The Most Hated Athletes

As I read several sports articles and watched television shows regarding the NBA Finals, it dawned on me that LeBron James has become one of the most hated, scrutinized and criticized athletes ever.  In 2010, CNBC stated that LeBron is one of the six most hated athletes.  The crazy thing is that he used to be one of the most liked NBA players on the planet.  Over the past 11 months, we have witnessed everything from people burning his old Cleveland Cavaliers jersey in the streets to questioning his manhood and even those who suggest he's a quitter.  The simultaneous realities of one TV show ("The Decision") turning so many Americans against Lebron –many who are not even engaged in sports as entertainment- while his Miami Heat jersey overtook Kobe Bryant’s as the top-seller, reminds me of a quote from the movie Gladiator: "Brother, the mob can be quite fickle."  

The venom being spewed at LeBron made me wonder if he has become the most hated athlete in America.  As I pondered who would give LeBron a run for this infamous title, it dawned on me that all of the most hated athletes in America are Black men.  The other candidates are Tiger Woods (I know he says he's Cablonasian, but few would dispute that America sees him as Black), Michael Vick, Terrell Owens, Kobe Bryant, Chad Johnson/Ochocinco, and Barry Bonds.  

There are several White athletes that deserve consideration for the most hated list: Brett Favre, Mark McGuire, Lance Armstrong, Ben Roethlisberger, Pete Rose, Roger Clemens, Matt Jones, Ryan Leaf, and Jeremy Shockey (to name a few) all stand accused or guilty of saying and/or doing really terrible (and in some cases criminal) things, but haven’t come close to receiving the same level of negative attention, and actually remain beloved by a majority of Americans.  These men are just as arrogant, shady, unethical, untruthful, womanizing and disrespectful as their accused Black counterparts, but you would never know it based on the type and scale of media coverage.  

When I consider the transgressions of all of these people, I have a few questions:  Why aren't any of these White athletes on the most hated list?  Why are all of the most hated athletes Black?  Why are some of the Black athletes with no criminal record or accusations of unethical behavior on the most hated list, and even more hated than some of the White athletes with criminal records?  Does the fact that 97% of American sports editors are White have anything to do with the perception of Black and White athletes?  These are all questions that should be answered, and racism, bias, and white privilege should be at the forefront of those discussions.  

There will be those who cannot bring themselves to admit that race has anything to do with the hate. They will point to LeBron's "Decision" or Owens' constant need for the spotlight as the seeds of arrogance/selfishness that sowed the hate.  However, Brett Favre displayed his own “selfishness” and “arrogance” in Lebron and T.O. fashion when he “decided” to leave the Green Bay Packers, along with his on-going “decisions” regarding retirement or suiting up for another team all while "sexting" his manhood to a NY Jets reporter who is not named Mrs. Favre. (It’s noteworthy that Lebron’s “Decision” would be a nonissue if it hadn’t been ESPN’s brain-child of an attempt at ratings, or millions of people hadn’t actually watched it.)  

Lance Armstrong has just as many unanswered questions regarding performance-enhancing drugs (and drug masking agents) as Barry Bonds.  However, the media lightly scrutinizes Armstrong’s allegations and his accusers are often labeled as jealous competitors.  One reason often cited for the light reporting on Armstrong is that Americans don't really care about cycling.  If that’s so, why is Armstrong a celebrity at all? Why are we “living strong” and wearing his bracelets? It’s not just the comeback from cancer. Thousands of people comeback from cancer, but only Armstrong has won repeatedly on cycling's biggest stage, the Tour de France.  So, cycling does matter in the U.S. if you're winning and setting records.  Ben Roethlisberger has been accused of sexual assault more times than Kobe Bryant.  Tiger Woods cheated on his wife, but Roger Clemens cheated on his wife, used performance-enhancing drugs, and lied to Congress, but somehow he escaped the Tiger treatment.  The comparisons could go on and on, but the question remains: why are the most hated athletes all Black men?  Below are just a few reasons why Black athletes are more hated than Whites.  

Racism: People will undoubtedly say that none of this has anything to do with race and the usual accusation of "pulling the race card" phrase will appear.  Funny thing is that unless someone with a white hood, burning cross and hurling the N-word is caught on YouTube, racism can never be the cause for anything remotely racist anymore. It’s like racism has been limited to racial epithets and acts of violence, while everything else can (and will most likely) be explained away.  Well, I'm sorry to say that racism still exists and to think that somehow sports is immune is really wishful thinking and just plain ignorant.  Every one of the Black athletes I've named in this article has received some sort of communication (i.e., email, standard mail, in-person comments, etc.) from someone calling them the N-word, other racial slurs, or general comments containing racial undertones.  If you ask any of the White athletes listed if the negative communications they’ve received involved their race, I'm willing to bet your annual salary that it never comes up.  This is not to say all of the negative comments and feelings directed at the Black athletes involve only race, but this does point out that none of the criticism of White athletes has a racial component.  

Lack of Interaction:  A large amount of White people in America have little to no interaction with Black people.  When I was in high school, we had a very diverse student body.  One year, we had a young (White) girl transfer to our school from Idaho.  She was acting weird one day and the teacher (got to love conscious and intuitive educators) asked her if something was wrong.  She answered that she’d never seen a Black, Latino, Asian or Middle Eastern person except for television.  She also admitted that the only Black people she saw were on sitcoms like "The Jeffersons" and "Good Times", along with sports on the news.  Needless to say, she was a little disturbed when she arrived at our high school since her only reference points were J.J. Evans, George Jefferson or Magic Johnson.  So, if you have no experience with different communities in a meaningful way (besides eating Chinese, Soul, Mexican or Indian food), then chances are you're going to view different people as "others," and we don't usually have a positive reaction to "otherness."  Even if Whites have some real interaction with people of color beyond exposure through TV, it's usually not a reciprocal relationship, meaning, there is very little equal understanding, empathy and experiential learning shared.  

White privilege/bias in the media:  For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, please see the following short essay by Peggy McIntosh: White Privilege  As I mentioned earlier, the majority of sports writers are White.  Of course, many in the media will be defensive because they do not feel they have any bias or prejudice.  I’m sure each can claim that, "one of my best friends is Black," however that’s as odd and irrelevant as ever.  There are plenty of men who have wives and daughters, but they can be just as sexist as single men with no kids.  The point is that we all have biases and prejudice, so the first thing we have to do is realize our biases in order to control or eliminate them. We have to ask ourselves if we are receiving facts, or opinions based on someone else’s factual interpretation.  Receiving unbiased facts allows us to generate our own viewpoints and opinions, while accepting another person’s opinion as fact tells us what to think and may reinforce a preconceived thought with little to no factual analysis done by the reader or the author.  (Please see Fair and Accuracy In Reporting's (FAIR) short memo on how racial bias persists in the media.) To really illustrate the point of conscious and unconscious bias, consider this scenario:  Just imagine if women's sports were mostly (90%) covered by male reporters.  Do we really think that male bias and privilege would not be a part of the information we receive?  Do we really think that some of the female perspectives wouldn't be lost by having 90% of the information and news reported by men?  Now couple that unintentional bias with generations of sexism and gender discrimination in American society, which we’ve all been exposed to at some level. Under this scenario we would receive quite a bit of gender bias within the coverage of women's sports.  The same is true in the media coverage of major sports involving men – Black men who are reported about and analyzed by mostly White men.  

Identity Politics: The majority of white reporters/editors and White Americans identify with other Whites. This is one of the main reasons why they do not vilify White athletes in the same manner as Black athletes.  Whites see other Whites as a reflection of themselves no matter how different they may be, and consequently desire to be and identify with those White athletes. These are things that they can never do with Black athletes regardless of how many jerseys they buy or how many times they watch black athletes play. So what does this mean?  It means that White athletes are given the benefit of the doubt, not scrutinized as hard, and reported about in a much more relative manner than Black athletes, because White athletes are viewed differently than Black athletes. 

Bias and hypocrisy against Black athletes can be traced back to Jack Johnson, Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, Mahmoud Abdul Rauf, and many others.  Sports, like Hollywood and the military, needs a bad guy.  The American psyche needs a villain so that it can invent a hero or Great White Hope.  It is true that there are a lot of reasons to dislike a particular athlete, but it is no coincidence that all of the most hated, scrutinized and vilified athletes are Black men.  As I reflect on the disproportionate amount of “hate” almost strictly reserved for Black athletes, I’m reminded of an old African Proverb:  "Until Lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter."  

A Black History Month Retrospective

A BLACK HISTORY MONTH RETROSPECTIVE: WILLIE LYNCH WIN, LOSE OR DRAW

Whether you believe the Willie Lynch Letter (WLL) is real or fake is really not the point of the post.  Even if the letter is fake, that shouldn’t stop us (especially black/African heritage people) from examining the concepts within the letter and looking at where we are today. Black people are not a monolithic group and just like there are many shades of black people, many of us think differently about issues and aren’t representative of some of the negative characteristics mentioned in the WLL.  There is always something about generalizations that set people off and the observations in this post are not intended to represent every black person you know or have come into contact with on this earth.  However, there are some general attributes that are common to a large majority of black neighborhoods/communities and that’s where the greatest hits will focus on today.  

As you can see from the WLL, the whole point of Willie’s method was to have black people self-impose mental, physical, emotional and spiritual chains on each other for hundreds of years. Here is a question for you to consider: Did Willie, Whitey, slave master, and countless shady Negroes succeed in their objective?  

Light vs. Dark

We can all agree that this has been an enormous issue for hundreds of years and is still an issue today.  However, it’s pretty debatable as to whether black people carry disdain or distrust based on the various shades within our community.  Some still think light, damn near white equals good, while black, darker skin equals bad.  If we happen to see black people as models, up until recent times most of them have been light skinned.  Along with other industries besides modeling, lighter complexion often opened up doors closed off to darker skinned blacks.  It’s no secret that many black people continue to internalize American/European beliefs that lighter skin blacks are smarter and safer to be around than darker blacks.  I want to say this issue has improved over the years, but it’s hard to remove hundreds of years of internalized oppression just because white people “allowed” black people to go to school with them.  VERDICT: WILLIE WINS

Old Blacks vs. Young Blacks

The WLL states you must pit the old black person versus the young black person.  It would be easy to say that Willie and the crew didn’t succeed at this endeavor because black people tend to revere and defer to our elders, especially “Big Momma”, “Madere”, “Poppa” and so on.  Often, older members of our families lived with us and because they cared for us as child, we naturally cared for them in their golden years.  However, as times have changed, families are less connected and we have sections of town rather than neighborhoods and communities.  Young people believe older people can’t move forward because they are stuck in the past, while older people can’t understand a younger generation that doesn’t seem to care about its history that may lead them down a path to repeat a terrible past.  Leadership opportunities within black communities often mean a person must have some gray hair (or no hair) in order to be considered a legitimate and essential stakeholder.  Young blacks only know of integration and believe anything less would be taking a step backward, as if all-black neighborhoods, schools, universities, and communities didn’t yield some of the greatest achievers (despite the obstacles) the world has ever known.  I think it’s too early to say whether Willie and crew succeeded in pitting young versus old, but it’s not looking good.  VERDICT: DRAW

Female vs. Male

Black men and women love one another and that can be seen in many black families across the nation.  Are there issues between black men and women?   Yes, but that can be said for men and women throughout the United States.  Regardless of race, divorce rates are 50% or higher in most areas; domestic violence statistics seem to get worse every year; and, there remains a gender gap in terms of annual income.  Despite the fact these are universal American issues, the negative aspects within each category are magnified within the black community.  The divorce rate among black people is higher than the national average; domestic violence-related crimes are reported at a higher rate within the black community; and, the income gap between black men and women still remains albeit not as large as other groups but these numbers do not include the staggering unemployment rate of black men as compared to the rest of the population. The number of single-parent households (for whatever reason) within the black community is disheartening and debilitating at times.  In no way are marriage, heterosexual and/or dysfunctional relationships the only answer because as mentioned earlier, people get divorced all the time; but that’s no excuse for both parents not to be in their children’s lives.  If we analyzed the type television images or music lyrics that often portray black men and women as dysfunctional and natural enemies, the situation looks even worse. When did “pimping” women or cultivating a “sponsor” replace love and respect?  The categories mentioned in this section are not all encompassing and they are limited in terms of measuring the strain or animosity between black women and men.  However, they do illustrate that the division between black men and women exists and has major ramifications on and within the community.  VERDICT: WILLIE WINS

Distrust and Envy

Again, these two concepts are not uniquely housed within the black community.  That fact alone doesn’t mean Willie loses.  We have to ask ourselves: Have distrust and envy distinctively affected our community in such a way that perpetuates a cycle of stunted growth and in some cases, death?  Am I my brother’s (or sister’s) keeper?  There are several issues and areas within the community that should give us pause.  First, the unconscionable number of black-on-black crimes, especially murder, in the U.S. is truly astonishing.  Do we do these things to each other for “justifiable” reasons or are we conditioned to distrust and hate one another in a manner that suggests that black lives aren’t worth much to us?  Second, the level of distrust among black men and women is mentioned above, so no need to rehash that subject. Finally, in this area of distrust and envy, we have to really examine how integration or at least our attempts at integration leave us distrustful of our own community.  Many of us growing up in the U.S. have been conditioned to believe black is bad and white is good.  This inferior-superior complex we have internalized has made us look for truth, goodness and justice outwardly rather than within ourselves.  Since the end of segregation, we don’t support (i.e., trust) black businesses anymore; we don’t support Historically Black Colleges and Universities anymore; we don’t support black news media and outlets anymore; and many of us are often afraid to live in own communities anymore.  We envy what other communities have, but we aren’t willing to sacrifice to obtain those goals.  Before integration, black communities depended on each other.  We had our own doctors, attorneys, retail stores, auto dealerships, colleges, parks, etc.  When integration became the new law, we immediately ran to the other establishments to the detriment of our own.  Somehow, we were led or wanted to believe that the non-black establishment, item, perspective, or whatever was better.  We trust others to do for us what we used to do for ourselves and at the end of the day we have ask ourselves, are we any better because of it?  VERDICT: WILLIE WINS

Final Thoughts

White flight, school segregation, racism within the entertainment industry, and the lack of positive black male and female images everywhere demonstrates on a daily basis that other groups directly or indirectly would prefer not to integrate with us.  We continue to trust that the “good” ones in those other groups will become enlightened and all of the ills within our community will change rather than trust ourselves to be the change we want to see in others.  How can we change the vicious cycle from repeating itself?  

In the spirit of Black History Month, we must do what our ancestors did everyday to sustain their communities.  First, we must love each other.  Yes, I’m fully aware of the old adage that states, “All of my skin folk, ain’t my kin folk.”  There are members of our community who must be held accountable for their actions.  However, we must start from a place of love with them and ourselves if we want to make a positive change in the black community.  Our ancestors loved, trusted and respected themselves and one another and we are a living testament of those principals. That brings me to the second way we can make a change and that’s with taking responsibility for loving, educating and developing our children.  If we continue to expect others to educate, develop and love our kids, we are doomed to repeat these cycles.  If you don’t have any children, become a mentor, tutor, big brother/sister, godfather/mother, role model, coach, friend or any sort of positive influence within a child or teenager’s life. Those acts of giving are the best examples of love and will help our younger generation understand the true meaning of their value not only to themselves, but also to our entire community.  

They say there are only two emotions in life: love and fear.  Black people have had enough self-inflicted and external fear directed at our community, but we have an opportunity to love ourselves individually and collectively in order to heal, as well excel in the future.  So, as we reflect on past failures, achievements and successes during Black History Month, let’s learn from previous mistakes and love each other so that Willie Lynch can be a thing of the past.

“I AM BECAUSE WE ARE” (African Proverb)