Re: Sam Smith: Sprewell's Attack=Root of NBA Strife

[j.hironaka@unesco.org]

Josh Ozersky wrote:

> Are you guys ready to hold hands and sing "I'd like to buy the world a
>
> coke" yet?  What a bunch of pansies you turned into!  There is no
> "color blind" world out there.  Just ask Bill Russell or almost any
> player who has play before a sea of white faces every night.  Watch
> "He Got Game" or "Hoop Dreams" and tell me how basketball is color
> blind.  Tell me with a straight face that there isn't a strong
> anti-semitic feeling among poor blacks, especially when their
> employers are jews.  You guys are so full of shit.  As for the smith
> column,I think Sam Smith wrote a completely accurate-sounding,
> common-sense article and all you want to do is posture and call him a
> racist. I'm really curious just what he says you could possibly
> dispute.
>
> Pissed Off Josh

Kumbaya, Josh?  :-)

Here's my take on it, if you all don't mind. I thought Sam Smith should
not generalize about the "lack of ethics and morality" of today's NBA
player as *extrapolated* from the Spree incident, unless he had evidence
to show this was the guiding animus behind the owner's decision to
lockout the players (as opposed to, say, greed). I think his opinion is
silly and demonizing (I called it "race-baiting" but I'll take that one
back).

Complaining about how today's NBA stars are so shallow, undereducated
and overpaid rings the same in my head as when so-called "plain-looking"
women whine about the bubble-headedness of all the overpaid "super
models" you see shopping and working in Paris, Tokyo or the Apple. That
is to say, such impressions may be "based on fact" but it's still going
to sound more than slightly petty, banal, jealous etc to most
level-headed people.

I'm not necessarily arguing that basketball players today are more
moral, ethical and "fairly compensated" than these teen-age super
models, or sports agents, Wall Street takeover specialists, celebrity
lawyers etc. But I do know that most successful athletes have a pretty
well-grounded work ethic that carries over into many other aspects of
how they manage their lives. And I know that today's NBA players are as
athletically gifted and imaginative as the good old days. And I think
that there is nothing wrong with American black people celebrating how
relatively dominant and beautiful they are at one incredibly riveting
worldwide cultural phenomenom (basketball).

I think we're both on the same page here, Josh.

I do believe BTW that anti-semitism by blacks is wrong-headed, since
people who happened to be Jews played such a committed role in the Civil
Rights movement that has helped America finally become America.

Kumbaya Jim and Josh,


Joe


p.s. I can't wait to watch Ron, 'Twoine and Kenny line up with the other
proud men in green for the opening tipoff of the season.

****