Essay Five

The following are a newspaper column and my response…

Why don't we call them brawl games?
By Clarence Page
(published November 28, 2004)

There's an old joke about a guy who went to a fight and saw a hockey game break out. Things have not gotten that bad yet at the National Basketball Association, although you might think so from coverage of the recent "basketbrawl" at a Detroit Pistons-Indiana Pacers game in Detroit's Palace of Auburn Hills. Coming just in time to give Americans something besides politics to discuss over Thanksgiving dinner, the jaw-dropping footage has aired over and over again like an ad for some sort of a "Negroes Gone Wild" video.

As a black American who takes pride in the way historical black sports heroes like Jackie Robinson and Michael Jordan helped ease social barriers and racial tensions, I am not only outraged but downright wounded by the sight of black players who call themselves "professionals" losing their cool in a fracas with fans sitting in expensive seats.

Sure, some of those fans deserved a good whupping when their boorish heckling turned violent. But even when responding to thrown objects that included a chair, a large cup filled with a beverage, and showers of beer and popcorn, there's no way that a player is going to come out ahead in the eyes of most onlookers.

Imagine, for example, the backlash against Larry Bird back in his playing days if he had decided to put the smackdown on black filmmaker Spike Lee's relentless heckling from courtside. Bird could have squashed the pint-sized Lee like a bug, but his good-guy image remains intact today because he didn't.

So my kudos go out to NBA Commissioner David Stern for imposing tough penalties on Indiana forward Ron Artest and other players involved in the brawl. Banishment from future games should be the appropriate minimum punishment for fans determined to be involved in the melee too. Oakland County (Mich.) prosecutor David Gorcyca said he would seek felony charges against whoever threw the chair. Good for him. Obnoxious shouting is bad enough. Throwing furniture is felonious.

The next step, in my view, should be the ejection of excessively obnoxious fans, although in some towns that could virtually clear out the arena.

And I am not sure what punishment is appropriate other than shame and ridicule for commentators who care to shed more heat than light on the mess in Michigan. Their names are too numerous to list here, but you know them when you read them or hear them.

One in particular is worthy of note. See if you can guess from the following quotes:

- "This is the hip-hop culture on parade. This is gang behavior on parade minus the guns. That's the culture that the NBA has become."

" ... You look at NBA players and the uniforms, you don't have to go back very far. The uniforms have changed totally. They're now in gang colors. They are in gang styles.

" ... Just rename the city of Detroit to New Fallujah, Mich., and then what happens at the Palace of Auburn Hills will be understood by everybody who goes there."

" ... By the way, has anybody noticed all these outbreaks, all this violence, all this stuff happens in blue cities, ladies and gentlemen? I mean, you don't see this happening in Charlotte [N.C.]. You don't see this sort of stuff happening. But you do see it happening out of Miami; you do see it happening in the blue cities out there. So, you know, call L.A. 'New Mosul, Calif.' You could call New York 'Baghdad, N.Y.,' and this helps people put this in perspective ..."

Yes, those hyperventilated gems, among others, were uttered by Rush Limbaugh, the famous conservative radio talk host and recovering drug addict.

Praising his own "courage" for telling it like it is, Limbaugh noted that his take surely would be "tagged as racist." Well, not by me. Overblown? Unsupported by facts? Pandering to rap-music haters? Oh, yes. But not racist. After all, a lot of us black folks would agree with a lot of what he says, not because we're self-hating but because we care.

But Limbaugh's slap at blue state America soared at warp speed to some other zone of reality. One only had to look to the very day after the Detroit disaster to see the Clemson vs. South Carolina college football game erupt into an ugly 10-minute, fourth-quarter brawl that looked like two helmeted street gangs going at it.

To their credit, officials at both schools decided to punish their players by not accepting any bowl bids this year. Good. That's the collegiate equivalent of going nuclear, as sports punishments go, and it sends an important signal to college athletes and others about the value of discipline: Keep your cool and keep your ego in check.

If only our pro athletics could learn the same lesson. Then, who knows? It might even spread to us commentators.

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Dear Clarence Page:

Racism and racial issues are too complex and paradoxical. That’s one reason why folks like Rush Limbaugh are idiots—they seek to simplify and compress matters into their own narrow-minded sound bites. You should be careful to avoid doing likewise.

I’m not sure your Larry Bird-Spike Lee example is completely valid. For starters, Lee never threw a cup of beer at Bird. I have no doubt that Bird would have gone after Lee in such a scenario (heck, Bird recently admitted that he wasn’t sure how he might respond if he was in Ron Artest’s nikes). In fact, I have no doubt that Bird would have been revered by the public for going after Lee in this fantasy situation.

One key point to consider is the emotion behind fan misbehavior. In Lee’s case, the misbehavior is based on rivalry—it’s essentially trash-talking. In Artest’s case, I believe the motivations are more insidious. The racial slurs fans heap on players would constitute discrimination and hate crimes in any other situation. Throwing a cup of beer takes the hate to another level, bordering on assault.

Charles Barkley recently noted how NBA players are routinely labeled with terms like thug and punk. Let’s be honest—these are really substitutes for nigger.

Here’s another point to consider: when Artest was first physically attacked by Ben Wallace, Artest backed off and showed restraint. Why? Because, like it or not, the attack was a part of the game. Plus, Wallace could probably kick Artest’s ass. Nonetheless, Artest recognized Wallace’s aggression as “acceptable” behavior. However, being doused by a fan seconds later was an entirely different story. The fan’s act showed disrespect and outright hatred. It’s one thing to recognize certain players seek to physically injure opposing players. It’s quite another thing for fans to display such evil.

You’re right to note the commentators who continue to pour fuel on the flames. Their actions and hate-inspiring words are a huge part of the problem. Let me know when you and your newspaper’s editorial board suspend your own sports columnists for their contributions to this mess.

I’ll leave the additional arguments regarding social status and rough upbringings to the sociologists and clergymen. But you’ve got to admit, Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O’Neal looked like men caught in a race riot—and in many respects, that’s exactly what it was.