I’ve been working the comments section over at Free Darko recently. The ninth comment on
today’s post from Bethlehem Shoals resonated for me, and I wanted to quote it here. It’s from someone named “Anonymous” in “Ciudad, USA.” Seems to me fruit for a larger discussion, so I’m quoting Anonymous at length:
The only empirically provable contribution to race and class that sports viewing has ever given me is the ability to talk with a complete stranger about how Player X is doing. I read this website because I like to read literate people talking about how the game can be improved. I find that the forays into divining the social implications of basketball are usually failures, but noble failures. The discussion, however, is a huge positive that should not be underestimated. Discussing the sport has tremendous social implications when someone on "your" team is from another race or class, thus contributing to a shared identity which transcends race or class.
It can transcend sport when someone like Magic Johnson contracts AIDS, and then people start having debates about this problem in a public way, adding to public knowledge, and improving the perceived status of an individual AIDS patient, who is now no longer considered Satan's spawn.
Anonymous articulates what we might call the politics of the bartender (or the father-in-law, as I’m told). Basketball allows us to converse with folks of diverse races and different economic brackets; it provides a shared topic of conversation when all other areas of social life fail. Bartenders and their patrons may live in different sections of town, sleep in varying degrees of thread count, and disagree about the merits of organic produce. Yet, assuming they both like hoops, there’s still enough gasoline to get through the first beer without stalling. Basketball, like pick-up lines and the weather, begets conversation and, when we’re lucky, community.
In the second paragraph, Anonymous points out something else. Basketball is not only the subject of and fuel for conversation but sometimes the vehicle as well. On occasion, the game drives us into unexplored territories of chatter and, at its best, forces us to (re)consider what was previously unknown. The example of Magic and HIV is perfect. Try to recall how the view of AIDS looked as we sped toward disaster in the 80s; now, with Magic in our collective rearview mirror, the orientation of the discussion includes less—for Americans at least—daunting hazards.
From where I sit, bloggers must take on some responsibility for towing the league into new arenas of conversation. By towing the league, however, I don’t mean towing for the league; enough gap-toothed bassists do that already. With corporate gloss and sponsorship footing the bill, the league wouldn’t dare follow the direction of free-thinking bloggers and critics anyway. But so what? Players don’t have to talk politics to get political, and we don’t have to serve as chauffeurs to drive discussion. There is a community of bloggers, readers, and fans who welcomes the stimulating juxtaposition of hoops and hopes, nylon and news, pump-fakes and pop-culture. We don’t need to wait on the Magics and the Mutombos to lead us through the jungle of ideas, current events, and issues of social importance. Nor do we need the Gilberts and Lebrons to discover silliness and whimsy.
The game might be our Bible, yes, but does it need dogma and reverence too?
Right now, there are a lot of blogs desperate to initiate (maintain?) a conversation about the NBA and race. The problem is, I think, the conversation died in 1992, when Billy Hoyle finally caught Sidney Deane’s oop-pass and Gloria found a new boyfriend. We learned that white dudes can’t hear Jimmie, black guys prefer African flags tattooed on the backboard, and “quince” is a food that begins with the letter “Q.”
Now, I don’t mean there’s nothing left to say about race and basketball; I’ll continue to listen every time a member of our community writes something in that vein. And, as long as race remains a category of discrimination and oppression, there’s plenty more to write.
That said, the conversation is starting to sound a lot like echoed variations on the same theme: black bodies + white ownership + corporate media = racism in the NBA. How many ways can we talk of irony in Austen? After awhile, critics lose the nuance. Admittedly, the community of socially-responsible, literate NBA bloggers (it only takes a few to make a community) might be too small to think we’re loud enough to quit talking race. But, then again, maybe it’s not a question of volume.
The conversation about race in the NBA chokes, I believe, because we’ve refused to recognize the international reach and global identity of today’s Association. We aren’t split into Billys and Sidneys anymore; we have Bostjans and Slavas now. White guys might not jump, but Chinese players swat shots, Croatians hit the long ball, and Brazilians beat us all down the court. To continue discussing the league in the same black-and-white terms smacks of American provincialism and city-on-the-hill specialness.
Frankly, it also doesn’t make a lick of sense. Is Boris Diaw black? What about Barbosa? Can we fairly call Gordan Giricek white? If race is given meaning by shared history, tradition, and cultural practice, then I’m not sure Diaw and Deane belong in the same racial category. I’d love it for someone to drop dimes and Diaspora together in an article, but until then, I’m not hearing it.
I’m also not hearing arguments from effete intellectuals about the diminishment of player autonomy in the NBA. Eight figure salaries stuffed in a three-piece suit do not compel me when framed as an issue of violated workers’ rights. Likewise, botched nose jobs in Orange County don’t compel me as illustrations of poor health-care.
We’d do better by focusing the international scope of the NBA into a conversation about ethnicity, geopolitics, and the global economy. Ask Barbosa if kids in his old neighborhood now make sneakers for Steve Nash and how much they earn in doing so. Bother Yao about why government censorship won’t allow Chinese browsers to read this post. Use Giricek and Bostjan to dialogue about the Balkans and what the hell happened there. Tap Caron for a perspective on white privilege in U.S. criminal justice. Question Okur on Turkishness and why his country has a penal code protecting its denigration.
In other words, start a conversation about something we haven’t heard before.
If we can drink in a Beijing bar and discuss hoops like next-door neighbors with the locals, it might help to know a little something about their lives as well. If nothing else, know how to say “make it a double” in Chinese.
I’ve been working the comments section over at Free Darko recently. The ninth comment on today’s post from Bethlehem Shoals resonated for me, and I wanted to quote it here. It’s from someone named “Anonymous” in “Ciudad, USA.” Seems to me fruit for a larger discussion, so I’m quoting Anonymous at length: 
10 comments:
tj--i don't think that the convo about race in the nba is necessarily in a rut. i agree that the international component confounds a lot of the u.s.-centric discussion, but i also believe that the nba can get us into underexplored subtleties. those dealing with the class, region, and generational aspects of racial issues. not to link to myself, but i think i think that this post of mine explains why i think basketball can take us beyond cliches in this respect.
You're an eloquent cat, BS, there's no denying that. In the post you directed me to, you certainly avoid cliches, ruttedness, and the simplest of social formulas. Parts of it read like poetry. That said, I have no idea what you're talking about. Looking to it for a political perspective would be like reading Oscar Wilde for help beating a two-three zone. Just ain't making sense.
what i was going for: the jackie robinson story comes from a time when race was less complex. and fits baseball, as a game and as a traditon, perfectly. basketball is more fluid and contradictory, which is why the picture of race it can present is more like the contemporary questions.
basketball now is what baseball once was. . .mostly because talking about race now SHOULD involve a lot more than a monolithic "whites exploiting blacks."
I have some idea about what you mean, BS, though I'm not sure race was ever "less complex." The Jackie Robinson story, like the Rosa Parks parable, make race seem less complex, but it never was in fact. Race has always been a knotted mess of power, privilege, and authority.
I agree that bball is more fluid than the rigid geometries of baseball; that's why I prefer it as entertainment and as metaphor. If you're going to make the argument, however, that bball is better suited to contemporary American culture, I think you might consider irony in addition to fluidity (which remains a somewhat vague abstraction). As you know, we live in an ironic age, when everything we do and believe must be enclosed in quotation marks. I don't teach writing at a university; I "teach" writing. I don't read literature but (insert elbow-prod) "literature." You get my drift.
When Magic took the no-look pass to Hollywood, the NBA entered the age of irony. Ballers started looking one way but going the other. You can hide Hamlet behind the curtain and not find irony so sick.
Traj-
i'm bummed.... the words race and racism doesn't appear in the post of mine you linked to, though i'm happy you made the inference...
but.
i explored david stern's 180 through the methodology employed by one of the most talented, albeit heinous, political strategists of the day. so, why you want to dump on me is beyond me. i KNOW my post was written plainly enough and since i used dowd's "aimd" consulting method to explain stern.
perhaps it's better for you to re-read my post rather than attempt to recontextualize it.... it's uncool to do so and it's tiring for me. and i'm not going to be drawn into an argument over that post, or this one, for that matter - or whether or not so and so is white because he come from a certain region in some country other than the u.s. you well know the perceptions of race - even in brazil, where skin color - well, skin "shade" - means so very much, just like it sadly still does in black communities... race means just as much to serbs as it does anyone else. in fact the only time i've been called nigger in here in burlington, twice, is by serbs.
no matter where white people, i.e. white europeans travelled through time - whether their portuguese, spanish. french, dutch, or english - their racist, imperialist ways have come with them - and, as a result, way way too many peoples around the world relate to others through white european eyes.
finally, hoops is not an end-all for me in discussing race; it permeates everything, it informs everything and it's there in the mlb just like it is nascar or ncaa football or tennis - all of which, i explore in my writings....
I wasn't dumping on you at all, D. Truth is, I hadn't even read your recent Stern post before I wrote mine. I just linked to your site to show recognition for another socially responsible sports blog. That's it. Nothing personal intended, my man.
Of course, that doesn't mean I agree with you. I quote you not to be a schmuck but to be thorough.
"race means just as much to serbs as it does anyone else."
True enough, but to understand Serbian racism in the same terms you understand white American racism is a deeply reductive approach. It would be equally reductive to call both Hutus and Tutsis black, ignoring the history of racial conflict between the two groups. Of course, ethnic whites (i.e., eastern European immigrants and, to some extent, the Irish) have participated in American racism, as we understand it here, as a way to assimilate and secure a measure of citizenship. The form of that participation has, at times, included denigrating African Americans, as you point out from your own experience.
Instead of encouraging the perceived urgency of the eastern European desire to assimilate and participate in American racism, I am suggesting we understand the views of race they know in their home countries. That means refusing to lump the Giriceks and the Geigers just because their skin is a certain shade of pink. Rather, let's try to understand Giricek's experience with race in Yugoslavia, what it means to be "white" there and what it means to be "Bosnian," "Muslim," or "Albanian." Those might be the more significant categories.
"no matter where white people, i.e. white europeans travelled through time - whether their portuguese, spanish. french, dutch, or english - their racist, imperialist ways have come with them - and, as a result, way way too many peoples around the world relate to others through white european eyes."
Here you go again with the reductions, my friend. We can boil down all colonial and imperial histories into a bouillon cube, or, as I'm suggesting, we can appreciate the subtleties of their individual ingredients, flavors, and spices. To call all white Europeans participants in imperialism avoids so much. For one thing, you ignore the vast legacy of intra-European imperialism (the kind that has fucked Jews, Irish, Bosnians alike); for another, you miss the colonial and imperial conflicts between Africans.
Seems to me a mistake.
Race conflict does not equal ethnic conflict... you think I'm reductionist? I think you confuse the two....
Race conflict and ethnic conflict are not the same thing; you're right. Yet, you insist race permeates everything. What I'm saying is that we'd do better by parsing the distinctions and learning from them. In other words, I'm tired of talking about the NBA in terms of race and NOT ethnicity. When we talk of the league as a black and white affair, we lose precision and accuracy. That's my point. The Association is neither a "black" league nor a "white" one; ethnic identities get us closer to its truth.
You go girls! Who needs to go to college when you can dissect the NBA (and thus the universe) via race and ethnicity in an extended blog conversation. How many credits do I get for reading all the comments? Also who is the bursar?
Honest Abe aka 2Nite
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