Re: Russell's common ground with Antoine

["Noah Evans" <ishbak@hotmail.com>]

>Comparing Bill Russell's travails with Antoine Walker's is a reach of
>Evansian proportions. 

Although I didn't note this in my thesis(which was BTW too broad and 
only mildly dealt with the matter I wrote about) I was strictly talking 
about the treatment of each player by the media. Although I restrict my 
argument to that domain I did not with my thesis.

>Black athletes were not 
>the heroes whose faces were everywhere selling everything and >postered 
on every suburban white kids bedroom. They certainly were >not expected 
to have the brains, nobility, and fearless outspokenness >of a man like 
William Felton Russell. 

Quite, they were expected to be servile and quiet. However has anything 
changed today? If a player(other than Barkeley and a few others) speaks 
his mind to the media how long do you think it will be until he is 
branded as a "punk"? Despite(or more likely because of) their increasing 
celebrity I would venture to guess that today's players have to be more, 
not less, careful in their choice of words to the media. 
 
>Russell was a pioneer, whose personality pushed hard against the 
>narrow boundaries of the lily white sports media and the white heroes 
>they covered on the last to have black player Red Sox and the Bruins. 

As I responded to Bentz, hindsight is always 20/20. Russell was attacked 
in his day just as we attack Antoine today(for admittedly different 
reasons). However it is not for us to pass judgement. History and 
history alone will vindicate or condemn Antoine for his actions. If you 
asked someone during Russell's day during the height of the frenzy 
related to Russell's refusal to sign autographs and I'll be that Russell 
would be regarded in the same esteem that those who attack Antoine hold 
Antoine to today.

>His struggle was a lot more profound then trying to wheedle an extra 
>buck out of management. 

But nobody knew it then. Then it was for Russell's "lack of respect"(by 
not signing autographs, kissing up etc...). For all we know, in the next 
millennium sports historians will talk about the pioneering Antoine 
Walker and how his hardline in contract talks were the first step in 
player unity and solidarity in the quest to eliminate the vandalism(in 
the roman sense) of outside ownership from basketball.
 
>Antoine is a pampered product of a system looking for the next 
>cross-over salesman like Michael Jordan, a system that is used to 
>coronating and popularizing black heroes (and like Dennis Rodman) 
>antiheroes with equal fervor. 

Right. But when Antoine goes against that system(by wanted "too much" 
money, or skipping practices) the system labels him a "punk". Rodman is 
bad example because, despite his antics, he is subservient. Rodman's 
rebellion is that of the corporate pro-wrestling(read staged) variety.

>Antoine never had to stay in a different hotel than his white team 
>mates (he doesn't have many) or have the people who rob his house 
>defecate in his bed to show their racial contempt.

I never said Antoine's struggle was the same as Russell's(although you 
could have implied it from my ambiguous thesis) merely that his 
treatment by the media for being an individual was the same.

>Antoine's enemies are those that align themselves with management to 
>turn public sentiment against paying him , they are not the enormous 
>social forces of overt and under the surface racism that permeated >the 
consciousness of Boston and most of the country during a time >when the 
ultimate acceptance of blacks in sport and society was still >in doubt. 

You are correct regarding Antoine's enemies, but their method, 
villification through the media is the same as Russell's. I do dispute 
your claim that American racism has lessened over the ensuing years. 
It's focus has merely shifted, the enemy has changed from the evil 
"negro" to Osama Bin Ladin and his gibbering hordes of evil terrorists, 
illegal Mexican immigrants trying to get on welfare, steal American jobs 
etc. And the inherently racist assumptions of colonolism still firmly 
rooted in the American psyche. Instead of Kipling's "White Man's Burden" 
it is now "spreading democracy" that has become the popular euphemism 
for interventionism. The more things change the more things stay the 
same. In one of his few moments of wisdom, Kipling knew. Surprisingly, 
despite his inherent racism, Kipling saw that when he wrote his poem 
_Gods of the Copybook Headings_(even more ironic since he wrote it 
partially as a rebuttal of communism).

>I do agree completely though, that Second Wind is a great book, much 
>more than the typical jock memoirs, the story of the evolution of a 
>man and an era, an era to which todays athletes owe a great deal.

No dispute from me here. Russell is undisputedly a genius. In thought 
and in basketball. I was amazed by how well read he was as well as his 
description of his ability to memorize basketball moves and 
instinctively think his way through the came. The fact that he could 
jump high enough to look into the cylinder of the rim was pretty neat 
too.

Noah

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