism following 9/11.  In fact, franchises profited; fans felt good; and the war on terror thrived unquestioned. In contrast, the passing comments of one player questioning how the public responded to the killing of Osama bin Laden and accepted accounts of the events he set in motion sparks a firestorm of controversy.  In such a context, one cannot hope for sport to liberate, inspire, or transform.  Indeed, the Mendenhall affair may confirm Noam Chomsky’s observation about sport: “it occupies the populations, and it keeps them from trying to get involved with things that really matter” (2002, 99-100).  By extension, nostalgic celebrations paired with contemporary demonization further turns our attention away from what matters in sport and society.

***

C. Richard King is the Chair of Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University at Pullman and the author/editor of several books, including Team Spirits: The Native American Mascot Controversy and Postcolonial America.

David J. Leonard is an associate professor in the Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University at Pullman. His next book (SUNY Press) is on the NBA after the November 2004 brawl during a Pacers-Pistons game at the The Palace of Auburn Hills He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums.

Did Albert Haynesworth Really Mean Slave?

Did Albert Haynesworth Really Mean Slave?
by Thabiti Lewis

Recently a media feeding frenzy ensued when Washington Redskins defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth uttered the statement, “Just because somebody pays you money don’t mean they’ll make you do whatever they want…I’m not for sale. Yeah, I signed the contract and got paid a lot of money [$21 million this year], but that don’t mean I’m for sale or a slave or whatever.”

Part of the shock, or better yet outrage, seemed to be focused on the very thought that a black man making so much money would compare playing in a defensive scheme he despises to the master-slave relationship at the heart of the American Black-white divide. According to Haynesworth his bone of contention was part of his contract negotiations with the Redskins.

Of course he is not the first contemporary athlete to utter the slave comparison. Former NBA great Larry Johnson once referred to some of his New York Knicks teammates as “rebel slaves” which generated similar outrage. William Rhoden’s wonderful book Forty Million Dollar Slaves takes on the historic plantation mentality of American sport culture and contemporary athletes. And my own book, Ballers of The New School, examines the mentality of contemporary post-civil rights, hip-hop generation athletes, bold enough to make such utterances.

To be fair to Haynesworth who is black, the history and legacy of the enslavement of African persons in the New World, and testifying against it or vestiges of it, will forever be part of the psyche of black Americans. Enslavement in America was harsh, bitter, and cruel as recounted in endless slave narratives. These narratives testified against captors and bore witness to the desire of every black person to be free. Haynesworth’s recent tirade or testimony (depending on your point of view) underscores the feelings that most contemporary athletes are either unwilling to or incapable of articulating.

While Haynesworth certainly does not endure the same type of cruel bondage, his rebellion is against those in power of a plantation or system (dominated primarily by white men) that controls black men—even if they pay them. It is a system capable of making them “do whatever they want” whenever they want. Haynesworth, like the slave narratives, which demonstrated the problematic value of plantation culture, is perhaps addressing the problematic white-black labor conditions in contemporary sports culture that is driven by a modicum of the past master-slave ideology.

Rhoden says in his book “sports might be a plantation of sorts.” Haynesworth seems to concur. And, no amount of money will hush black folk with knowledge of this legacy, because America’s foundation is buried in the fields of slave plantations.

Ironically, the foundation of contemporary high profile sports like football and basketball are the descendants of former slaves. Even the structure of contemporary sports teams traces the power dynamics of plantations. Nearly all the people who exercise power over players are white— the owners, head coaches, commissioners, etc.

The outrage directed at Haynesworth for making his “slave” comment confirms the unspoken notion that because he is Black, he is treated as a descendants of former slaves. Critics say Haynesworth should be grateful—more grateful than his white peers—for the money he makes.

But if Haynesworth is getting paid so much and the dynamics are so different, why make the comparison?

Haynesworth is bothered that despite his immense wealth he does not control the terms of his liberation—the problem slaves faced without the benefit of wealth. Further, in the contemporary sports world not only are white men (like his coach and team owner) in power, but they have defined the terms of the liberation for black men. Haynesworth’s analogy is perhaps his way of saying that while his services may be for sale, his pride and self-respect are not. Despite the money, prestige, and lifestyle, he is not blind to the master-slave power dynamic in contemporary sport culture.

What underscores the Haynesworth saga is how it compares to that of Minnesota Vikings’ Brett Favre who is white. Haynesworth dislikes the Redskins 3-4 defensive scheme, preferring to play tackle instead of nose guard. He also skipped the Redskins voluntary off-season conditioning program. The media maligned him for this, suggesting he was lazy. Brett Favre routinely skips training camp until the last two weeks of camp. He also chose to play for the Vikings because they use an offense he likes.

Yet, the media response to his antics is the antithesis of the response to Haynesworth. Haynesworth is called “ridiculous,” “an idiot” and worse for making his comments. Meanwhile Favre is worshipped for holding teams hostage (deciding if he will play or retire) each year until two weeks before the season begins. In fact, he was given a raise this season. (He now makes $16 million!)

Race is an undeniable variable in the different treatment of these men. The black one is told he should be grateful, shut up and do what he is told. The other is afforded the latitude to waffle about playing, and is offered a raise for doing so.

My point here is not that Haynesworth is literally a slave, but that because he’s Black he’s treated like one. Nor is it that whites are literally masters. The point is that Haynesworth seems to be aware the racial dynamics at play and rejects them. Our national understanding of race could make leaps and bounds, if the public considered these dynamics alongside Haynesworth words, “I’m not for sale or a slave or whatever.”

Originally Published by NewsOne.com

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Thabiti Lewis is the author of Ballers of the New School: Race and Sports in America (Third World Press, 2010). He teaches English and American Studies at Washington State University Vancouver.