Until the Next Sports, Media and Race Controversy...

The appropriate reaction to it all.

What we’ve witnessed in the last week is another chapter in the Book of Racism in Sports. For those who've heard about it all week, I'm sick of it, too. If you haven’t heard, however, a bunch of people have responded to this:

“I hated Duke, and I hated everything Duke stood for. Schools like Duke don't recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms.”

Jalen Rose’s comments – which he said reflected that of an 18-year old (and seemingly immature) kid – and his defense of them have elicited numerous columns, blog posts and other responses that range from misguided support (many assume this is how he feels NOW) to the usual disgusting hate speech on the races. Grant Hill’s response on the New York Times added more fuel to the fire along with more snarky critiques and side-taking.

All this week has shown this perpetual optimist is that no matter how much well-intentioned people seek it, media nerds clamor for it or ivory-tower academics demand it, there is one thing that we will never have in the United States.

There will never be a national conversation about race.

Twitter and Facebook don’t count, friends.

More than every other form of entertainment, sports inspire the strongest and most vitriolic commentary society can witness. Because the output of these games come from physical exploits (though there’s the use of the total being involved), fans and media can only infer and project their personal beliefs onto the action. We’ll make our assumptions based on body language and reactions to calls and plays, physical appearance and interactions with teammates and opponents.

When the participants – players, coaches and managers, executives, agents, etc. – do speak to the world, that’s when our senses sharpen a bit more. We’re more scrutinizing of their words because unlike musicians and actors, we don’t get a chance to hear from them outside of these dedicated times (press conferences, scheduled interviews, etc.). When one decides to create or take part a venture outside of those times, such as ESPN’s documentary – Rose, himself, was an executive producer – we have a chance to parse their words more. They give us insights that wouldn’t come up in the course of the game, season or even career as they are too caught up in the moment to reflect.

More often than not, people don’t like what they hear from athletes. How many times have you uttered, thought or heard the phrase “just shut up and play”? Ideally, these folks exist for our mere entertainment, not for having a voice, right? It doesn’t help when someone utters something regarding race.

Within a week, we’ve taken this “Uncle Tom” commentary and flipped it on its ear over and over again. Even the game played between both alma maters central to this controversy once again stood for so much more as Duke once again got the better of Michigan. We’ve thrown our opinions and experiences in hopes of having some grand-scale conversation, yet instead, we’re having intellectual show and tell. This controversy has compelled anyone with a platform (myself included, but in private) to show scars of racism, try to prove that we’re not racist or unfortunately defend personal bigotry.

We are an exclusive lot, though. The people who keep these controversies in the air more often are us media people (proficient bloggers count, too). We love having something to run with for days on end until some other sports figure has a case of foot-in-mouth disease. We come up with all of these concepts and analyses, but we never solve the problem the controversy presented. We come up short because we aren’t inclusive of all the people who hear or read these words.

We assume that because these conversation are had among the media and our most passionate consumers that ‘everyone’s talking about it’. Racism isn’t just discussed when someone utters unfortunate words; it’s talked about on street corners, on park benches, in break rooms and trendy restaurants. While we scream, stomp and demand you pay attention to us, millions of people are speaking in hushed tones and away from our purview.

For whatever reasons, they don’t trust us. Whether it’s a difference in credentials, personal experiences or history burned to memory, these people aren’t talking to us. They’re enduring and/or perpetuating the discrimination that made Rose’s comments so jarring and such ‘great’ sports radio talk. However, their absence – or exile, rather – from the media chatter keeps the ideal national conversation about race just that; ideal. Mythical, even.

Maybe a large part about these reactions is that mind-numbingly absurd belief that there's one universal perspective of the black community or any other community. Many assume that all ethnic groups live the same way and share the same experiences. That couldn’t be far from the case. Not all white people come from posh backgrounds and not every black person came up hard scrabble in the streets. Not every Latino hopped a fence or rode a shoddy raft to come to the States and not every Asian person grew up with a ‘Tiger Mom’.

What we’ve also done, what’s kept this at the tip of many tongues is not dig into the truth. Many refuse to dig into their own discrimination while others choose to ignore the existence of racism. In that, we’ve also killed any chance by having that mythical conversation. In a lot of ways, these moments are nothing but opportunities to get academic or grab headlines. In another regard, demands for ‘the national conversation about race’ is code for ‘let’s pile on the white man’.

But we’ve been spinning this wheel for how long now?

“Uncle Tom” and the subsequent responses were just the media racial craze of the moment. At this point, we really don’t care about the legacy of The Fab Five; at least in the short term. A year from now, people will believe what they always did before “Uncle Tom”. Either this collective was a trend-setting champion for urban black America, a system-bucking destroyer of white sports culture or in complete honesty, a team whose defense could have been a lot better.

What we do care about is where the next race-driven sports media dialogue takes place. We media folks should use “Uncle Tom” as a lesson for ourselves and future generations and just maybe, some of us will. Yet, as an almost under-the-radar comment proved, we’re looking to point out a lack of smarts or awareness from others instead of being honest with ourselves. Rose, Hill and other athletes will become someone else soon enough and we’ll spin this wheel again.

Your Silence is So Loud

March Madness brings out a lot of passions about alma maters, busted brackets and office pools. It also revisits controversies such as what both HBO and ESPN did this weekend with two stirring documentaries about two of the most polarizing, but talented programs in college basketball history.

You can find rundowns and reviews of “Runnin’ Rebels of UNLV” and “The Fab Five” everywhere else (though I recommend The Post Game). Depending on your view on college athletics, either you thoroughly enjoyed the interviews and clips of the games of the era or you’re more disgusted at how those teams succeeded brashly in the face of the sports you held in reverence. Either way, both documentaries shared a common thread: the absence of the most significant players of both UNLV and Michigan.

More people are discussing and lamenting the absence of Chris Webber from ESPN’s two-hour retrospective, yet the lack of Larry Johnson also stood out from HBO’s offering.

The void left by both men spoke to a paraphrased saying my father used to say when I was too angry to speak to him; your silence is so loud.

Courtesy of ESPN

If you were in Webber’s shoes, you would probably have declined to speak about the Michigan days. It’s one thing to revisit the lowest point of your collegiate career; the infamous ‘timeout’ call in the waning seconds that gave North Carolina one last shot to win the national championship. Yet, knowing that the much of the footage regarding the game would be centered on that moment – notably your anger at camerapersons taping you walking from the court to the locker room – wasn’t exactly a sterling incentive for you to participate.

To follow that with an even bigger controversy – a relationship with a famed booster – wasn’t enticing, either. Because Webber didn’t appear in the documentary, the only way that his opinion was reflected was by adding at-the-time interviews, ESPN’s coverage of his involvement with Ed Martin and a corresponding press conference.

Some believe there was a chance for Webber to redeem himself from the aftermath of the Martin controversy. Yet, he could have asked himself a simple question; what would a public admission or at least recognition of the scandal have done for anyone now?

On the Johnson front, maybe the questions weren’t as loud, but they were certainly lingering for those who watched HBO’s program. Other than scant media appearances over the years, LJ has faded away since retiring with the Knicks in 2001. His final days were highlighted by chronic back problems, declining production and “forty million dollar slaves”.

Courtesy of SLAM

Ah, yes, four words (and plenty more) that unearthed a torrent of criticism towards him. He spoke on America one of most open secrets; the idea that though no longer shucking cotton and being whipped, black men were not only still being exploited, but unlike the Africans that were shipped over to the States as slaves, modern-day blacks sit under an ever-scrutinizing microscope of the media.

And that might be what we expected him to speak to.

Considering the penalties UNLV took on during and after Johnson’s time as a Runnin’ Rebel, you could only imagine what Johnson could have said about his days as a student-athlete. We saw the defiance of the student-athlete in “The Fab Five”; Webber and the rest of his teammates protested the profits made by interested partners of Michigan after discovering their likeness used as commerce in a trip to Europe. Johnson, on the other hand, could have picked up where some believe he left off in 1999. He could have written the epilogue to the book that bears his quote as a title or picked up the megaphone on behalf of a coach that took a chance on him and his teammates.

However, he may have felt even with the tremendous storytelling abilities of HBO Sports, too many would be looking for more controversial sound bites instead of his complete, honest opinions.

After having watched both programs, the difference between the two voids is pretty clear. At least with HBO, the central figure to the entire story was already there; former head coach Jerry Tarkanian. He was the undisputed leader of the Rebels, even if as we discovered initially, he was reluctant move to Sin City.

It’s understandable that fans of those programs are disappointed that Webber and Johnson were not involved with these stories. Overall, the perspectives from future NBA players in Greg Anthony, Stacey Augmon, Jalen Rose and Juwon Howard provided depth from their own roles in the stories while they gave context to what, or rather, who was conspicuously absent.

Yet, sometimes, the best stories leave you hanging a little bit. They don’t believe in absolute endings nor provide simple solutions to the issues posed in the opening scenes. In the case of media offerings that look into a yesteryear of not too long ago, those clean conclusions are harder to come by. This is because the central figures are still around; hoping that new projects or occupations can keep that microscope fixated on something else as they show the world that they have evolved, or at least moved on. Webber’s rebirth as an analyst is arguably the brightest spot for NBA coverage in recent years and his number was deservedly raised to the rafters by the Sacramento Kings. Johnson chose to fade to the background quietly, though he had reconnected with the Knicks, founded his own beverage company and splits time between Dallas (his hometown) and Las Vegas.

There’s no question that what were already strong documentaries could have been even better if both men were involved. Though we shouldn’t hold our breaths, if Webber and Johnson ever choose to speak on their days as the Big Men on Campus, captive audiences eagerly await.