Most of us that follow sports witnessed NBA superstar LeBron James announce to the world that he was going to leave the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers to go play with the Miami Heat, alongside fellow superstars Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. And as you may know, the biggest controversy occurred after LeBron’s decision to leave, including young fans burning his number 23 jersey, venom-filled commentaries, and infamous comments made by the Cav’s owner Daniel Gilbert. An angry Gilbert called LeBron a traitor, and said his behavior was a “cowardly betrayal,” as well as a “shameful display of selfishness.”
But besides Gilbert sounding like an “owner scorned,” a jilted lover, he struck a nerve with Black America because his attitude towards LeBron sounded like he was an angry slave master who had lost his most prized Black buck, the one he gave free-run of the plantation, but ignoring all LeBron had done for him and the city of Cleveland, including increasing Gilbert’s franchise value by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Well, you are only free in proportion to the amount of truth you can accept about yourself (please repeat this, and absorb it). An individual’s own fear and shortcomings are what keeps him enslaved to negativity. Here we are early into the 21st century and one would think that America and its mainstream sports media would have opened its eyes by now about its own homegrown racism. But it can barely even use the word “racism,” much less diversify its own reporting, hosting, and production ranks.
The danger with the negative stereotypical view of the African American athlete continuously fed to the American people helps fuel and support racist like radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who said: “That cracker [George Steinbrenner] made a lot of African American millionaires . . . and at the same time he fired a bunch of White guys as managers, left and right.” Even when Rush isn’t directly ridiculing Black athletes, he’s ridiculing Black athletes. But unbeknownst to most, this is the problem for White America when you allow racist like Rush to thrive: you or White’s also become a target for associating or dealing with Blacks. We’re all just human beings.
“The only reason we play this game is to win championships,” said LeBron. Thus, one would think that the media would sing his praises: a young Black man focused on excellence, winning and teamwork. But this is America.
Yes, news flash: this Bling-Bloated Black athlete does actually care more about winning and less about money. LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh, as well as other Black prospects who haven’t received much media attention, are all victims of the media’s Me-first (all three stars are willing to share the spotlight), gold-chain wearing, “my rims are bigger than yours,” media-created stereotypes. But despite the media’s Black athlete caricatures, these athletes actually mulled over and made a deep, analytical competent decision regarding their lives and families – not going to teams who would have paid them the largest amount of money.
After LeBron announced his decision, White paternalism run-amok flooded the airways. And hardly a day goes by on sports radio (also occurs on TV) without some white talk show personality talking in so called Black slang or mocking Black athletes and their perceived affinity for Bling – jewelry, car and truck rims, and big houses.
The reality is that young Black men and athletes are treated differently than White ones. Over the years, no one ever talked or complained about young Wall Street millionaire’s being overpaid selfish or me-first ego maniacs. In fact, until Wall Street ran our economy into the ground, the media never paid much attention to the golden parachutes and millions and billions the White guys made because the view is that they deserve it. They’re smart. But the truth is they’re White. And despite their ignorance, incompetence and greed, not much has been done in terms of the scope of the crime or damage they’ve done. Can you imagine if a Black-run industry had put our nation’s economy in the tank? We both know that there would be hundreds of Black faces in prison, believe it.
America – and in this case the mainstream sports media – likes its Blacks “straight” – all stereotype, no chaser – in the way they like the buffoonery of the affable Charles Barkley (I liked the younger, radical version of Charles); or LeBron James and his pregame acting and dancing skits with his buddies; and even the loud, obnoxious rants of Steven A. Smith, the sports world’s Angry Black Man – as long as his anger remains directed at Black athletes.
However, as an African American man or fan, you soon come to realize that it doesn’t matter what you do, how you carry yourself, the mainstream’s stereotypes and resentment will find a way to ridicule you, whether you fall from grace or not. Take Philadelphia fans, for example, who ridiculed and vilified the hip-hop, rambunctious Allen Iverson, labeling him for life because of a few boyish mistakes and the behavior of his buddies, who they called a posse (the White athletes entourage is called friends and family), which is offensive.
On the other hand, Donovan McNabb, who has an interception-to-touchdown ratio in the top four quarterbacks in NFL history and was a perennial winner as a Philadelphia Eagle, never got in any trouble, but the fans and city’s media found a way to “hate on him” until the team sent him packing for a White quarterback. As a Black athlete, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t do the right thing.
Let’s be real about this: America, the mainstream, and sports media operates based on a double standard when it comes to how they report on Blacks and Whites. Most of the problem is numbers. I scan most mainstream channels, sites, and newspapers and most of the writers, hosts, and other personalities are still virtually all White.
It’s 2010, when will the mainstream media stop appealing to the lowest common denominator regarding race and its stereotypical racist views of African Americans and diversify its ranks? One might think that the White-run media is solely responsible but they’re not. These Black athletes have allowed themselves to be bought and sold from AAU sports and for-profit camps on through college and into the pros by coaches, agents, the NCAA, owners, and big league commissioners. These Black athletes are so alienated from the Black working class that they even identify with the negative aspects of a the “street” or poverty produced hip-hop and stripper culture more than they do anything else. And although most of them do some form of community service, they do far less than they should be doing because other Black people died for them to be allowed to prosper like they do.
Lastly, let’s not forget that most Black athletes, particularly in the minority-dominated college and pro basketball and football professions, are not stars or mega stars like LeBron and don’t have long careers. For example, the average NBA career is around three years. Even worse, most of the thousands of Black athletes in colleges around the country, who never become professional athletes, end up not graduating and haven’t thought about what they’ll do to make a living. Meanwhile, the NCAA system provides nice middle-class and wealthy lifestyles for thousands of college and pro administrators, coaches, executives, ancillary business owners, and so on. In college, these Black athlete slave’s talent also generates the funds to operate other athletic programs played mostly by White kids. So their labor and talent provides everything for everybody but themselves, the most important piece in the puzzle.
Shameful!
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