The NBA's image problem

Originally posted by crzy:

Originally posted by StOnEy333:

Originally posted by crzy:
I didn't want to play the race card, but the lack of white superstars in the NBA does play into it somewhat.

Oh, well since you played it now, I guess you've convinced everybody that you are correct. I can't believe nobody thought of this yet.

I'm not trying to act like that's the primary reason.

People have the right to be disillusioned with the NBA for whatever reason.

But you're being naive if you don't think that race plays a part in this discussion.

Originally posted by LA9erFan:
I actually think that the terminology of "thug" is telling. That's a term that is used to describe a black person, IMO. It's very unlikely that you'll ever hear Ben Roethlisberger described as a thug, regardless of what he does. Whatever that's worth, I always when I hear people talk about the thugs in the NBA.

Roethlisberger has "bodyguards", whereas Pacman Jones has a "posse".

Originally posted by crzy:

Originally posted by StOnEy333:

Originally posted by crzy:
I didn't want to play the race card, but the lack of white superstars in the NBA does play into it somewhat.

Oh, well since you played it now, I guess you've convinced everybody that you are correct. I can't believe nobody thought of this yet.

I'm not trying to act like that's the primary reason.

People have the right to be disillusioned with the NBA for whatever reason.

But you're being naive if you don't think that race plays a part in this discussion.

Originally posted by LA9erFan:
I actually think that the terminology of "thug" is telling. That's a term that is used to describe a black person, IMO. It's very unlikely that you'll ever hear Ben Roethlisberger described as a thug, regardless of what he does. Whatever that's worth, I always when I hear people talk about the thugs in the NBA.

Roethlisberger has "bodyguards", whereas Pacman Jones has a "posse".

Originally posted by crzy:
I didn't want to play the race card, but the lack of white superstars in the NBA does play into it somewhat.

Originally posted by LA9erFan:
I actually think that the terminology of "thug" is telling. That's a term that is used to describe a black person, IMO. It's very unlikely that you'll ever hear Ben Roethlisberger described as a thug, regardless of what he does. Whatever that's worth, I always when I hear people talk about the thugs in the NBA.

Roethlisberger has "bodyguards", whereas Pacman Jones has a "posse".

Quote:
Thug: what white people call black people who wear any jewelry or drive a luxury car without the factory package. Often applied to athletes, especially NBA players.

Quote:
What it comes down to is this: NBA players are highly visible – more visible than any other professional athletes in America. They don’t play with any sort of equipment obscuring their faces, and the uniforms are fairly revealing. And postgame press conferences and interviews are frequent and relatively intimate. So the NBA experience is fairly revealing, compared to other leagues.

So everyone sees these guys’ tattoos, they hear them speak, and they see the way they dress and interact, and all of these things are highly influenced by black culture (the “PC” term seems to be “hip-hop culture,” but that’s highly misleading for a variety of reasons), and so the NBA gets the full force of the public’s stereotypes and assumptions brought to bear against them. People associate black culture with the ghettos, with crime, with prison culture, etc. and they make the immediate connection between NBA players and “thugs.”

Now, this should be obviously problematic for anyone with half a brain, but very few people in the mainstream media have that.

But no one makes these connections between, say, Lance Berkman and country music and negative imagery of “rednecks.” Nobody looks around the MLB and says that baseball’s steroid problems are intimately related to rural white culture’s problem with meth, or with latin-american “machismo” or something. Nobody worries about those leagues having crime problems. We don’t do that, because most of us understand that this would be pretty f**king stupid.

For the majority of Americans (or, more simply, the majority of the NBA’s primarily white, middle-class target audience), African-American culture is something relatively alien – known largely through media representations. Those representations make the (false, I would contend) connection between being “black” with being a “thug” clear, and so the only way people know how to relate young black men with tattoos, rap music, etc. is through being a criminal. And thus we create the perception that the NBA has a “thug” problem.

Stern’s mistake is to think he can combat this through the dress code or draft age restrictions. It’s something that is self-fulfilling, and the only way to change it is to combat it at its source: media representations of black culture. I have no idea how that can be solved in the media, however, since this connection is not entirely imagined (there is an obvious fascination in “hip-hop culture” with criminality, though the relationship is complex and shouldn’t be boiled down to infatuation/endorsement/imitation), and is necessarily a product of the environment that creates it. So either more middle-class white Americans have to somehow recognize that “hip-hop culture” doesn’t equate to criminality, or the society that produces that culture has to change enough that criminality is no longer such a major problem for young black men.

Originally posted by LA9erFan:
Who are the people that you would consider to be "thugs" in the NBA?

I don't know the percentages, but it seems like in the last 5 years the most high profile cases have been in the NFL. Vick, Big Ben, Plaxico, Pacman, Stallworth, etc.

Originally posted by crzy:

Originally posted by StOnEy333:
The difference in the amount of players in the different sports is something not to be ignored, IMO. There are more players on one NFL team than 4 1/2 NBA teams.

It doesn't matter, there are still more criminals in the NFL.

Originally posted by blizzuntz:

Originally posted by crzy:

Originally posted by StOnEy333:
The difference in the amount of players in the different sports is something not to be ignored, IMO. There are more players on one NFL team than 4 1/2 NBA teams.

It doesn't matter, there are still more criminals in the NFL.

Crzy, you aren't going to persuade someone who has basic statistics knowledge.

Your argument is like me saying the Bronx is safer than the rest of the united states bc there are less criminals in the Bronx than the rest of the USA.

Originally posted by blizzuntz:

Originally posted by crzy:

Originally posted by StOnEy333:
The difference in the amount of players in the different sports is something not to be ignored, IMO. There are more players on one NFL team than 4 1/2 NBA teams.

It doesn't matter, there are still more criminals in the NFL.

Crzy, you aren't going to persuade someone who has basic statistics knowledge.

Your argument is like me saying the Bronx is safer than the rest of the united states bc there are less criminals in the Bronx than the rest of the USA.

Originally posted by pantstickle:

Originally posted by blizzuntz:

Originally posted by crzy:

Originally posted by StOnEy333:
The difference in the amount of players in the different sports is something not to be ignored, IMO. There are more players on one NFL team than 4 1/2 NBA teams.

It doesn't matter, there are still more criminals in the NFL.

Crzy, you aren't going to persuade someone who has basic statistics knowledge.

Your argument is like me saying the Bronx is safer than the rest of the united states bc there are less criminals in the Bronx than the rest of the USA.

Well, it's not like we're talking about Bronx versus Sheboygan here.

Originally posted by blizzuntz:

Originally posted by pantstickle:

Originally posted by blizzuntz:

Originally posted by crzy:

Originally posted by StOnEy333:
The difference in the amount of players in the different sports is something not to be ignored, IMO. There are more players on one NFL team than 4 1/2 NBA teams.

It doesn't matter, there are still more criminals in the NFL.

Crzy, you aren't going to persuade someone who has basic statistics knowledge.

Your argument is like me saying the Bronx is safer than the rest of the united states bc there are less criminals in the Bronx than the rest of the USA.

Well, it's not like we're talking about Bronx versus Sheboygan here.

I now know where that is but don't see the point

Originally posted by pantstickle:

Originally posted by blizzuntz:

Originally posted by pantstickle:

Originally posted by blizzuntz:

Originally posted by crzy:

Originally posted by StOnEy333:
The difference in the amount of players in the different sports is something not to be ignored, IMO. There are more players on one NFL team than 4 1/2 NBA teams.

It doesn't matter, there are still more criminals in the NFL.

Crzy, you aren't going to persuade someone who has basic statistics knowledge.

Your argument is like me saying the Bronx is safer than the rest of the united states bc there are less criminals in the Bronx than the rest of the USA.

Well, it's not like we're talking about Bronx versus Sheboygan here.

I now know where that is but don't see the point

The percentage of criminals (I'm assuming that's your point about the Bronx) isn't significantly different between the two leagues.

So while you're right that he can't compare the total number of criminals, due to the NFL having a lot more players, you can't really say it's like comparing the safety of Bronx to the entire country.