The Heart and the Mind Sports: What Drives (me) Sports Fans

The Heart and the Mind of Sports: What Drives (me) Sports Fans

by David J. Leonard | special to NewBlackMan

In the legendary Thanksgiving scene from She’s Gotta Have it, Jamie (Tommy Hicks), Greer (John Canada Terrell), and Mars (Spike Lee) take time away from talking trash, flirting with Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns), and eating their thanksgiving dinner to discuss basketball. Debating who is the best player in the NBA, Mars questions the celebration of Larry Bird by NBA commentators alike. Jamie responds, “Say what you want, the white boy is the best player in the NBA,” to which Mars retorts, “The best? The best? He's the ugliest m'f'er in the NBA!” Five years later, Spike Lee once again took up the issue of race, basketball and fandom with Do the Right Thing. In this instance, Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) confronts Clinton (John Savage), a white male wearing a Larry Bird shirt, who accidentally scuffs his brand new air-Jordans, leading to the following exchange:

BUGGIN' OUT

Not only did you knock me down, you

stepped on my new white Air Jordans

that I just bought and that's all

you can say, "Excuse me?"

BUGGIN' OUT

I'll fuck you up quick two times.

Who told you to step on my sneakers?

Who told you to walk on my side of

the block? Who told you to be in

my neighborhood?

CLIFTON

I own a brownstone on this block.

BUGGIN' OUT

Who told you to buy a brownstone on

my block, in my neighborhood on my

side of the street?

While exploring racial identity, race relations, and the issue of gentrification, Lee uses each characters’ relationship to Larry Bird (and the racial signifiers attached to him as player and narrative script) to explore these issues. In each instance it is Lee at his best, pushing viewers to think about the meaning of/behind our choices as fans.

At an intellectual level I find both these fascinating because of the ways in which Lee connects race, sports fandom, and identity. Yet, my affection for both scenes isn’t simply about Lee’s artistry here or the ways in which he thinks about sports as a racial project/teller of identity, but his visible contempt for Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics. You see, I am Lakers’ fan. I don’t even think fan captures my relationship with the Lakers. I am miserable during the playoffs (especially this year), mentally exhausted before each game in anticipation of my misery during the game. Victories only provide a temporary respite, at least until the next game. In spite of the lack of enjoyment, I still watch each and every game. I am a fan – an irrational person who watches sports.

My love for the Lakers is simple at a certain level. Born and raised in Los Angeles, the Lakers represent my city. In the years since leaving Los Angeles, my relationship to the Lakers has grown as this relationship provides one of the most salient connections to home. First as a graduate student living in the Bay Area (especially during a year living in Davis, CA surrounding by Sacramento Kings fans) and now as a professor in Eastern Washington, my repping the Lakers reflects my desire to establish my geographic identity, to tell others where I am from and who I am.

Yet, at another level, my passion for the Lakers is about my childhood, nostalgia, my relationship to my father, and even my identity. Irrespective of the year or the players on that particular team, the Lakers elicit happiness because of the childhood memories that I associate with them: going to the Great Western Form with my father, the time I met Pat Riley at a wedding, that day I waited for almost an hour at the Apple Pan just so I could get James Worthy’s autograph. At an emotional levels, the Lakers embody the purity and innocence of childhood; the joy that came about with every spectacular play and monumental victory.

Yet, the nature of my relationship to the Lakers and the fandom in general illustrate the daily reconciliation and compromises endured because of sporting cultures. Some weeks back, after my Lakers lost to Dallas in four games (I have finally recovered), I had a brief exchange with Jeff Chang where he explained the basis of his disdain for the Lakers: “I want to qualify that I have loved the Lakers--esp. the glory days of Abdul-Jabbar. (Tho I did root for the Celts during that era, I watched the Lakers with the awe of an admirer,” he wrote. “But my hate for *these* Lakers is deep—more for who Jackson, Bryant, and Gasol have been off the court than for anything else. I've just been aghast at Jackson's vocal support of 1070, Gasol's anti-Asian racism, and Kobe's man issues and that's I guess how I express myself. It's no judgment on any Lakers fan at all . . . because again I definitely know how fandom.”

His comments really struck a chord with me: how could I support a team or players who had done things that in other circumstances I would condemn. His thoughts challenged me not only because it demonstrates the complexity that surrounds why people love and hate teams, how politics, ideology, narrative, and broader issues impact how we approach the game, but how as fans we negotiate these inconsistencies. I continually find myself defending the Lakers (and its players) even when the behavior is indefensible. Whether Phil Jackson’s often troubling comments, Kobe Brant’s past, Pau Gasol or Shaquille O’Neal connection to anti-Asian prejudice, I often find myself reconciling my heart – driven by sense of self, identity, nostalgia – with my critical understanding, politics, worldview, and moral values.

In recent weeks, I have written on the power of sporting narratives as they relate to both Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James (with Bruce Lee Hazelwood). In both cases, I sought to emphasize the media representations of both players and how the media discourse, alongside of nostalgia, race, and larger social forces impacts the consumption of/reaction to these players (and others).

That is, we as fans don’t simply love or hate players, root for or against teams, in a vacuum. Yet, there is an emotionality in sports, not only for what happens on-the-field but the narratives that transcend the sporting arena. It has personal meaning and it has a connection to something bigger. While difficult at times, we, as sports fans, must continually negotiate the emotional appeals of sports even while we seek to critically understand its broader meaning. Despite the appeals to do so, to be a fan should not mean to turn away from critical thinking, self-reflection, and a moral compass.

Evident in these two articles, it is easy for me to think critically about sports away from the Lakers; reflecting on the demonization directed at LeBron James, Barry Bonds, Tiger Woods or Ricky Williams or the narratives associated with Dirk Nowitzki, Lance Armstrong, Michael Jordan, Marion Jones, Tiger Woods, and Michael Vick is easier to achieve because I don’t necessarily have to navigate the complex and competing relationship between commentator and fan. That doesn’t mean that I don’t navigate this complexity with these athletes (and others) I don’t root (in many instances I root for players who unfairly becomes villains in the national imagination), but my relationship is different. With the Lakers, whether talking about politics, ideology or even their on-the-court performance, I still am burdened by the emotionality, the connection, and the fan in me. I am still able to think critically, but often find myself compromised, forced to think about how I approach the subject, how I don’t want to be critical of their on-the-court or off the court performances because their failure hurts. Isn’t that what being a fan is about?

Being a fan is never just about the heart or even the mind but the ways in which sporting emotions intersect with the more cerebral beauties and ugliness of sports. While writing about food Brillat-Savarin once noted: “tell me what you think you eat, and I will tell you who you think you are." Taking this a step further, Belasco argues: “If we are what we eat, we are also what we don’t eat…Food choices establish boundaries and borders.” The same is true in the world of sports: tell me who you root for, and I will tell you who you think you are. Or better said, if we are who we root for, then we are all what teams and players root against. Sports fandom establishes boundaries and borders for who we are and what we want to be yet in many instances we are forced to cross and navigate those boundaries and borders on a daily instance. Some days, this is easier than others. As I watched the finals, my lack of emotional connection to each team (and its players) – the disconnect between them and me as fan – allows for a critical gaze that would be otherwise difficult to secure if the Lakers weren’t on vacation.

Postscript

I want to give a S/O to Oliver Wang, Jeff Chang, Mark Naison, Wayne Moreland, and the many others whose responses to my past pieces both challenge me and led to this new piece. Thanks as always to Mark Anthony Neal for this amazing platform and space.

***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic 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. 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).

Dirk “Legend”? Race, Nation, and the NBA

Dirk “Legend”? Race, Nation, and the NBA

David J. Leonard | special to NewBlackMan

On the eve of the 2011 NBA finals, Professor Walter Greason asked the readers on NewBlackMan: “Can Dirk Save the NBA?” Citing the NBA’s history, its efforts to court white fans from “middle-America,” the centrality of racial meaning to its marketing strategies/popularity, Greason concludes that Dirk Nowitzi has the potential to “save the NBA.” He writes, “If Nowitzki overcame James, especially in a series of emotionally draining, well-played games, a new version of the Larry Bird-Magic Johnson rivalry of the 1980s would be born. It was that era that created the possibility of Jordan's global appeal. If the NBA hopes to create a global sensation that will extend its reach for new generations of fans in the twenty-first century, Nowitzki must defeat James in this year's Finals. Dirk may be the last chance to save the NBA.”

At one level, the argument about the NBA’s desire to produce white superstars to cater to white fans otherwise uncomfortable with a largely black league erases the NBA’s global turn. With a league increasingly reliant and interested on fans from  Latin America, Asia, and Europe, the necessity for a Larry Bird in the twenty-first century has weakened. According to a 2007 study, 89 percent of Chinese between the ages of 15 and 54 were “aware of the NBA,” with 70 percent of youth between the ages of 15 and 24 describing themselves as fans. With 1.4 billion viewers watching NBA games during the 2008 season (up through April 30th) on one of the 51 broadcast outlets in China, and 25 million Chinese visiting NBA.com/China each month, basketball and the NBA are cultural phenomena within China. 

If we take China as example, the NBA has been tremendously successful marketing the game through the likes of Bryant, James, and Iverson, whose talents, racial bodies, and whose markers of hip-hop/youthfulness/ have rendered them as authentic basketball commodities. As of 2010, Kobe Bryant possessed the top-selling jersey for 4 straight years in China. That year, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, and Derrick Rose founded out the top-five. Yao Ming wasn’t even amongst the top 10. His absence can be partially attributed to injuries but for several years he has been outside the top 5. A similar circumstance is evident in Europe, where Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Dwayne Wade were the top selling jerseys in 2010 (10 out of top 15 were African American players; 5 European players) All that being said, in a cultural sense, in terms of image, and in terms of the NBA’s relationship with corporate America, there remains an effort to both conceal its blackness all while selling its whiteness. 

As such, Greason’s article rightfully elucidates the ways in which, as noted by Todd Boyd, the NBA “remains one of the few places in American society where there is a consistent racial discourse,” where race, whether directly or indirectly, is the subject of conversation at all times (2000, p. 60). He connects to a larger history that leads us back to the Palace Brawl, to Jordan, to Magic v Bird, and even into the 1970s. Yet, the NBA’s effort to re-brand itself racially most recently started around 2003, with an increased emphasis after the Palace Brawl.

The 2003-2005 seasons was a “low point” for the NBA, when it saw a sharp decline in fan support. Television ratings were down, while complaints from corporate sponsors increased. Opinion polls consistently ranked NBA players as the least liked professional athletes in American sports. In response, the NBA hired Matthew Dowd, a Texas strategist who had previously worked with George W. Bush on his reelection campaign. Having successfully helped Bush find immense support within Middle America, Dowd was brought in “to help” Stern “figure out how to bring the good ‘ol white folks back to the stands” (Abramson 2005).

In this context, you would think there would be a significant marketing appeal or potential for Dirk is this regard. He offers a white body and ample skills that purportedly provides something different from the NBA’s African American superstars. Yet, despite success on the court, despite an MVP and appearance in the NBA finals, Dirk has not to-date emerged as the NBA’s great white hope. A championship in 2011, a final’s MVP, and even his postering LeBron (not gonna happen) aren’t going to change this role.

Its not like Dirk is new to the league; he hasn't captured the national imagination to date (even though he won an MVP), so it wouldn't seem like a championship will result in a dramatic increase in popularity. While Dirk has "whiteness" he doesn't offer the narrative central to white racial framing. The power of white sporting narratives focuses on a fantasy about bootstraps, hard work (think Hoosiers), and players that come out of European system don't fulfill these narrative fantasies. Moreover, in the national imagination, whiteness and American-ness functioned interchangeably so that neither Dirk nor LeBron possess the requisite identities to function as white in an American context.

While commentators often assume that the yearning for white superstars reflects a desire of white fans to “root for someone who looks them,” the incentives here are a bit more complex. The popularity of Larry Bird, for example, rests not simply with his whiteness but in the narratives, tropes, and ideologies embedded within his body; a body that pivots around national, class, and racial meaning. Bird reinforced hegemonic frames concerning whiteness and working-class masculinity. Notions of teamwork, intelligence, hard work, and determination, all of which play through ideas of white (American) masculinity, help us understand why Bird (and to a lesser degree other white Americans) captured the white basketball imagination. In other words, Bird provided a certain amount of nostalgia for a time in sports. He provided an alternative white male hero to “African American professional basketball players who are routinely depicted in the popular media as selfish, insufferable, and morally reprehensible” (Cole & Andrews 2001, p. 72). Yet, Dirk isn’t able to function as such a binary.

Dirk can’t save the NBA (for whom; from whom?) because he doesn’t offer the desired narrative; he doesn’t embody nostalgia for basketball of yesteryear, to small-town basketball played on dirt courts in America’s heartland – he, like, LeBron has no possibility of ever playing for Hickory.

In turn, he doesn’t reinforce dominant narratives of white success as a result of hardwork, determination, bootstraps, and intelligence. Dirk, the child of a professional basketball playing mother and an accomplished handball player, joined DJK Würzburg, a renowned basketball club in Germany, at the age of 15. Dedicating himself to basketball, Dirk was a quasi professional until he joined the NBA ranks in 1998. Six years later, despite amassing All-star numbers on the court, the NBA’s global turn had not produced a marketable white (European or otherwise) baller to fill Larry Bird’s shoes. Nobody had filled his does. Some cited this failure as part of the NBA’s ongoing image problem.

In June 2004, Larry Bird sat down with Magic Johnson, Carmelo Anthony, and LeBron James, and host Jim Gray to discuss the state of basketball in a symbolic passing of the torch from the NBA’s past to its future. The  “2 on 2 sit down,”, aptly taking place at the gym used as the home court for Hickory High school in Hoosiers, a film that celebrated the era of whiteness (Jim Crow) as the era of basketball greatness, sparked controversy when Larry Bird lamented the declining presence of white athletes in the NBA. Responding to Jim Gray’s question as to whether the NBA needed more white superstars Bird offered the following assessment of the racial landscape of the NBA: “Well, I think so. You know when I played you had me and Kevin (McHale) and some others throughout the league. I think it’s good for a fan base because as we all-known, the majority of the fans are white America.” He further disrupted while simultaneously legitimizing the hegemonic logics of race and sports when he argued, “And if we just had a couple white guys in there you might get them a little excited. But it’s a black man’s game and it will be forever. I mean the greatest athletes in the world are African American.”

While the media feigned a certain amount of shock, denouncing the comments as extreme, racist, and hateful, his rhetoric merely reflected the commonsense logic of a broader discourse. On one level, Bird seems to be giving voice to the longstanding presumption regarding black male athletes possessing a genetic advantage over white male athletes in that the absence of whites in the NBA is a result of natural selection.

On another level, Bird’s comments are not simply about the dialects of race, genetics and sport, but about the financial, spiritual, cultural and racial loss felt (or imagined) in the face of the declining presence of whites within the NBA. In other words, the purported and assumed declining interest in the NBA, the declining quality of play, the diminished “respectability” of players (what happened to the role models), and most importantly the cultural importance of the game are in deadly decline because the white NBA players are an assumed “endangered species.” For example, in 2004 ESPN.com “Black History Month” article entitled  “The Technicolor Sports Hero” that documents the increased visibility of black athletes within sports marketing, Darren Rovell begins his discussion by pointing out the declining importance of white athletes:

To silence the most glib sports executives, ask them who they think is the most marketable white athlete today. It usually does the trick. A chorus of “umm's,” “huh's” and “give-me-a-minute's” are used to bide for time before they finally spit out names like Lance Armstrong, Tony Hawk and Andy Roddick. Yet ask for their assessment of the most marketable black athletes and the names just flow off the tips of their tongues.

In other words, racial progress, the breakdown to the walls of segregation, isn’t merely providing opportunities for black athletes, but has lead to not only a diminished importance for white athletes on-the-court, but within the cultural imagination. Again from Rovell,

And active white athletes are becoming less recognized among sports fans. On its top 10 list of marketable athletes in America, Marketing Evaluations, which produces the Sports Q Ratings, has Brett Favre at the highest active white athlete on the list at No. 9. That's the lowest that first white athlete to appear on the list, says the company's executive vice president, Henry Schaffer. Will it come a day when no white athlete appears on the list? Or could the pendulum of marketing trends someday reverse itself, and white athletes begin to dominate in the advertising arena again?

As such, Bird’s comments and the yearning (that Professor Greason critically elucidates) for Dirk to “save the league” reflect the broader fears, panics and anxieties that define a post civil rights America. It isn’t simply a yearning for a white (American) superstar, but the presumed narratives that because of white racial frames are restricted from today’s NBA stars. Although Michael Jordan penetrated the narrative colorline through embodying “the American Dream [as] a matter of personal perseverance,” race is central to the cultural meanings of the NBA, yet that transcends skin color. Jordan as “Africanized Horatio Alger” (Patton quoted in McDonald, 2001, p. 157) reaffirmed a narrative so often reserved for white American athletes: the story of the “army of athletes who possess the (new) right stuff with modest beginnings, skill, and personal determination” (McDonald 2001, p.157). 

While Dirk will certainly be celebrated through these rhetorics (while LeBron won’t), his whiteness notwithstanding, the 2011 NBA finals will not lead to the crowning of a “German Horatio Alger.” There is no French Lick in Germany and therefore no Dirk Legend.

***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic 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. 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).

Byron Hurt: Why I Am Rooting for LeBron James

Why I Am Rooting for LeBron James

by Byron Hurt | special to NewBlackMan

Although he has yet to win his 1st NBA championship, LeBron James has proven one thing: wherever he plays the game of basketball, he wins. As a high school phenom at Akron’s St. Vincent - St. Mary's High School, James won three state championships en route to becoming a Cleveland hardwood legend. The state of Ohio named him Mr. Basketball three consecutive years, and after being named the MVP at the McDonald’s All-American Game, the EA Sports Classic, and the Jordan Capital Classic, James decided to forego college and entered the NBA draft. Many people thought, myself included, his decision to skip college was misguided. But James quickly turned doubters into believers.

When the Cleveland Cavaliers selected James as the number one pick overall, fans, coaches, analysts, and members of the media placed extraordinarily high expectations on the local hero dubbed “King James.” As a pro, James has exceeded those expectations in spectacular fashion. In his first NBA game, he performed under tremendous scrutiny, scoring 25 points, 9 assists, and 6 rebounds. The Clevelander quickly rose to superstar status and turned the lowly Cavaliers organization into a winning franchise after just three NBA seasons. After failing to make the playoffs in his rookie season, James led the Cavs to the NBA postseason from 2006-2010.

In 2007 – and with very little talent around him – James carried his team through the Eastern Conference Finals matching up against Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals. Although the Spurs swept the Cavaliers 4-0, James and the upstart Cavaliers had arrived as the newest and unlikeliest perennial Eastern Conference powerhouse. He helped lift the Cleveland Cavaliers – a small-market team – to among the NBA elite. Sports networks ABC, ESPN, and TNT placed the Cavs into their nationally televised lineups. With James as its main attraction, the Cavalier franchise had a 60 plus win squad on its hands, and King James single-handedly bolstered the city's local economy. He also won an Olympic Gold medal as a member of the 2008 USA national basketball team. The new face of the NBA, James became a model of grace, dignity, maturity, and supreme athleticism.

Despite comparisons to some the NBA’s all-time greats like Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson, people often question James' ability to take over and close out big games in their final moments, like Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. But James seems to walk through such criticism, and uses his key attribute, sharing the ball, to his advantage. James is the quintessential team player who enjoys keeping his teammates involved in the game. As a result, James lifts the play of his teammates, all the while elevating his own game – and the game of basketball itself.

James' poise is equally impressive. Many athletes with such burdensome expectations would implode under the bright lights, yet James performs brilliantly, over and over again, as if he was born to take the NBA’s center stage. For a young man who did not attend college, his post-game and one-on-one interviews with the media prove that he is intelligent, well spoken, and has a very high basketball I.Q. For nearly two years, the sports media hounded him about his next career move once his contract with the Cavaliers expired in July 2010. Sports fans nationwide speculated about his future plans – rabidly insisted he join their favorite team. James coolly handled the media's interrogation of his looming free agency, and deftly held his cards close to the vest. When he finally became a free agent, and with the entire NBA world watching, James publicly made his bold, life-changing decision on national television in an hour-long special called “The Decision.”

Sports pundits and NBA fans derided James for his awkward self-promotion, in which the reigning NBA MVP conversed for nearly an hour with sports reporter Jim Gray before ultimately revealing his decision. His decision? To leave the Cleveland Cavaliers, a team built to contend for championship, to join the Miami Heat, a team that struggled to make it into the playoffs. James’ choice left Cleveland's owner, Dan Gilbert, feeling spurned, and the Cavs’ fan base instantly turned on James, claiming the league’s MVP was a quitter and disloyal to the city of Cleveland. Other fans across the country, particularly in New York, New Jersey, and Chicago, whose teams had publicly serenaded James for two years to join them, felt snubbed by James' decision to head to Miami. Many became bitterly hostile, sending James racist hate mail and frequently booing James whenever his new Heat team played in their cities’ basketball arenas. But by choosing the Heat over the Cavaliers, Knicks, Nets, and Bulls, James revealed that he was neither Dan Gilbert's million-dollar slave nor the possession of legions of desperate fans. In “The Decision,” James decided to be his own man, and made the unpopular, independent declaration to go his own way.

Almost one year after his decision, James still hasn't recovered from selecting to follow his own heart and mind. As a result, his image has taken a huge hit, and his popularity has diminished greatly among NBA fans. In a recent ESPN poll, 59% shows that the majority of NBA fans do not want James to win an NBA championship. It is likely fans are rooting against him simply because James didn't play to their expectations. Instead, LeBron James self-actualized by taking ownership of his life. He did what he wanted to do and hasn’t looked back with regret or concern for naysayer opinions. He used his personal power and athletic value to carve out a new identity, shape his own destiny, and in the process, did not cow tow to the media, fans, or submit to the powers that be.

Although I wanted LeBron to join the New York Knicks or the future Brooklyn Nets, I respected and appreciated the courage it must have taken for the superstar to make such a risky move. “The Decision” for which James is still often criticized, took guts that many athletes (and most people) just don’t have when it comes to making potentially life-altering choices.   But LeBron James did have the guts to do make a bold call, and now his risky decision seems to be paying off nicely. On Thursday night, his Miami Heat defeated the Chicago Bulls in this year's Eastern Conference Finals. Almost one year after leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers, James is back in the NBA championship and will compete against Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks to win his first NBA championship.

While most fans will be rooting against LeBron James, I will be rooting for him as if he were my own son. I admire James’ aptitude to make a sound decision in his own best interest, regardless of how others around him felt about it.

If only we could all be such bold, empowered, self-affirming, deciders.

***

Byron Hurt is a former college athlete and the host of the Emmy Award-nominated television show, REEL WORKS with Byron Hurt. He is also the producer/director of the upcoming documentary film, Soul Food Junkies.

Can Dirk Save the NBA?

Can Dirk Save the NBA?

by Walter Greason | Special to NewBlackMan

Game 7 of the 2011 Finals - Dirk Nowitzki receives a pass on the wing, guarded by LeBron James in the last minute of a tightly fought series. Two games have gone to overtime. None of the victories have been by more than three points. James' ascension as the pre-eminent international star hinges on the next eight seconds. While Nowitzki's play in the post-season has elevated him to the top echelon of current athletes in the NBA, doubts persist about his ability to deliver a championship under this kind of pressure. He fakes right and dribbles twice hard to his left to the elbow of the lane and elevates for a high-arcing shot over James' outstretched arm. The ball floats forever, and the fate of the NBA rests on its descent.

In 2006, the Dallas Mavericks lost an embarrassing Finals series to the Miami Heat, led by Dwayne Wade and Shaquille O'Neal, because they gave up a late lead in Game 3 and proceeded to lose the next three games. It was a final bow for O'Neal, demonstrating that he could win a title without Kobe Bryant. For Wade, it was an emergence on the national and international stage that held tremendous promise for future performance. Over the next five years, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics took center stage in the league as O'Neal's star faded and Wade became more famous for his cell phone commercials alongside Charles Barkley.

In this time, the NBA struggled to continue its development as a sports franchise in the American marketplace, despite the struggles of Major League Baseball. Bryant, Wade, Dwight Howard, and James were unable to break through the scandals of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and other alleged steroid users to capture the imaginations of the American public the way Michael Jordan had. The NBA could not escape the reality that it was a predominantly African American league reliant on a majority white American consumer base. In markets like Utah, Indiana, and Memphis (not to mention Oakland, Houston, and San Antonio) racial and ethnic considerations shaped the rosters and marketing of the NBA franchises over the last decade in ways that were unimaginable between 1980 and 2000. The problem was not the failure of athletes to reproduce Michael Jordan's skills, performance, or image. It was the absence of a Larry Bird figure to challenge any of them.

Nowitzki held the promise of a great white basketball player when he arrived in the 2006 Finals. Yet as a German player, he did not spark the interest of white Americans to even the same degree that his former teammate from Canada, Steve Nash, did. (See Nash's two MVP awards over a more deserving O'Neal for evidence of Nash's popularity.) Because Nowitzki lost in 2006, then suffered a humiliating first-round exit against Golden State in a later playoff series, he could not become the inheritor of Larry Bird's legacy that would motivate passionate interest among the white men, ages 35-65, who powered the global marketing force of the National Football League. The opportunity presents itself again now in 2011 after the Dallas Mavericks' victory against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

With James and the Heat going back to the Finals this year to meet Nowitzki and the Mavericks, the ascension of James as the league's leading superstar and best player would only reinforce the marketing trends against broader white (and corporate) interests in the NBA. Compare the advertisers for the NFL, MLB, and NBA sometime. Just watch how different the products and actors are in the various commercial breaks. You will notice subtle but important gradations about the markets the different leagues serve. If Nowitzki overcame James, especially in a series of emotionally draining, well-played games, a new version of the Larry Bird-Magic Johnson rivalry of the 1980s would be born. It was that era that created the possibility of Jordan's global appeal. If the NBA hopes to create a global sensation that will extend its reach for new generations of fans in the twenty-first century, Nowitzki must defeat James in this year's Finals. Dirk may be the last chance to save the NBA.

***

Walter Greason is Associate Professor of History at Ursinus College. He is the author of The Path to Freedom: Black Families in New Jersey, The History Press, 2010

'Left of Black': Episode #34 featuring David J. Leonard and Natalie Y. Moore

Left of Black #34

w/ David J. Leonard and Natalie Y. Moore

May 16, 2011

Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by Washington State University Professor David J. Leonard, co-editor of Commodified and Criminalized: New Racism and African-Americans in Contemporary Sports.  Later he is joined by Chicago Public Radio reporter Natalie Y. Moore, who is also the co-author of The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of An American Gang.

***

>David J. Leonard is Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic 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. 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).

>Natalie Y. Moore is a reporter for Chicago Public Radio’s South Side bureau. Prior to joining the Chicago Public Radio staff in May 2007, Natalie was a city hall reporter for the Detroit News. As a freelance journalist, Natalie’s work has been published in Essence, Black Enterprise, the Chicago Reporter, Bitch, In These Times, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. She is co-author of the book Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation (Cleis Press, 2006) and The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of An American Gang. She is an adjunct instructor at Columbia College Chicago and is the former program chair for the Association for Women Journalists.

***

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

Another Missed Shot: Kobe Bryant and the Politics of Homophobia

Another Missed Shot: Kobe Bryant and the Politics of Homophobia 
by David J. Leonard

Whistled four his 4^th personal foul and then a technical foul, Kobe Bryant headed to the bench.  With cameras focused on him, he shouted “fucking faggot” in the direction of the referee leading to an avalanche of public condemnation, a fine from the league, and ample debate.  As a Lakers fan, and someone committed to social justice, his choice in words was deeply disappointing.  “Homophobic Slurs Are Always Meant to Offend” writes Mychal Denzel Smith.  “The use of this particular word reveals something deeper. It's the belief that homosexuality is inherently inferior and an undesirable trait; therefore, to refer to someone with slurs usually reserved for gays is an attempt to belittle that person further. The quickest and most efficient way to insult a man has become to call into question his sexual orientation.” 

Yet, as someone committed to social justice, I have also been disappointed by the reaction from both his critics and his defenders.  Not surprisingly, throughout the Internet many have used this as an opportunity to highlight their own anti-gay sentiments.  Others, however, have denounced Kobe Bryant, expressing shock at his comments, while focusing on the necessity of a fine rather than education of not only Bryant but also society at large.

Shortly after Bryant slur became a public story, the Human Rights Council offered the following denunciation of Bryant:

What a disgrace for Kobe Bryant to use such horribly offensive and distasteful language, especially when millions of people are watching.  Hopefully Mr. Bryant will recognize that as a person with such fame and influence, the use of such language not only offends millions of LGBT people around the world, but also perpetuates a culture of discrimination and hate that all of us, most notably Mr. Bryant, should be working to eradicate.  Bryant and the Lakers have a responsibility to speak up on this issue immediately. America is watching.

Others followed suit, demanding apologies, questioning what sort of punishment should be leveled at Bryant, and otherwise condemned not only the slur but also the person in Bryant.  Yet, amid all the shock and self-righteousness, John Amaechi attempted to provide context for incident: “I'm surprised that people are surprised. This is common language when I played. It was an everyday word that I heard. I haven't seen anything new put in place (by the NBA) to tackle homophobia. There's no reason for it to somehow get better.”  Hoping to capitalize on Kobe Bryant’s visibility (and possibly his already negative standing amongst segments of society) GLADD and Human Rights Council emphasized the potential here to educate and inform.

The Human Rights Council called Bryant’s situation a teachable moment.  While correct in a sense, unfortunately effective lessons have not been at the center of this pedagogical exercise.  By excoriating Bryant and demanding an apology, by focusing on his being a role model (the consequences of kids using it in their schools demonstrates that this isn’t an issue specific to role models) the issue of homophobia has been individualized and isolated.  Bryant’s multiple apologies are seen as a resolution as the focus rests with his learning a lesson.  Lesson learned, back to the game.  

Likewise, the decision from Davis Stern to fine Bryant $100,000 further illustrates the ways in which Bryant required disciplining and punishment as part of the education process. Yet, another lesson learned.  In fact, the denunciation of Bryant, the calls for apologies, education, penance, accountability, and punishment is commonplace within the NBA.  The culture of the NBA is one of control, disciplinarity and punishment for intruding, transgressing, and rule-breaking black bodies.  It is a cultural platform where respectability and appropriateness, as defined by the white racial frame, govern the day-to-day operations alongside its cultural reception.  This is especially true for African American players who have a responsibility to demonstrate their respectability, something that Kobe failed at this moment.

For example, GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios stated, “Professional sports players need to set a better example for young people who use words like this on the playground and in our schools, creating a climate of intolerance and hostility. The LA Lakers have a responsibility to educate their fans about why this word is unacceptable.” Likewise, Edward Wyckoff Williams, waxing nostalgically about a better era in sports, further emphasized his failure as a role model:

Older fans will remember the days when sports stars were heroes, admired for their talent and stature. They graced Wheaties and Cheerio boxes, encouraging young people to stay in school and eat a healthy breakfast. Now, in an age where headlines show the growing number of gay and lesbian youth committing suicide, Bryant's rant is both disrespectful and potentially dangerous -- sending the wrong message to young, adoring fans -- who may well take it literally. Members of the NBA and NFL should be governed not just by their professional code of conduct, but with a great sense of obligation -- reflecting the often quoted line -- 'with great power comes great responsibility'.  If our athletic icons use homophobic slurs, how can we expect our children to act any differently on the schoolyards and street corners?

The efforts to link Bryant’s slur to heroes through a paradigm of nostalgia reflects the historic myopia here in that homophobia has always been present within sporting cultures (and the larger culture as well).  In fact, (white) heteronormativity is central to hero worship historically and present nostalgia for it.  Homophobia is not new, nor is it reflective of the a new type of athlete.  

The effort to use Bryant’s offensive remarks to highlight the pervasive problem of homophobia ironically erases the ubiquity and the systemic impact of homophobia inside and OUTSIDE of sports.  In effect, the public condemnation, the fine, and the overall discourse effectively isolated homophobia, linking it to blackness and Kobe’s visible signifier as basketball player.  In other words, Kobe gets constructed as the face of homophobia, evidence of yet another example of homophobia within the NBA and black America rather than society at large.  As evidence by Bryant’s deployed slur and the public criticism, blackness is once again marked as essentially disruptive, uncontrollable, as a source of “cultural degeneracy.”  Rhonada Williams, in “Living at the crossroads: Exploration in race, nationality, sexuality, and gender,” reminds us that blackness exists as “a problematic sign and ontological position” (1998, p. 140).   The ways in which homophobia has been attached onto Kobe’s body is evident in both media discourse and reader comments.  Imagined as evidence of his “immaturity” and “ignorance,” linked to culture of sports and basketball, denounced because of his failures to be a role model to kids, the responses consistently focused on Bryant as the beginning and end to the conversation.

To fully understand this situation, one needs to understand it within a larger history of the NBA. In 2007, after former NBA player John Amaechi announced that he was gay, controversy and debate ensued as to whether or not homophobia was particular to the NBA culture.  Such questions increased after Tim Hardaway, responding to a question about Amaechi’s announcement and the surrounding media coverage, told Dan LeBatard, “You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known,” Hardaway said. “I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States.” Hardaway was quickly banished from the NBA’s All-Star weekend, while David Stern dismissed the controversy arguing that “the question of the NBA is always, “have you got game?’”   (Breton 2007).  While the invocation of meritocracy is both instructive and without much evidence (think Craig Hodges), what was most revealing in terms of race and the ongoing culture was the efforts to isolate homophobia within the NBA, with hip-hop culture functioning as the source of homophobia within America’s basketball arenas. 

Efforts to invoke Allen Iverson’s rap lyrics, where he uttered the phrase “faggot tendencies,” or the reactions of many players, who spoke of discomfort around having a gay teammate, served as the basis of a simple conclusion: Amaechi’s decision to remain “in-the-closet” and the firestorm that resulted from his “coming-out-of-the-closet” demonstrate the heightened level of homophobia within the NBA (Thiel 2007; Whitley 2007).  It was not a societal problem, but an NBA problem; it was not an American thing; it was a black/hip-hop thing (if an NBA thing it’s gotta be a black thing).  LeBron James fueled the controversy, offering the following: “With teammates you have to be trustworthy, and if you're gay and you're not admitting that you are, then you are not trustworthy. So that's like the number one thing as teammates . . . we all trust each other. You've heard of the in-room locker room code. What happens in the locker room stays there. It's a trust factor.”. In response, Michael Wilbon similarly confined the issue to the sphere of basketball

Not to be too cynical, but I don't want to pay too much attention to reactions from a 22-year-old ballplayer with incredibly limited exposure, whose life has been little more than a series of tip-offs from biddy ball to AAU to high school to the pros. LeBron's reaction simply reflects the self-absorption of the day when it comes to young athletic gods whose transition from boyhood to manhood is in too many cases put off until retirement from the pros.

If we're lucky, the men and women who are both enlightened and emboldened will not only be supportive but will drown out the knuckleheads and Neanderthals and everybody who wants to slow the march of progress. Even one step away from tolerance, whether we're talking about race, gender, religious beliefs or sexuality, simply slows the march to the day when none of this stuff matters (2007).

Concluding that homophobia and ignorance concerning the GLBT community reflects the culture of basketball, Wilbon unknowingly constructs homophobia as exception, as a problem specific to the NBA.  Even Dave Zirin, often a source of progressive sports commentary, concludes that sports are unique concerning homophobia: “Sports is one of the last grand hamlets of homophobia. Amaechi poses a real challenge to the realities of the locker room, the press box and the owner's box: all places where I have heard homophobic comments used as casually as a comma. I give no credit to Stern's pretension that it just doesn't matter” (2007).  Others similarly wondered if hip-hop contributed to homophobia (Moore 2007; Amaechi 2007) or if other issues – violence, locker rooms – were at work as well.  In a league that regularly reduces women to sexual objects, that celebrates the hyper masculinity of its NBA players evident in the use of gendered/sexualized language (“Pau Gasol is soft”; “Sacramento Queens”), the hypocrisy here is endless.  Within sports culture that works to recode the WNBA as a heterosexual league as a counter narrative to assumptions about its lesbian presence, it is hard to accept the righteousness evident here.

Notwithstanding, the culture and the blackness of the league became a subtextual source of inquiry for the debate about homophobia within the NBA, ultimately exonerating whiteness/American through a scapegoating discourse.  While writing about Don Imus, Michael Awkward is particularly instructive in this case: “Put Simply,” Kobe Bryant “was made to stand in for millions of well-known and faceless” homophobes and other who tacitly protect their heterosexual privilege who GLBT communities and their allies “want desperately to identity, put on trial, and excoriate because of incontrovertible – but to this point often easily dismissed – ‘evidence’ of centuries of anti-gay violence, heterosexism, and homophobia.  With Kobe Bryant, we get a similar reductionist formula, where Bryant and all of his past experiences provide a supposed explanation for his use of this slur. 

The ease to which Bryant was condemned and the perceived self-righteousness reflect the hegemony of the white racial frame.  Bryant’s homophobic slur, his perceived homophobia, his emotional outbursts, and his evidence “childishness” here fit a larger script about black male bodies.  This instance and the claims about uber homophobia within sports culture (usually linked to basketball and football and not say hockey and baseball) and homophobia within the black community thus fit a larger narrative about black dysfunction, pathology and otherness.  “The casual sexism and homophobia reproduce the oppression of straight black men, providing a justification for ‘the denial of manhood to black men within a racialized society,” writes Michael Kimmel in “Toward a Pedagogy of the Oppressor.”  “‘You see,’ one can almost hear the establishment saying ‘those black men are like animals.  Look at how they treat their women!  They don’t deserve to be treated with respect.”  In other words, “the very mechanism that black men thought would restore manhood” – demonizing homosexuals, using anti-gay slurs, asserting and demonstrating traditional male values – “ends up being the pretext on which it is denied.” 

bell hooks takes up this issue with “Homophobia in Black Communities” arguing that “black communities may be perceived as more homophobic than other communities because there is a tendency for individuals in black communities to express in an outspoken way anti-gay sentiment.”  Furthering the distinction between black and white homophobia she writes, “yet a distinction must be made between black people overtly expressing prejudice toward homosexuals and white people who never make homophobic comments but who have the power to actively exploit and oppress gay people in areas of housing, employing, etc.”  Echoing the criticism offered by Dwight McBride in Why I hate Abercrombie and Fitch, I find myself dissatisfied and uncomfortable with the binaries constructed here as well as the tacit acceptance/privileging of one form of bigotry over the other. 

Yet, hooks challenges readers to think about how and why a public discourse around homophobia relies and focuses on the uttererances of Kobe Bryant, Isaiah Washington or Chris Brown, and not the ways in which homophobia is ingrained in our culture, language, and institutions.  Why do these black men become the moments for public righteousness and concerns about bigotry and not the ubiquity of anti-gay slurs at American schools, anti-gay hate crimes, or any number of examples?  Similarly, these spectacle serve not as a means to interrogate homophobia, heterosexism, and anti-gay violence as manifested in a myriad of spaces but as a moment to celebrate “us” (“the normal) as accepting and progressive in the demonization of the other.  It becomes a missed opportunity to interrogate our own language and prejudices for the sake of imagining the Other as the Other. 

hooks’ comments also mirror the hegemonic belief that black males are likely to express and hold onto homophobic beliefs, a fact that is complicated at best and patently without basis in another sense.   In “A Comparison of African American Men and White College Students Affective and Attitudinal Reactions to Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Individuals,” Charles Negy and Russell Eiseman found that blacks were only slightly more accepting of anti-gay sentiments.  These differences, however, disappear when accounting for religiosity.  Noting, “that most ethnic groups are not very accepting of homosexuality,” the authors conclude, “for both African Americans and whites, gender and religious commitment predicted homophobia.”  Despite these findings and ample evidence about societal homophobia, the reaction to Bryant’s comments and commonplace discussions about homophobia within the black community erases the larger issues at hand.  A CNN poll recently found that 48% thought homosexuality was morally wrong.  In 2001, Human Rights Watch reported that 2 million American teenagers suffered because of anti-gay slurs and taunts.  Similarly, according to one study, “Gay students hear anti-gay slurs as often as 26 times each day; faculty intervention occurs in only about 3% of those cases” while another found that 97% of high school students “regularly hear homophobic remarks from their peers.”

Yet, these sort of spectacles that imagine homophobia as unique to the black community, as particular to basketball culture, as reflecting the values and ethos of hip-hop not only furthers the demonization of blackness but in term safely confines homophobia to the dysfunctional Other in need of education and punishment.  By scapegoating homophobia as a sports thing, a black thing, a hip-hop thing, or a Kobe thing, the discourse lets a lot of people and institutions off the hook.

Responding to increasing criticism directed at the African American community in lead up to the November 2008, which put the issue of gay marriage on the ballot with Proposition 8, Ta-Nehisi Coates succinctly highlighted the danger in ignoring or defending in instances of homophobia, yet not using it as a moment to scapegoat and demonize African Americans:

I don't like the idea of being an apologists for homophobes--least of all black homophobes. Also, I'm concerned that my defense not make black folks think that this isn't an issue worth our attention. But sweeping statements like "no ethnic community [is] as homophobic in America as African-Americans" should induce some serious pangs of skepticism. Are African-Americans really more homophobic than, say, Italian-Americans? Are we really more homophobic than Hasidic Jews? Than Caribbean Americans? Than Puerto-Ricans?

As a teachable moment, we must ask what are we being taught and why?  What is it teaching us about society, others, and our self? Does it teach us about a larger issue of prejudice, homophobia or bigotry?  Did it teach us about language and the normalization of heterosexism and homophobia in our everyday life? Does it push us to think about language constructs “normal” and “Other” and the impact/consequences of language as everyday violence?  When a person (Kobe or otherwise) “hurls that antigay slur at a referee or anyone else — let’s call it the F-word — he is telling boys, men and anyone watching that when you are frustrated, when you are as angry as can be, the best way to demean and denigrate a person, even one in a position of power, is to make it clear that you think he is not a real man, but something less,” writes John Amaechi. “It is an indication of the power of that word, and others like it, to brutalize and dehumanize. This F-word, which so many people seem to think is no big deal, is the postscript to too many of those lives cut short.”  Did we learn this lesson or have we been too focused on what Kobe did and not what Kobe reveals?

Amaechi efforts to contextualize, to move beyond the individual, to reflect on the consequences have been unique to the discussion.  Unfortunately, much of the public rancor has “become another spectacle, evidence of ‘deviance’ for a mainstream public condition to think of black people and black men in particular as such”   (Neal, 2005, p. 81).  By focusing on intent, on sports, on Kobe, and the larger discourse about black homophobia, we have missed an opportunity, creating another moment where the wrong lessons are being taught and learned.   Homophobia, anti-gay bigotry and harmful slurs directed at the GLBT community are not a black, hip-hop, or sports thing, but an American thing.  A me and you thing.  

***

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.

Homophobic Slurs Are Always Meant to Offend

Kobe Bryant's recent use of an anti-gay slur is a prime example of how we need to directly address homophobia -- by re-examining what it means to be a man.

Homophobic Slurs Are Always Meant to Offend
by Mychal Denzel Smith | The Root

A few years ago, during an awkward attempt at father-son bonding, I found out my father was a homophobe. It was right after the Academy Awards, and there was a lot of discussion about the film Brokeback Mountain being snubbed for best picture. My father and I were watching television together, and he said to me, with a chuckle, "I've watched Westerns all my life, and never once did I think cowboys were faggots."

I don't know that he recognized how visibly uncomfortable I was with his word choice, because he used it again before I left the room. I never thought my father had particularly warm feelings about gays before that moment, but the open-air homophobia was jarring.

It's a big part of the heterosexual-male bonding experience: In an effort to prove a sense of collective manhood, some heterosexual men trade homophobic barbs with one another, denounce and deride being gay and vehemently defend their own heterosexual credentials. It starts pretty early in the socialization process, with "gay" being used as a derogatory term on the playground before most even know what "gay" means, and eventually it makes its way into other spaces that tend to be perceived as havens for heterosexual manhood (e.g., locker rooms, basketball courts, rap music).

This is what Kobe Bryant was doing when he shouted "f---ing faggot" at a referee during Tuesday's Los Angeles Lakers-San Antonio Spurs game. Bryant says his use of the homophobic slur was not intended to offend anyone, which hardly seems plausible.

He is well aware that "faggot" is a homophobic slur, or else he would have felt no need to apologize for his comments; he would have claimed ignorance. Given that he was visibly angry when he blurted out the slur, any comment that he made toward the referee at that point was clearly intended to offend him. But the use of this particular word reveals something deeper.

It's the belief that homosexuality is inherently inferior and an undesirable trait; therefore, to refer to someone with slurs usually reserved for gays is an attempt to belittle that person further. The quickest and most efficient way to insult a man has become to call into question his sexual orientation, and the easiest way to bond with one another comes through sharing a mutual homophobia (regrettably, these are things that I have personally done in the past but now recognize their idiocy).

And no one questions this. Sure, Bryant had to pay a fine and meet with LGBT activists, but apologists for his behavior abound. Society teaches us that manhood, in part, is defined by an ability to impregnate a woman and subsequently provide for the mother and child financially, while exercising control over their livelihoods through the threat of physical domination. For some, gay men and women represent a threat, an attack on the very concept of manhood.

Read the Full Essay @ The Root

Why the NBA and NFL Players Unions Need to Pay Attention to What’s Happening in Wisconsin

Saturday Edition

Why the NBA and NFL Players Unions Need to Pay Attention to What’s Happening in Wisconsin
by Mark Anthony Neal

All eyes were on Carmelo Anthony recently, as the NBA star got his wish to be traded to the New York Knicks. In the backdrop of this story is the fact that Anthony would only agree to be traded to the Knicks if they signed him to a contract extension—one that that had to be signed before the NBA’s current collective bargaining agreement ended in June. Collective bargaining agreements are also the minds of NFL players, where they and NFL owners face a March 3rd deadline to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, before the owners will lock the players out of their places of work.

As the influence and prestige of organized labor continues to wane, professional sports unions (and Hollywood writers' unions) have too often, and unfortunately so, become the face of organized labor. That changed recently when the Wisconsin State legislature presented a bill with the aim of limiting the collective bargaining powers of public workers in the State. For the past two weeks public workers in Wisconsin have taken to the streets to protest the proposed changes, generating a level of solidarity for organized labor that has not been witnessed in decades. As historian Mark Naison noted, the presence of 70, 000 workers in front of the Wisconsin State capitol “is as improbable as Black students sitting in at lunch counters in 35 cities throughout the South.”

Given the historic confluence of recent events—the protests in State capitols in Wisconsin and Ohio are clearly taking energy from the images that we saw in Tahiri Square—the NFL and NBA players unions should be concerned with being on the right side of history, in what may become a new labor movement in this country. It is critical for players to see the connections between their struggles and those of everyday American workers.

That the average American has little regard for the labor strife among groups of professional athletes, including baseball players, who will likely make more money in a year, than most American will make in a lifetime, should not be a surprise. To their credit, professional ballplayers have often tried to downplay their labor concerns (Antonio “can’t remember the name of my kids” Cromartie notwithstanding) knowing full well that such complaints curry little favor for fans struggling to pay their own bills. Such constraint is particularly palpable for NBA and NFL players, where a significant amount of fans might believe that the leagues’ Black players should be grateful for the social status that their athletic careers afford them.

Yet there are comparisons that can be made between workers struggling to retain their collective bargaining powers and professional athletes trying to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement that allows them to retain their hard earned benefits. The same social and political forces that want to take away the ability of public workers to bargain collectively are the same that want to limit the influence of players’ unions. In both instances, at the root of such efforts is to depress the wages of workers.

Often obscured in the visibility of highly paid professional athletes is that they are in fact laborers; they work for the benefit of others’ profits be it team owners, the networks that carry the NBA and NFL, or the companies that use players’ images in advertising. In a strict technical sense, they are exploited labor, as is the case with most working Americans who are underpaid and undervalued, but given how well professional athletes are financially compensated, most miss that fact. Indeed, many of us would love to be “exploited” for $3.4 million a year (the estimated average salary for an NBA player).

The owners’ goals in the new collective agreements with the NFL and the NBA are to bring down labor costs and to increase profits, a process that was begun when both leagues created salary caps more than a decade ago. In theory salary caps control labor cost, but there are no such limits on the profits that owners et al can make from these new labor agreements. Indeed, NFL league owners are pushing for an 18 game season that would generate even more profits at the expense of players’ longevity.

Not surprisingly concerns for cutting budgets is at the forefront of attempts in Wisconsin and others states, to limit the collective bargaining power of public workers. The current push is born out of the current fiscal crisis that the nation faces, but attempts to limit the bargaining power of American workers have been trending for decades.

As Naison observes, “the rise of organized labor, from the mid 1930’s to the mid 1950’s, coincided with a significant improvement in the standard of living of all American workers, whether or not they were in unions.” What we have witnessed over the past 30 years, regardless of the state of the American economy, is American workers giving back many of the gains they derived from organized labor, dovetailing with a redistribution of wealth from the American working class to the wealthiest Americans.

Of course some view professional athletes as being a part of that wealthiest segment of Americans, which is why players union will never garner significant support for their own labor struggles, not matter how legitimate

Perhaps the more thoughtful tact for the leaders of the NFL and NBA players unions is to speak out in support of the workers in states like Wisconsin, Indiana and New Jersey and for some of the most visible players in their leagues to use their celebrity to speak to the importance of collective bargaining rights for all American workers. Such solidarity would not be a simple gesture, but the strongest articulation by professional athletes that they see their fates as inevitably linked to those who are ultimately responsible for their fame and their wealth.

Contemporary athletes have been on sidelines for far too many critical issues that we confront in this country. With attacks on collective bargaining rights in their sports as well as in American statehouses and the offices of the wealthiest Americans (shout to the Koch brothers) they have no excuse not to be in the game, as it were.