Is that what you really see?

From Huffpo:

"Well, the NBA sure put Tim Hardaway in his place. For stating in a radio interview that he "hates gays", David Stern, the stern commissioner of the NBA, has banned Hardaway from participating in ANY of this weekend's All-Star activities. If he had only said "hates bi-sexuals" he could have still entered the Sprite Slam Dunk contest.


How about banning players for being morons? How about requiring an SAT score above their shoe size? How about insisting they all buy "hooked on phonics"? The NBA wonders why it has such a horrible image, why its glittering All-Star game isn't even televised on a broadcast network. Then it allows kids to drop out of college or skip college altogether to join the league. Here's what the average sports fan sees when he comes across an NBA game: mean, arrogant, scary looking, tattooed, prison inmates. Not exactly All-American role models unless you're a gang member or skinhead. In interviews these players often come off sounding like Pogo. So when Tim Hardaway says a spectacularly idiotic thing the league may feign shock and outrage but the truth is - what do they expect? And Hardaway is supposed to learn his lesson and become tolerant of homosexuals because he can't take part in the Foot Locker Three-Point Shootout. Stupidity in the NBA is not confined to the players."

You know this reminds me of a dentist visit I had about five years ago. I'm in the chair, and this guy, an older white man, is digging around in my mouth ranting about how the Knicks suck, and how they're a "bunch of apes running around." Needless to say, I had my mouth full so I wasn't able to say anything, but that was the first and last time I ever went to him.

The NBA, which every one knows is primarily African-American, catches alot of heat, some of it warranted some of it not. When Tim Hardaway opens his dumb mouth and spouts off alot hatred, I look and say, he's a dumbass who happens to be a basketball player. When Kobe drops his pants and then snitches on his teammates I say, hey there's a punk...who happens to be a basketball player. But maybe I think these things because I'm black. Where I grew up the people around me dressed like the NBA, acted like the NBA, and wanted to be in the NBA. You get to see the 'ballers' as it were as regular guys with extraordinary talents. But when I read the above article by Ken Levine, a white guy, I can't help but have my antenne of racism spark like Peter Parker's Spider-sense. Seems to me that any time some scandal comes out of the NBA white dudes (usually the guys who sit courtside at games) get up in arms about how the NBA is (to quote Levine), "mean, arrogant, scary looking, tattooed, prison inmates." Umm, who in the NBA look the the people who happen to be predominately in prisons...umm Steve Nash..wait he's Canadian...Dirk Nowitski...yeah guess it must be those other black dudes.

So is Levine a racist? Jezz no, or at least he's not any more racist than I am, he's just racist in a different way. When anyone's approached by something unknown and threatening the first instinct is to ridicule it. With him it's a bunch of tattooed up black dudes dribbling a ball. With Tim Hardaway it's gay people, and with me its old white dudes in suits who vote in Congress or who live in a White House. I just thought it was pretty ironic that a post that criticizes some one for saying some some insensitive things about a group, would then say insensitive things about another group.

By the way Tim Hardaway is still an asshole.

PS: By the way Levine, Hardaway's retired from the NBA so he couldn't have entered the slam dunk contest. OH MY! TEETH DELIVERS THE FACIAL! I LOVE THIS GAME!