Deadspin, a dunder-headed, race-baiting, progressive foolishness blight on the web in its best days, posted that classic of Yoo’s Rationalization (“It isn’t what it is”) as its thoughtful response to the Buffalo mass shooting.
The photo was from the days following the George Floyd Freakout, as The Great Stupid began to spread over the land. Then, the NBA, like the other professional sports leagues, was falling all over itself to align with the half-baked political sensibilities of their black stars, in the NBA’s case, “their stars” period. Thus plastering the deceptively benign motto of the Marxist, racist, often violent scam movement on their game venues was the expedient thing to do, even if it wasn’t brave, helpful or ethical. Deadspin’s author of this brain-dead but woke tweet—is that redundant?—apparently thinks that there’s something sinister in the fact that millionaire athletes under contract as athlete/entertainers aren’t refusing to perform their jobs based on the predominant skin shade of the spectators who pay their salaries.
Of course, black fans were also entertained by the players. it is also important to note that the vast, vast, vast majority of professional athletes look like fools and children whenever they venture outside their extremely narrow range of knowledge and expertise. Using their barely literate, emotion- and peer pressure-driven analysis of current events as influence all but guarantees a grasp of complex issues and events as societally useful as those of Bette Midler, Joy Behar and Robert De Niro—you know: idiots.
I can’t even tell what white superiority even means any more. Pro basketball might be the worst setting to explore it. A small racial minority completely dominates the player ranks, which is spectacularly lucrative. Blacks make up an estimated 30% of the “avid fan” base as opposed to their 13+% of the population, and a white avid fan base of 10%. What exactly is the tweet trying to say? Are black athletes supposed to punish white fans when a single racist crazy goes on a shooting rampage? Even though they will be punishing more black fans? Is Deadspin saying that some kind of protest is necessary show disapproval of a mass murder? Like the NFL kneeling craze, the complaint is incoherent.
Yet impressively, the article it links to is even worse. Here is The Great Stupid in all its brain-damaged glory:
….when the NBA had “Black Lives Matter” on the floor, players had social justice slogans on their uniforms, and Adam Silver was allowing — think about that for a second — Black people to kneel because the police love shooting Black people, the NBA — and the WNBA — were prioritizing the humanity of their players. There was even a boycott of a playoff game, which caused the entire sports world to come to a halt, as players finally saw just how much power they have. But that was then, and this is now. Players aren’t getting asked how they feel about things outside of 94 feet after games as much. It’s as if basketball, or whatever sport they play, is all that should matter to them. Sideline reporters aren’t asking them about Roe v. Wade or if their loved ones are scared to go to the grocery store like they used to.
“Police love shooting black people.” This Nirvana of social consciousness was launched, you may recall, because a black man died after a thug of a cop kept his knee on the man’s neck. The statement that police love shooting black people libels a profession, a race and a nation.
Did Twitter pull the tweet as “misinformation”? No. It’s “no” because Twitter supports one large chunk of the ideological divide that sees its chance to hold power as keeping the races divided, suspicious, and hating.
Players aren’t being asked about anything other than basketball? Good. They shouldn’t be. The only thing that makes their uninformed, narrow opinions mildly interesting is that they are celebrities, otherwise, their views are worth as much as your barber’s, your unemployed cousin’s, or the guy playing the guitar on the corner. “It’s as if basketball, or whatever sport they play, is all that should matter to them”? When they are being paid to play basketball, that is all that should matter to them. It’s called work. It’s called “their job.” If they want to be activists, good luck to them and fare thee well, but that’s on their own time.
Aw, reporters aren’t asking NBA players about Roe v. Wade? Well good again. What are the odds of an NBA player knowing what Roe says, and why? I’d say close to zero. How many have read Alito’s draft? Heck, how many of the sports reporters who are supposed to be asking players about Roe have read it?
This is the Great Stupid, my friends.
And it rolls on…
Ethics Alarms 
I continue to wonder why the NBA doesn’t look like America. So, the NBA players shouldn’t be performing in front of white people. Okay, let’s have the audiences limited to blacks only. That will be great. Just like 1960s Miami where all the real basketball was being played in the Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver gyms in Overtown and Liberty City and the scores were running along the lines of 124 to 122 while the white teams were playing white basketball at a snail’s pace and the scores were 53 to 49. This anti-racism is a black separatist movement. It’s back to the future. I’m thinking separate water fountains will be next.
The same side that makes this claim is the same side calling for more gun control laws.
What do they think will happen when the police enforce the gun laws that they want?
White Supremacy has been pretty meaningless for quite a while now.
What really annoys me about this is that the “problem” pointed out here has exactly no solution that will satisfy the complainers.
Whites should be barred from watching the NBA?
Whites should stop supporting the NBA?
That is the point: no matter what happens, they will not be satisfied.
Before you know it, we are back to the Negro Leagues again. And, you know what they will complain about then?
White Supremacy.
-Jut
It’s getting meaningless because it’s overused. The media pays very little attention to black-on-black, black-on-white, or most other violence. However, the moment there is white-on-black violence, it’s not simple crime, it’s not a dispute that went too far, it’s not even a single kook who took his own hatred up to 11. It’s automatically an outbreak of “white supremacy.” Somehow, although no one can explain how, all white people are somehow tied to a grand conspiracy to keep the white race in, the black race out, and the other races down. There is no membership, because every white person is a member. There are no leaders, because every white leader is a leader. And even if your first thought when you wake up isn’t “boy, I hate black people. How can I screw them today?” and your last thought before you retire isn’t, “yeah, I got those black so-and-sos good today, and I’m going to get them even better tomorrow,” your every thought and act is somehow white supremacist. It shows every time you start your day with the thought other than, “how can I best use this day to lifr my black brothers’ and sisters’ burdens and clear some barriers out of their way?” It shows every time you salute the flag or just walk by the flag and don’t think “until the blacks in this country are fully equal in all wayys to the whites, that flag is a lie written on cloth.” It shows every time you take that turn to avoid what you think is the yucky area of town or you keep moving when a black person not known to you approaches you. It shows in your choice of coffee, your choice of TV shows, your choice of entertainment, and your choice of where you put your charitable resources. And it shows in how you respond to incidents like this. ,
The article needs a good fisking.
Matthew Yglesias called it the Great Awokening.
It means that two are not related.
He has just now realized.
I first began to understand stories about inner city violence thirty years ago.
The riots in Kenosha were definitely underblown.
The only reason he and his kind hate Kyle Rittenhouse is because he killed rioters; he undermined the “fiery but mostly peaceful” protest narrative.
Has he just heard of inner city violence?
Again, there is no connection between games in Boston and Phoenix and murders in Buffalo- or Waukesha.
Wait. Basketball season hasn’t ended? Huh . . .
jvb
Good fisk!!!
A minor correction: percent of population that identify as black (or African American): 13.4%
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045221#qf-headnote-a
The ethnic skew of the ‘avid” fan base is even more extreme: the 30% is the percent of the black fan base who describe themselves as “avid” fans. The percent of the overall NBA fan base who are white, Hispanic, or “other” is (according to the section “The Average Demographic Makeup of NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL Fans” at the below link) 73%. However, only 10% (14% for “other”) of these groups consider themselves “avid” fans, so just a bit less then half of the “avid” fans are black.
https://morningconsult.com/2020/09/10/sports-fan-base-demographic-data/
It would be interesting to see the percent of revenue by ethnic group (for that portion of revenue that can be broken down in this fashion — ticket and merchandise sells — does the NBA have an estimate of this?).
To correct my own correction: 14% of the Hispanic fans are in the “avid” group (“other” is 10% “avid”).
“On Sunday, four teams played in two Game 7s. The Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics were up first,”
Yet the author failed to mention that following that game there was violence that took the lives of a number of fans by other fans. Guess why.
Not sure if it was fan-on-fan and there were > 21 injured but no loss of life; the lucid can pretty much guess why it didn’t get more ink.
Thanks for the clarification paul. I had read a number of people shot and could not remember a fatality number and assumed some were fatally wounded. The story implied it was fan on fan because they tied the game to the violence. Nonetheless, the omission of the violent behavior that often follows playoff sporting events by fans and we hear nary a word from the players of any race could be interpreted as tacit approval using his logic.