Free Tim Hardaway(?)

Editor's Note : Free Tim Hardaway? What?

If there is such a thing as a definitive take on Tim Hardaway's homophobia | p.r. gaffe : (depending on how you look at it) : it might just be Sports on My Mind's
Tim Hardaway and the Language of Hate; Chris Broussard is LZ’s Good Buddy (as long as LZ Doesn’t Check out his Johnson in the Shower, That Is). (God I love that title.)

Sports on My Mind offers a good summation of Hardaway's comments & apology, & ties it to ESPN's Chris Broussard's equally asinine, yet less publicized, message of born-again, Christian love.

Apparently, SoMM notes, the N.B.A. removed Hardaway from all league-related appearances. To be brief : I'm fine with that. Hardaway has a right to believe what he wants & speak what he wants, but he, of course, has no inherent right to a league position, nor access to the public airwaves that disseminate his hatred & paranoia.

The thing is, I don't think that this (legitimate-form-of-)censoring Hardaway is an adequate response. It seems to me that the solution de jour of an ambiguous mixture of media mouths & the masses for the expression of hate, stereotype, racist, or offensive discourse is ... simply ... fire him/her. See: Michael Irvin, see: John Edwards' bloggers. (Neither Irvin nor the bloggers was fired, though those bloggers may as well have been. Looks to me like they took one for the team.)

I do not condone Hardaway's beliefs, nor do I think that he is a victim of some panoptic, prohibitory p.c. police force. But, by calling for the banishment or actually banishing a single voice, I speculate that the following occurs :

• We mistake the production of silence with the production of an "aware," "tolerant," or, even "gay friendly" league. Of course, a locker room filled with hate speech can't contribute to any of those things. But will a locker room of stifled hatred either? (Perhaps Broussard is over-estimating who's "with him," but he seems to think that most players feel like he does about gay people.) In other words, the homophobia doesn't go away; the environment might simply be hateful-1.
• Confronting homophobia isn't only a p.r. move. Hardaway showed his hand, apologizing for saying that he hates gay people, not for hating them.

  Yes, I regret it. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said I hate gay people or anything like that,” he said. “That was my mistake.”

  It's not at all disingenuous; he's apologizing for exactly what got him in trouble in the first place. &, I think, by engaging in this cycle of speak-(apologize)-&-fire, we tend to diminish non-speech related contributors to homophobia.
  
• This narrative, now common : speaker says something asinine, public & other media mouths call for firing, speaker is fired or resigns : is particularly easy to understand & easy to broadcast. ESPN can run the whole story through its nauseatingly repetitious Sportscenter machine thanks, especially, to the fact that we get a neat ending. There's no wider discussion; the words Hardaway spoke are his problem, we disavow them, & he's been taken care of, in one way or another. I know the job of ESPN isn't that of sociology, nor is it David Stern's work to conjure the ghost of C. Wright Mills, but let's dig a little deeper. For example, let's wonder what Hardaway's remarks have to do with Broussard's & what do both of them have to do with Tony Dungy's public support of an anti-gay organization? The N.B.A. Commish has some remarks credited to him about when the league's "inquiry" about its players end: right about when the players put the ball on the floor (so long as you have played one year in college, & abide by the dress code, & stay away from the clubs). But let's not buy what Stern is selling without investigating the evidence. For example, dig around, ESPN, to find out whether the NBA & its union provide the same benefits to a married, homosexual couple as it does a married, heterosexual couple. (It hasn't happened yet, so I'm talking about a theoretical couple ... & the league's complicity with heterosexism.) But, more importantly, let's strive to generate a real conversation : not only Amaechi's powerful biography & critiques narrating us through other player's soundbites.
  

I hate what Tim Hardaway said. But that's not the end of this story...

peace love gap
Johnny Hatchett