The National Basketball Association is a case study, not in AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, but in what I call DEFORMATIVE INACTION. Its masterful manipulation of its fans and of Americans, in general, is a case study in mass hypnosis and tricknology. This essay is an attempt to illuminate the strategies employed that allow a leage of super-athletic Black men running around in modified bikini draws, to nevertheless fill up stadiums all over one of the most racist and color-conscious nations in the known universe. Take notes.
To begin with, there were always racial considerations. That's why when society made segregation legal and acceptable, the NBA was also white. These men competed against each other, racked up records and thought they had it made. But slowly but surely, even before 1954, one black man at a time was "allowed" in. And when that happened, slowly but surely the records started to fall. By the time "integration" came, the league was black enough to raise some concerns behind closed doors. The racial considerations began to change with society: now money was the key, since the game was popular and stadiums were being built.
The uniforms didn't quite look the same on black men as they did on their white predecessors. This became an added attraction to white audiences (homophiliac men on the downlow and white women), but this part wasn't played up. But just look at the front rows of the games: rich white men and their wives (and mistresses) and women -- white and black -- looking for prospective men to date (read: get pregnant by and live a life of luxury). This is how the NBA began to grow: it became a 3-hour strip show, complete with music blaring during time-outs: you could hear everything from Elton John and Anita Baker to James Brown and Earth,Wind & Fire. From that point on, the NBA was not just a sporting event.
It became an "experience."
But those in power, the same ones that shut down black nightclubs when the audiences get too "integrated" could not allow the NBA game to get to "party heavy." At least not during the games. After those games however, the hotels were overrun by white women looking for "dates" and others looking to meet these millionaire giants. From the outside looking in, its a prostitution ring, pure and simple. Again, those in power were watching and, as they counted their money, one thing had to remain constant: a white man had to remain in charge, at the top - the Commissioner.
A league that is more than 85% black has never had a black commissioner. Billy Hunter saw it a long time again and knew he had gone as high as he could go. George Stern treats NBA players like children, and the players act that way. That is why few of them get involved in any community events - except for the ones that are 'sanctioned' by the League. Community development is limited to bullshit commercials promoting another pimp organization, the United Way. They talk about being a "charity" but those folks are a business and their administrative costs and the huge salaries and perks that their administrators get proves this to be true. They have black men skinning and grinning talking about how the United Way works. Yeah, it works alright: it works the same was as the farmer does. And these black men are the mules pulling the plow.
Further evidence of attempts to show who is control (along with pictures of Stern all over the place) is the logo: that silhouette is of Jerry West. Don't get me wrong, West was one of the few white dudes that could play. But that don't mean his symbol should be representative of a league that is majority black. But that's the way America is: planting the red, white and blue (the league's colors, by the way) everywhere they go, but the people "taking the point," "bringing up the rear" and taking all the risks are men of color. Ask any of them who came back sane from one of these wars. The white man takes all the photos and gets all the glory, but brothers take all the risks. Look at the pictures of American soldiers urinating on brown men of color, torturing them and doing who knows what else. Those aren't brothers degrading other human beings like that. We know who it is.
What does that have to do with the NBA? Plenty. At war black men fight and come home and don't have any rights, can't get a job or a house and in most cases, their wives were fucking around behind their backs. What do you think happens to the NBA player? When he's done his knees are shot, most of them didn't get a degree, and far too many are a jump shot away from being functionally illiterate. This puts them on the same level as the returning veterans: too weak to do anything but wander.
The ones that don't get to become announcers or TV analysts are lost. Many have squandered their money, and have moved into white communities that really don't want them there. But that happens because that's where they are TOLD TO go. You don't find any brothers moving into the 'hood. In fact, when they sign contracts, they move their entire families (mom first) away from other black people. They now have money and now they think they're white. The mistake they make is that they also think they're above the law. That's why, quite regularly, you pick up a paper and read where some 6'"8" brother has hit his girl friend, assaulted his wife or totalled his car. We're in a race war and this is what the biggest of us can produce: problems and babies.
Deformative Inaction: these guys are psychologically scarred and cognitively bankrupt. Their presence, as far as we are concerned, is tantamount to 'inaction,' is it not? We don't see 'em. They don't support any black causes. They only speak when the white man tells them to, or when one of these rip-off corporations pays them to do a commercial (that is usually degrading and emasculating).
Just as the league must appear white in terms of image, the symbolic matrix also includes self-degradation through language. These giants consider it flattering to call someone a "beast." We used to fight over those terms or if the white man had said that to us in the '60s, he'd get his ass hicked. Not only do they call each other "beast," but also "animal." White announcers and their negro lackeys "thingify" us: LeBron is like a "locomotive gone wild," Shaq called himself "Shaq Diesel." There are animal names (I call it "beastification") for all: From Walter Davis being "The Greyhound," we hear it more in football than basketball, but nicknames are totally acceptable to these NBA players. The worst among them, "Dawg."
This may sound like a rant, but its not. I'm a scholar. Read a book called The Philosophy of Money by Georg Simmel. And then crack a few more books, like Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorsten Veblen. What you'll find is that money is "the ultimate confounding of things." It makes little people look big, ugly people look beautiful and powerless people appear powerful. These athletes also think that it can make black people look white, but don't you believe it. Charles Barkley (the world's tallest Uncle Tom) has never met a white person he didn't fall in love with. He's the white man's biggest bootlicker, hence his winning of the Emmy for best studio analyst. '
Deformative Inaction. A black league stays afloat because white folks have it totally under control. The Jews (like Stern) who own the stadiums are responsible for the spate of injuries that took place this past season. They didn't care about the physical health of these athletes: they just wanted to control their FINANCIAL health, and that's what they did. Reducing the season by 16 games and limited practice sessions - what did you THINK was going to happen? Gone down: Derek Rose, Kobe Bryant, Chauncey Billups, Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire -- a veritable all-star team, injured at one point or another. And the money kept on coming.\
The NBA would be 100% black were it not for the unspoken tokenism that allows some of the white players to get in. Almost all of them have the same type of game: stay waaaay outside and shoot 3-pointers, or if you're a hulk, hack the hell out of whomever comes into the paint. None of them averages over 20 points a game. But they do have one thing in common and even the white coaches know this: when they get in the game, whomever that white guy is guarding, GO AT HIM! They can't keep up with the brothers, a proven fact. Even the white dudes who are fairly good (Kyle Korver, J.J. Redick) can't play a lick of defense. The same goes for Dirk Novitzki who doesnt' rebound, block shots or play defense but who, at 7 feet tall, gets all the accolades that sportscasters can come up with.
Well, there you have it: a case study in deformative inaction. Once football season rolls around, I'll have more to say or maybe I'll just reprint my nationally-perused "Pigmentation and the Pigskin" essay which bought me 7 or 8 phone calls from NFL wives and former players like the Steelers' Anthony Griggs.
Until then: keep thinkin'.
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