The Knicks/Nuggets altercation has motivated me to call out individuals in the media who hide behind carefully chosen adjectives to mask their true feelings. For the past several years, it has become okay to refer to black athletes, especially NBA players, as thugs, or bums, or gang members.
It is no longer okay, at least not for me.
As a young black man, growing up in an increasingly divided society, one in which the most hurtful word is also the one most quickly used (one need only watch FOX News Channel or see how the 109th U.S. Congress conducted themselves; one need only see how Jack Murtha was eviscerated for his views on the war), I can’t help but notice the way these critics talk, the way they look, and who they are.
They are not all white. They are not all old. But they are all ignorant, and that cannot be disputed. They are Gary Thorne, they are Phil Mushnick. They are the holier than thou, those who cast moral scorn upon the entire sports world, ignoring their own hypocrisy while thumbing their noses at every soul they can. Rationally, they are not subtle; anyone who can pull the mask off the words they use knows where they come from and what they mean. However, they use special words, ambiguous adjectives, to stay out of trouble and continue posting the bile they call columns. They are those who write that the NBA is a “‘niche’ sport that was now less popular than NASCAR”, out of their need to denigrate the league, those who are bold enough to say that “if you’re a stone-cold playa with 50 Cent in the headphones and street cred in the back pocket, you’re still feeling it, dawg. But purists don’t recognize the league,” and yet too cowardly to admit the racism latent in that statement, the hate boiling beneath the stereotypical word choice.
They are not all critics; some can even in the course of defending the NBA note that the league “often comes off as a big street gang with 30 chapters”, like L.A. Times writer Mark Heisler did. Despite there being no evidence that that is true, despite the fact that there are fewer brawls in the NBA than any of the other four major U.S. sports, despite the fact that the only reason anyone considers the NBA to be a gang is because the players are black, dress a certain way, speak a certain way and look a certain way, Heisler chose those words to describe the league. I e-mailed him; he did not respond.
They do not always write about it. Sometimes, it comes in a passing comment, like with ESPN’s Chris Berman who, the Sunday following the Pacers/Pistons brawl, noted that altercations like that were the reason he rarely featured the NBA in his top ten plays of the week. This, despite the fact that Berman covers pro football, a sport where a man once stepped on the face of another, Major League Baseball, a sport which has players regularly breaking drug laws, and hockey, a sport where fighting is a regular and almost constant occurrence.
But they always take the moral high ground. They always thumb their noses at the NBA, at ‘hip-hop culture’, which, as Bryan Burwell says, comes “with its ‘bling-bling’ ostentation, its unrepentant I-gotta-get-paid ruthlessness, its unregulated culture of posses, and the constant underlying threat of violence.” The writers are always better than that; they don’t wear nasty jewelry, they aren’t selfishly after money, and they certainly would never be violent with anyone. They can look down on those who Boston radio host Eddie Alderman took time out of honoring the late Red Auerbach (on the day of Auerbach’s death, mind you) to call “thugs and bums”. They can look down on the cornrows, the afros, the slang, the throwback jerseys. Because all they’re criticizing is the “Thug Basketball Association,” where “if a fight breaks out, hey, it’s what happens! It’s what happens with gangs, and if a cop gets bloodied, you know, that’s a bonus for the gang member that pulls that off, and let the fans, you know, go in knowingly. They’re going in to watch the Crips and the Bloods out there wherever the neighborhood is where the arena happens to be, and be who you are.”
But then again, they’re not all quite as bold as Rush Limbaugh either. Although Gary Thorne comes quite close, who noted that “The NBA is quickly becoming the nation’s most expensive gang, if not the most dangerous,” in a 2004 article. Thorne was not disciplined by ESPN, but then again neither was Michael Irwin for his racist comments a few weeks ago. Despite the network’s firing of Rush Limbaugh in 2003, it seems as if ESPN is happy to have as many racists on the payroll as possible. Thorne, of course, is the wonderful gentleman who covers such peaceful sports as college football (where Miami and Florida International brawled earlier this year), hockey (where the Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore incident occurred less than a year before he wrote the article) and Major League Baseball, where wholesome, family-friendly brawls occur every season, more than three times per year.
They are racists. They are hypocrites. They can let it show as slightly as Chris Berman, or they can be as crass as Rush Limbaugh and Gary Thorne. But they, not the players in the NBA, are all the same. They are the uneducated, they are the thugs. They are the true punks; those who criticize one group of people simply for who they are and where they come from. They are the blatantly racist, sad excuses for human life.
They are Phil Mushnick. They are Mike Lupica (though it should be noted that Lupica isn’t so much racist as he is a jerk to everyone, regardless of color). They are not what’s wrong with sports, they are what’s wrong with humanity. They make the world a worse place, and when they are gone, there will be a new crop of ignorant fools ready to replace them.
They are oinky.
They are worthless.
And they will never make me love the NBA less. I will always love this game, because I know that the vast majority of players are good people. I know that even when four players make a mistake, the other 396 are playing like professionals. I know that this game will never be what the racists say it is.
So Chris Berman and Gary Thorne can watch the National Football League, and hope that Terrell Owens doesn’t spit on somebody. And Phil Mushnick can crow over Major League Baseball, a sport so pure there’s hardly any black people in it at all. And Oinky can try to find a woman who will ignore his face.
But I’ll be watching the NBA. I’ll always be watching.
