Tim Hardaway, homophobia, & race

Editor's Note : Tim Hardaway, homophobia, & race : aka : Why white is right.

Maybe it's me, but...

It's one thing to offer a thoughtful, weighty discussion of what Tim Hardaway's blackness has to do with his comments about gay men. It's useful, in fact, to point out how homophobia limits the agenda & activism of any organization. (In the above case, the blogger is writing on the N.A.A.C.P.)

It's another thing to bring it up flippantly, in passing, & with no substantive context...to accomplish what? Hell if I know.

One blogger writes,

... the African American community, including the churches, have not been exactly helpful to the gay community over the years. Religious beliefs play a big part in it.

Or, as one blogger points out, there's FoxNews (gulp!)

Hardaway's bigotry, while hardly unique, is particularly sad given that he played college ball at the University of Texas-El Paso, which made history in 1966 as Texas Western by defeating Kentucky in the NCAA final with an all-black starting five. When the Miners beat Kentucky, which was coached by the retrograde Adolph Rupp who refused to recruit black players, it was a landmark on the "glory road" to racial equality in college athletics. Presumably, Hardaway, an African-American, would reject Rupp's racism as immoral. But apparently he would have no problem with discrimination against gays.

Briefly, some thoughts on this :

• When a white person says something homophobic, we should relentlessly bring up white people's legacy of dominance over others as proof that white people just don't get it. That might make some sense.
• Is it surprising that religion might be involved in the production of homophobia amongst black people? Did we expect that all religious black people would be less homophobic than some religious white people?
  
• To suggest that a person who faces one form of discrimination should develop some radical ethos of equality is a bit daffy; in a way, it suggests that white racism might actually benefit black people. It'll help them get enlightened, or something like that.
  
• Sometimes, one's own experience of discrimination generates solidarity with others facing different forms of discrimination. Often, it doesn't. Which is why scholarship on African-American feminism or uneasy amalgamations of Marxism & feminism exists.
• Sometimes, the white gay & lesbian community have not exactly been helpful to the black gay & lesbian community. Again, there's no such thing as automatic & easy solidarity.
  
• Anyone else have thoughts on this? I'm just a little stumped & perplexed, though not surprised.
  

peace love gap
Johnny Hatchett

"No more water, the fire next time!"

Sports Media Review's latest blog entry is a searing critique of comments ESPN's Mike & Mike made about New York Knick Stephon Marbury. (This is the NBA point guard who you might know better by his two nicknames "Starbury" and "Bad Teammate.")

Essentially, Marbury responded to an inquiry made by NY Times journalist Harvey Araton by responding, matter-of-factly, that “I don’t answer to nobody." Needless to say, the Mike & Mike boys got a bit daffy about this comment.

Amongst other things, "Greeny" offered that, "These guys have been stars on some level from the time they were little kids. They’ve been told, you can do whatever you want, and there will be no consequences." This, apparently, explains why Marbury responded to the NY Times journalist as he did.

Sports Media Review's sane take on this lunatic statement

Then there's the notion, expressed most forcefully by Greenie, that this generation of athletes has been spoiled and pampered from an early age, which leads in a straight line to their catastrophic refusal to explain themselves to reporters. Is Greenie suggesting, therefore, that he wishes he could have had Stephon Marbury's childhood? A child hood in which Marbury was one of seven kids growing up in an urban hell, as depicted in Darcy Frey's The Last Shot? Greenie himself grew up in New York City, the son of a lawyer. Did he really not hear himself suggest this morning that Stephon Marbury had had everything handed to him since he was eleven years old by contrast with, we are to assume, guys like Greenie, who had to scratch and claw his way through a brutal middle class child hood.

(SMR's also discusses the crazy tendency of (generally coddled) sports reporters to idealize the spoiled youth of "problem" athletes in his take on Bobby Knight's motivational techniques.)

I want to add to SMR's critique (which I whole-heartedly endorse.)

I'm going to begin with an assumption. (Yes, as a student of sociology I know I shouldn't make assumptions, but I'll begin with one anyway.) The assumption is simple & this : growing up, many children are told & come to believe that they can achieve whatever they want - if they develop their talents & work hard, America will take care of the rest.

Now, Greeny isn't complaining that Starbury was taught this. What he is complaining about is that the point guard was taught a derivative of this : Marbury, given his talents, deserves the money and fame that he received (& receives) & has a right to demand to be allowed to do whatever he wants with it & there will be no consequences. In this case, what Marbury wants is to start a talk show, which other, more prominant athletes & coaches on superior teams already have. Apparently, such an act ought to have considerable consequences, at least for Marbury.

(Speaking of no consequences : the sports mediamouths are judge & jury for athletes. Who, besides a few critical bloggers, is judge & jury for the mediamouths? Mike & Mike get away with making all sorts of unsubstantiated remarks & they're always back on the radio / tv the next day.)

The reason I'm writing is this : I can't speak for Mike Greenberg, nor for Stephon Marbury. I have no clue how intensely each was socialized into the "American dream." I don't know if Greenberg's father, mother, teacher, etc., ever actually told him that he could accomplish anything he wanted. I don't know if anyone ever told him what his white skin did for him. I don't know if Marbury was ever told similar things, or if he ever sensed that there was some role the color of his skin played in what people thought he could achieve.

Speaking as a person with white skin, I was ignorant of any link between that color, my ability to achieve, & social expectations of my achievement.

Contrast that with the devastating look that James Baldwin's father showed him :

"The fear that I heard in my father's voice, for example, when he realized I believed I could do anything a white boy could do, and had every intention of proving it, was not at all like the fear I heard when once of us was ill..." (The Fire Next Time)

Greeny might not intend for his comments to say this, but a message they speak, in addition to what SMR pointed out, is this : "you, Stephon Marbury, don't deserve what you have / (you never did). In fact, you should never have been taught to expect what you've got / (it shouldn't have come to you in the first place). " Those comments, in a way, sound a bit like Baldwin's father's voice, just in reserve...

Maybe I'm going too far. If I am, maybe I'm just a little disturbed. If I'm not, I'm very disturbed.

peace love gap
Johnny Hatchett

Johnny Hatchett makes up for lost time.

Editor's Note: Johnny Hatchett is making up for lost time. He'll be back soon.

The inspiration for this blog came from myriad writers employed by THE network (ESPN). I visit THE network's site compulsively; frequently, I read articles in which I have no interest & check NBA & NFL boxscores before any significant statistics accumulate. Tuning into the site keeps me from tuning into my life, it's true. Keeps me from being mindful of my situation - &, though I've liked that, I'm trying to return myself to something resembling mindfulness. Part of that mindfulness involves me slowing my web use, checking it for motivations & all that.

As I've become aware of THE network's role in / effect on my living brain, I've simultaneously become aware of the nasty dialogues & sub-texts circulating in our sports KINGDOM. This catching-up is a blunted, power-reflexive blotter of the assumptions, stereotypes, & code-words in my mindful attention. These are why I'm writing now, in our recent past, and why I'll write again.

Editor's note: Sometimes Johnny Hatchett gets upset @ writers & bloggers who don't work for ESPN.com. He strives to be an equal opportunity critic.

1) Page 2's alpha-male reads The Bell Curve every night before falling asleep in his Sports Guy Mansion.

Bill Simmons might not be a racist, but he sure says things that sound racist. In his NFL Preview, The Sports Guy questions the intellectual capabilities of four men - Art Shell, Herm Edwards, Aaron Brooks, & Offensive Rookie of the Year, Vince Young. All four men are African-American. One of these men is coaching an AFC playoff team. Another made a miracle playoff run. The other two are Raiders &, white or black, that ain't good.

I'm not familiar enough with any of these men - nor their NFL coaching & playing capabilities - to evaluate their performances. Apparently, Bill Simmons is &, according to this Boston-educated writer, these men are dumb, possibly / probably too dumb to be coaching & playing professional football. Hmm.

Simmons concludes his NFL Preview entirely unaware of his critiques of NFL intelligence & four African-American men's lack of it ... entirely oblivious to the history of African-American athletes, African-Americans in general, and claims about intelligence. "Intelligence" - and it deserves those quotations, because it's never really clear what anyone means by that word - has served as a social gate-keeper, restricting African-American's access to jobs, both in & out of professional sports. Simmons' mindless discussion of these men's intelligence is regrettable; he speaks glibly of them & their minds ... with no critical discussion of what "mathematical skills" an NFL coach actually needs or why an NFL quarterback needs to score high on a pre-draft standardized test.


2) T.O. tried to kill a little piece of me too

I have no link because the link is gone, but on 9.27.2006, THE network.COM called Terrell Owen's suicide attempt a "bizzare twist" and provided a link to the "lowpoints" of the man's career. (At the time, T.O. had not told us that no suicide attempt occured.) Yes, the man says some stupid things &, in so much as THE network & others like it allow him to be a distraction, he's a distraction. &, yes, he started dropping passes after his overdose. But what's so funny about peace, love, and deceny? With its distasteful (disgusting!) choice of words, THE network showed its hand.
...
...
(Wait.)
(Wait.)
(Prepare for some kind of obvious statement.)
T.O. the bad teammate, T.O. the bad, bad human is as much a production of THE network's need for spectacle as he is a production of his on-the-field antics & off-the-field-miscues. On a day when he mingled with real mortality, showed some serious softness in that six-pack armor, we had nothing but spectacular cynicism.

&, after the suicide chatter settled, T.O. met us with spectacular cynicism of his own.

:: more proof that THE network does not get it ::

::Chucky K's reasonable take on T.O. ::

3) I know what Albert Pujols should do with his mouth

In September & October, Albert Pujols said some things that didn't sound so nice. He called out the scout who urged the Cardinals to draft him. Then he dissed two winners - Tom Glavine & Ryan Howard. So what did we say back to Albert?

Albert Pujols should keep his mouth shut.

Pujols should shut the hell up.

Take your championship ring and shut up.

Bad enough that, in one case, the man was taken out of context. Worse that a bunch of moralists who have jobs & hobbies & audiences because many of us value exposure to opinions, even when those opinions wreak havoc on the neurons that constitute our better judgement, want only silence & quality at-bats from the man who should be the National League's reigning, two-time Most Valuable Player.

I'll disagree with a professional athlete when I want to. Chances are, these guys views and my personal ones don't align. But to tell one of these men to just "shut up" is to reduce him to the spectacle of his bodily performance & to deny him the capacities of his mind. It is, I believe, to commit (symbolic) violence against another human.

So ... ahem ... fuck off.

4) Michael Irvin on the latent benefits of American slavery.

You know what the man said.

I figured that Irvin would be fired. So did pretty much everyone else. But he wasn't. Double standard? Maybe. But what I wish THE network would have done, instead of admonishing Irvin & doing...well, nothing really, is given us an hour long (or more!) television seminar on how & how being African-American & being white biologically does or doesn't produce athletes. A lot of important people - Joe Paterno & Fisher DeBerry among them - believe in the biological superiority of the African-American athlete. This generalization - which is often coupled with a generalization about African-American intelligence - has a significant history & it's one worth telling & exposing. Let's open ourselves up to an intelligent and informed debate, rather than allowing it to remain an unspeakable theory in the back of so many coaches, athletes, analysts, and fans minds.

5)The Brawl.

Everything's been said. Read Michael Wilbon's article & try to forget that he suggests that the NBA Commish should run the sport to satisfy white people who avoid public areas where African-American men gather.

Sincerely,
Johnny Hatchett

an unconfession to Jemele Hill (ESPN)

Editor's Note: Jemele Hill is a Page 2 columnist at ESPN.com. Her first article appeared on that site on 14 November 2006.

Dear Jemele Hill,

My brother jumped the gun. Immediately after reading your first article @ ESPN.com's Page 2, he emailed you, practically bubbling over with his suspicions - though he took that bubbly feeling to be something more certain - that THE sports network had hired you to fill Jason Whitlock's massive, African-American void.

You wrote my brother back, saying, he tells me, that you were hired to write. And you are no network's tool.

He stills maintains that you are.

Less than two months have passed since Page 2 published your first article. Since then, I've argued with my brother about your role at ESPN.com, been underwhelmed by your followup piece, and, more recently, provoked by your brief manifesto on sports, race, and violence.

Now, I write to you about something else. Not the sports you cover & I follow, but to express my sadness that you - in your debut article for ESPN.com - had to account for your views because of the color of your skin. In that article, you wrote,

"You want to know what kind of black person am I? Am I one of those? Yes, I discuss race openly, honestly and, hopefully, intelligently. Do I play the race card? Depends on what else is on the card table.">

Make no mistake, my sadness is not because you do not believe enough in my "colorblindness" to avoid having to, wanting to, & needing to write about your black skin. Rather, it is that you, an African-American woman, and never your white colleagues, have to communicate the relationship between personal views and race.

Now & then, I try to fill that white void, by imagining the article Bill Simmons, the Page 2 alpha-male, might have written if white people, &, especially, white men, had to confess, like you did, to the role of our white skin in our white lives, the role of our white lives in the reproduction of our white racism, & the effect of our white eyes (leading to white brains) in our sport fandom.

But I don't know what the man would say, because we - white people, white men, white writers - are rarely asked to ante up and show our hand
when someone plays the race card.

So that's what I intend to do in this here blog, write on white, write on men, write on white men & the things they say & the things I think.

Sincerely,
my first unconfession, undone,
Johnny Hatchett