Category Archives: Injustices and the world we live in

My piece with James Braxton Peterson “Exceptional Brutality: Police Violence on Campus”

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Exceptional Brutality: Police Violence on Campus

by David J. Leonard and James Braxton Peterson | NewBlackMan

Like many, we have been outraged by recent episodes of police violence at UC Berkeley and UC Davis in recent weeks. The sight of police officers brutalizing men and women with batons and pepper spray is antithetical to justice. Yet, we have also become increasingly uncomfortable with the public discourse, one that has given an inordinate amount of attention to these instances, treating them as unique and exceptional rather than indicative of systemic state-sanctioned violence. The overall tone of shock works from an idea that police violence should not happen on American college campuses. But in the absence of a similar level of outrage resulting from police violence in urban communities throughout the United States we are left wondering about the dangers in this exceptional discourse. For example, in her otherwise powerful call for leadership, Cathy Davidson asks, “How could this be happening at Davis—and at other campuses too? Why are students who are peaceably protesting being treated like criminals?” Rather than asking how could this happen at college campuses, shouldn’t we be asking how could this happen anywhere? How can any person be subjected to repression, violence, and instruments of dehumanization? A discourse that imagines police violence, whether bully-club justice or pepper spray, as proper when dealing with criminals rather than students gives us pause because of its inability to advance justice for all.

Similarly Bob Ostertag, in “Militarization Of Campus Police,” furthers the denunciation of the violence at UC Davis through the systematic juxtaposition of students from real-criminals.

And regulations prohibit the use of pepper spray on inmates in all circumstances other than the immediate threat of violence. If a prisoner is seated, by definition the use of pepper spray is prohibited. Any prison guard who used pepper spray on a seated prisoner would face immediate disciplinary review for the use of excessive force. Even in the case of a prison riot in which inmates use extreme violence, once a prisoner sits down he or she is not considered to be an imminent threat. And if prison guards go into a situation where the use of pepper spray is considered likely, they are required to have medical personnel nearby to treat the victims of the chemical agent.

Apparently, in the state of California felons incarcerated for violent crimes have rights that students at public universities do not.

Beyond the establishment of a binary that situates students in an oppositional relationship to felons, the logic here leads one to conclude that students are subjected to more state violence than those subjected to incarceration within the Prison Industrial Complex. Worse yet, if anyone should be subjected to pepper stray, it should be felons who within the national imagination are both undesirable and dangerous, unworthy and suspect. In yet another layer of news media irony, these recent displays of brutal and inhumane police force reaffirm the reluctance of black, brown, and poor folk to enter into the Occupy movement in the first place. The specter of police brutality haunts poor, black, and brown communities. Students’ experiences – with this commonly experienced interface between citizens and those charged with protecting citizens – garner lead-story status while daily victims struggle to find any modicum of public support, or media coverage, much less – justice.

The sentiment of exceptionalism is not limited to the public reaction to police violence at UC Davis. It was equally evident in the wake of police brutally attacking members of Occupy Berkeley as part of their efforts to disperse the group and remove tents. Prompting widespread condemnation from the ACLU and the National Lawyers Guild, from various national commentators including Stephen Colbert, the police violence against Berkeley students elicited a disproportionate level of attention. In our estimation, the attention and the rhetorical tone reflects the presumed exceptionalism of these instances and the presumed innocence and humanity reserved for students.

Continue reading @ NewBlackMan: Exceptional Brutality: Police Violence on Campus.

NewBlackMan: Book Review | The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World

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Book Review | The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World

Daring Then, Daring Now: The John Carlos Story

Book Review by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

Having studied the 1968 Olympic protest, having conducted an interview with Harry Edwards on the revolt of the black athlete, and being someone dedicated to understanding the interface between sports, race and struggles for justice, I was of course excited about the publication of John Carlos’ autobiography, The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment that Changed the World. Written with Dave Zirin, the book provides an inspiring discussion of the 1968 Olympics without reducing the amazing life of John Carlos to the 1968 Olympics. More than 1968 or the protests in Mexico City, it chronicles a life of resistance, of refusing to accept the injustices that encompass the African American experience.

John Carlos challenged American racism from an early age. Readers learn of a young man who “went around Harlem handing out food and clothes like Robin Hood and his merry men in Technicolor” (p. 21). Recognizing the level of poverty and injustice in Harlem, and refusing to stand idly by, a young Carlos would break into freight trains to steal food with the purpose of giving it to those who had been swallowed up by the system.

The experience of stealing groceries and good and giving the people something for nothing was positive. Just doing this kind of so-called work opened up my mind and got me to notice what was going on around me. I couldn’t turn my back when I saw evidence of discrimination in the community. I captured it in my mind every time I saw anyone in my neighborhood mistreated by the police (p. 27).

These experiences, like his having to give up on the dream of becoming an Olympic swimmer as a result of societal racism, not only politicized Carlos, but also instilled in him a passion and commitment to help others reach their dreams. It taught about the power and necessity of imagining and fighting for “freedom dreams.”

The John Carlos Story chronicles the ways he has lived a life guided by the philosophy articulated by Fredrick Douglas that “power concedes nothing without demand.” From his organizing a strike at his high school against “the nasty slop they called ‘food’” (p. 33) to his insistence that the manager at the housing protects where he lived address the problem of caterpillars in the courtyard, John Carlos demanded accountability and justice long before 1968.

His book illustrates the level of courage he has shown throughout his life. When the manager refused to address the caterpillar problem, which prevented his mother from joining others in the courtyard because of allergic reactions, Carlos once again lived by the creed: power concedes nothing without demand. John Carlos has lived a life of demanding justice and in the face of refusal demanding yet again. He describes his response in this case as follows:

Then I took the cap off the can and doused the first tree in front of me with gasoline. Then I reached for a box of long, thick wooden matches. After that first tree was soaked, I struck one of the stick matches against my zipper and threw it at the tree and watched. It was a sought: the fire just as that tree like it was a newspaper and turned it into a fireball of fried caterpillars (p. 41).

The compelling life that Carlos and Zirin document extends beyond his youth further reveals a life dedicated to justice. His refusal to accept the racism and the mistreatment experienced while living in Texas encapsulates how America’s racism and systematic efforts to deny both the humanity and citizenship of African Americans compelled Carlos’ activism as a young man and ultimately as an Olympian.

The protest at the 1968 Olympics should not be a surprise given the racial violence experienced by Carlos and his brothers and sisters throughout United States (and the world at large).

Continue reading @ NewBlackMan: Book Review | The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World.

NewBlackMan: Is the NBA Lockout About Race?

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Is the NBA Lockout About Race?

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

thought I would write a follow-up to my piece, “Bill Simmons and the Bell Curve: The ‘limited intellectual capital’ of the NBA’s Players” which has elicited a significant reaction.   It should be clear from the outset, I am not interested in conversations about individuals, intention, or motivation.  To paraphrase the always-brilliant Jay Smooth, the conversations should focus around what has been said, what has been done, and what all of this means in a larger context rather than the individual actors.  The discussion needs to be about how ideology, narrative, and frames operate within these larger discussions. 

One of the common responses to Bill Simmons’ commentary and more specifically the criticism directed at me for reflecting on the racial meaning in those comments has been that Simmons was talking about all NBA players, not just those who are black.  Given the racial demographics of the league and the racial signifiers associated with basketball, it is hard to accept the idea that “NBA player” isn’t a mere code for blackness.  In other words, blackness and basketball become inextricably connected within the dominant imagination, akin to Kathryn Russell-Brown’s idea of the criminal blackman.  Just as the “criminal Blackman” exists as contained identity within the dominant white imagination, the blackballer functions in similar ways. 
The process of both essentializing and bifurcating the black baller is evident in the very distinct ways that the white racial frame conceives of both white and black players, playing upon ideas of intelligence and athleticism.  Whereas the blackballer is imagined as athletic, naturally gifted, and physically superior, white basketball players are celebrated for their intelligence, work ethic, and team orientation.  In Am I Black Enough for You, Todd Boyd identifies a dialectical relationship between racialization and styles of play where whiteness represents a “textbook or formal” style basketball, which operates in opposition “street or vernacular” styles of hooping that are connected to blackness within the collective consciousness.   In both styles of play, notions of intelligence, mental toughness, and mental agility are centrally in play. 
A second and widely circulated denunciation against those critical voices has been our lack of fairness or the double standards of this portion of the discourse.  Whereas I honed in on Simmons’ comments, little has been made about those of Jason Whitlock (Bryant Gumbel has been the at the center of media commentary).  Lets be clear: the comments of Jason Whitlock, irrespective of intent, are worthy of criticism in that his recent commentary plays upon and reinforces dominant narratives and frames about race and blackness.  Looking at his comments, alongside with those of Simmons, further illustrates the ways in which ideologies are circulated, and how commentaries such of these cannot be understood outside of these larger contexts.

 

A belief in the superiority of white intelligence has been commonplace within American history.  This remains the case today. In one earlier study (during 1990s; see here for another source) about the persistence of racial stereotypes, the author found the following:

More than half the survey respondents rated African Americans as less intelligent than whites. Fifty-seven percent of non-African Americans rated African Americans as less intelligent than whites and thirty percent of African Americans themselves rated African Americans as less intelligent than whites. Sixty-two percent of the entire sample rated African Americans as lazier than whites and more than three out of four survey respondents said that African Americans are more inclined than whites to prefer welfare over work.

In a 2010 study about race and politics, researchers at the University of Washington found that stereotypes about blacks as it relates to intelligence, work ethic, and trust-worthiness remain prominent. Another recent study about race, politics, and stereotypes found that while there has been slight progress in terms of the rejection of longstanding prejudices, they remain constant within the national discourse. 

Continue reading (there is more) @ NewBlackMan: Is the NBA Lockout About Race?.

“We’re a culture, not a costume.” STARS, a student org at Ohio University « Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

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“We’re a culture, not a costume” is campaign by STARS, a student organization at Ohio University.  Their efforts to highlight the issue of racial costumes and parties is truly amazing

 

 

 

 

This mission of the group is as follows: “to educate and facilitate discussion about racism and to promote racial harmony and to create a safe, non-threatening environment to allow participants to feel comfortable to express their feelings.”

via “We’re a culture, not a costume.” STARS, a student org at Ohio University « Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

My newest piece @NewBlackMan: Bill Simmons and the Bell Curve: The “limited intellectual capital” of the NBA’s Players

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Bill Simmons and the Bell Curve:

The “limited intellectual capital” of the NBA’s Players

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

Like many sports writers, Bill Simmons has used his columns this week to condemn NBA players, ostensibly blaming them for the cancellation of games. On Friday, he offered the following that put the onus on the players:

Should someone who’s earned over $300 million (including endorsements) and has deferred paychecks coming really be telling guys who have made 1/100th as much as him to fight the fight and stand strong and not care about getting paid? And what are Garnett’s credentials, exactly? During one of the single biggest meetings (last week, on Tuesday), Hunter had Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce and Garnett (combined years spent in college: three) negotiate directly with Stern in some sort of misguided “Look how resolved we are, you’re not gonna intimidate us!” ploy that backfired so badly that one of their teams’ owners was summoned into the meeting specifically to calm his player down and undo some of the damage. (I’ll let you guess the player. It’s not hard.) And this helped the situation … how? And we thought this was going to work … why?

Congratulations, players — you showed solidarity! You showed you wouldn’t back down! You made things worse, and you wasted a day, but dammit, you didn’t back down! Just make sure you tell that to every team employee who gets fired over these next few weeks, as well as to all the restaurant and bar owners near NBA arenas who are taking a massive financial hit through the holidays. I’m sure they will be proud of you.

Beyond trotting out the “angry black man” trope, which seems to be commonplace within the NBA punditry, and blaming the players for the forthcoming unemployment facing many employees within of the NBA, Simmons hinges his evidence about the incompetence of the players by citing the amount of formal college education of Piece, Bryant and Garnett. In other words, people are losing jobs and fans are losing games because the NBA is at the mercy of its stupid/uneducated black players. And, Simmons wasn’t done here, offering additional clarity about his comments in “Behind the Pipes: Into the Arms of the NHL.” Explaining why he started going to hockey games, Simmons once again returns to the lockout or better said the player caused cancellation of games. In this column (sandwiched in between his general arrogance, dismissive rhetoric, and overly simplistic analysis that presumes sports exists in his theoretical mind and not reality), he writes

Where’s the big-picture leadership here? What’s the right number of franchises? Where should those franchises play? What’s worse, losing three franchises or losing an entire season of basketball? What’s really important here? I don’t trust the players’ side to make the right choices, because they are saddled with limited intellectual capital. (Sorry, it’s true.) The owners’ side can’t say the same; they should be ashamed. Same for the agents. And collectively, they should all be mortified that a 16-hour negotiating session, this late in the game, was cause for any celebration or optimism. In my mind, it was more of a cry for help.

Unusually Simmons offer some blame for the owners. As the intelligent ones, they have an obligation to fix the situation. Although they have the intelligence they allow the players, who lack intelligence, to have input in the situation. To Simmons, this is the source of the NBA’s problem.

The racial paternalism here is as striking as are his efforts to resuscitate the bell curve. What we are left with is an argument that the NBA faces a lockout because those who possess the requisite intelligence, who posses the proper fitness, have failed to control their inferior players. Michael Eric Dyson described such rhetoric as central to the history of American white supremacy: “Skepticism about black intelligence and suspicion about black humanity have gone hand in hand throughout the history of this country in feeding the perception that black people don’t quite measure up.” Writing about black male athletes and processes of representation, Ben Carrington invokes Frantz Fanon, who wrote about the incompatibility of blackness and intelligence within the white imagination. Carrington notes Fanon’s exploration of the ways in which blackness was conceptualized and envisioned through white supremacy:

When Fanon gives his white patients a word association test, it is significant to note how often his respondents mention either sports, or prominent black athletes of the period. Fanon informs us that the word, ‘Negro brought forth biology, penis, strong, athletic, potent, boxer, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Senegalese troops, savage, animal, devil, sin’. For Fanon, the black male was the repository of white fears, fantasies and desires, and of all of these constructions, there was one figure above all others that held a central place within the colonial imaginary: ‘There is one expression that through time has become singularly eroticized: the black athlete’.

In reading Simmons, it is clear that the black athlete remains both eroticized and demonized, a repository for white fears, fantasies, and desires, as well as a rhetorical space to articulate white fantasies, desires, and ideas about whiteness. It is no wonder that Simmons recycles the bell curve, explaining the lockout as simply a violation of nature or what happens when the intellectually inferior get to have input in a world where adults should make those important decisions.

Post script:

This is not a question of intent or even individuals, but the ways in which larger narratives and the white racial frame (stereotypes about
intelligence, athleticism) plays out within public discourse.  This is a discussion of the words, the ideology, and the history within them and how
they impact OUR collective discussions.  It is one of stereotypes and the assumptions that are embedded within our language.  It is the ways in which
race and a history of racism imprisons our assumptions and the ways that it impacts our collective imagination.  This is NOT a commentary on Simmons as a person or him at all but the words themselves, which have a larger social context, that carry with them assumptions and history.  Those assumptions, those ideas, and the ideologies guides my discussion and the ways in which those assumptions cloud both the discourse and policy inside and outside of the NBA

via NewBlackMan: Bill Simmons and the Bell Curve: The “limited intellectual capital” of the NBA’s Players.

NewBlackMan: Ain’t Much Black in the Fall Classic: Racial Diversity and Baseball

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Ain’t Much Black in the Fall Classic: Racial Diversity and Baseball

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

The World Series is set to start on Wednesday between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers. Much will be made of the pageantry, the Cinderella story surrounding the Cardinals, who only made into the playoffs on the final day of the seasons, the Rangers’ attempt to finally win a title, and of course the redemption story of Josh Hamilton (whiteness has its power). Yet, there are more stories to be hold, one being what this World Series tell us about diversity and baseball, and more importantly what the racial and national demographics of the “American past time” tell us about large social forces.

While the National Championship series highlighted an overwhelming number of African American baseball players (8), the World Series won’t showcase a similar level of diversity; as the Cardinals possess 4 African Americans on its roster (Edwin Jackson, Arthur Rhodes, John Jay, and Adron Chambers), Rangers will only suit up a single African American player (Darren Oliver). Representing 10%, this still exceeds the league-wide number, which stands at 8.5%. Mac Engel describes the state of baseball’s diversity in “Baseball continues to see fewer black players:”

For a variety of reasons, from societal to financial, the sport can’t seem to reverse the trend of fewer African-Americans playing baseball.

The University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports reported this year that the number of blacks in baseball is down to 8.5 percent. The percentage of Latinos is 27 percent. The percentage for African-Americans in MLB is at its lowest level since 2007. When the institute began to track the figure in 1990, 17 percent of all MLB players were African-American. Beginning in 1997, the number has steadily decreased for a variety of reasons.

The consequences of closed parks, globalization, specialization of sports, prohibitive costs, a failing school systems, and expanded prison system has been the steady erosion of baseball. The last thirty years have seen the re-segregation of baseball, an ironic twist given its importance within the larger history of sports integration. From 1990-2000, blacks presence in professional baseball decline from 18% of the league’s players to 13%; in the ten years since, the number has continued to decline, with prospects even worse for the future. While the lack of black baseball roles models and the presumed incapability between an authentic black identity and baseball certainly part of the story, segregation and the systematic divestment, dismantling and destruction of the institutional spaces that produced past generations of black ball players is key to understanding the waning black place within “America’s Past Time.”

The declining presence of African American baseball players, almost 65 years after Jackie Robinson reintegrated professional baseball, transcends the numbers, with the shrinking influence and importance, evidence by the lack of African American star power. It is also evident in the absence of younger African American talent. Two of the players are older than me (Arthur Rhodes and Darren Oliver) revealing beyond the numbers how the systematic destruction of the infrastructure that produced both the great African American stars of yesteryear and the role players has left a barren future for African Americans in baseball

The World Series will equally highlight the impact of globalization, with a total of 17 players coming from outside the United States (8 from the Dominican Republic, 3 hailing from Venezuela, 2 coming from Japan and Mexico). Two Cardinal players hail from Puerto Rico, which has historically produced a large number of Major League players. Similar to their African American brothers, recent history has seen a precipitous decline amongst the professional ranks, which in part reflect the limited development and focus on cultivating talent. Despite its neocolonial status (or maybe because of it), players from Puerto Rico are subjected to the MLB draft, impacting Puerto Rican presence within the game (teams won’t want to invest in players that they might not be to sign). In “Puerto Rico’s Pipeline Has Been Running Low,” Ken Belson reflects on the changing place of Puerto Ricans within Major League Baseball

The pipeline of prospects from the island, once rich with potential Hall of Fame talent, has narrowed as major league teams focus on cheaper and more plentiful prospects from Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

In 2009, only 3.5 percent of position players in Major League Baseball came from Puerto Rico, a 24-year low. Meanwhile, the percentage of Cuban and Venezuelan position players has nearly doubled in the last decade.

While the mere mention of the declining numbers of African Americans and Puerto Rican players, or the efforts to highlight the global influences on the game often sets off resistance to the mere introduction of race and politics in the game (see here for a vivid example), we can learn much about larger issues of injustice, social change, economic inequality, and global politics by examining the rosters of this year’s World Series competitors.

Continue reading @ NewBlackMan: Ain’t Much Black in the Fall Classic: Racial Diversity and Baseball.

NewBlackMan: Not About a Salary, but a Racial Reality: The NBA Lockout in Technicolor

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Not About a Salary, but a Racial Reality: The NBA Lockout in Technicolor

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

With the NBA lockout reaching a new low (or a return low) with David Stern’s announcement of the cancellation of the first two weeks, the class of pundits have taken to the airwaves to lament the developments, to asses blame, and offer suggestions of where to go from here. Not surprisingly, much of the commentaries have blamed players for poor tactical decisions, for wasting any potential they may have had over the summer, and for otherwise being too passive. Take Harvey Araton, from The New York Times, who while arguing that the players will need to take risks in order to secure leverage, speculates about a potential missed opportunity:

If it sounds unrealistic to suggest that the modern player might have considered striking first — or at least threatening one before last spring’s playoffs — that is only because the tactic has become virtually anathema, which is a mighty curious weapon for a union to concede.

While on the phone, Fleisher looked up the language in the expired collective bargaining agreement on Pages 264-265 that prohibited players from impeding N.B.A. operations. But supposing the players had gone ahead and walked out on the eve of the playoffs after they’d all been paid their regular-season hauls?

Fleisher guessed they would have opened themselves and their individual contracts up to a court action. Or maybe the owners — petrified at the thought of their profit season being flushed — might have agreed to a no-lockout pledge for the start of this season. Who knows? But sometimes risk begets reward.

While abstract at a certain level, the argument makes sense. Had the players been more aggressive, had they taken steps earlier, had they capitalized on past leverage, the situation might be different. Yet, we don’t live in an abstract world. The realities on the ground precluded such steps (see here for my past discussion). If the efforts to blame players, to demonize them as greedy, selfish, and out-of-touch during a LOCKOUT is any indication how the public might have reacted to a player strike, especially one starting at the playoffs, the strategy suggested here is pure silliness.

Moreover, it fails to understand the ways in which race operates in the context of sports and within broader society. The public outcry against LeBron James for exercising his rights of free agency, the condemnation of Deron Williams or Carmelo Anthony for deciding that they wanted to play elsewhere, and the overall vitriol directed at players illustrates both the impossibility of any player leverage and the ways in which race undermines any structural power the players may enjoy. The owners possess the power of the racial narrative that both guides public opinion and fan reaction.

We can make similar links to the larger history of African American labor struggles, where black workers have struggled to secure support from the public at large because of longstanding ideas of the lack of fitness/desirability of African Americans in the labor force. In other words, fans, just as the public in past labor struggles, see the black body as inherently undeserving and thus any demands for fairness, equality, and justice are seen as lacking merit. On all counts, the commentaries fail to see the ways and which blackness and anti-black racism constraints the tools available to the players.

Even those commentaries that ostensibly exonerate the players in highlighting David Stern’s strategy of throwing the players under the proverbial racial bus (his race card) with the hopes that the public will ultimately turn against the players (mostly there already) erases race from the discussion. For example, in “Stern ducks, lets NBA players take hit,” Adrian Wojnarowski highlights the difficulty facing NBA players and how that reality guides the intransigent position from the firm of Stern and owners. “So, there was the biggest star in the sport waddling onto the sidewalk on 63rd Street in Manhattan on Monday night without the kind of big-stage, big-event scene that the commissioner always loves for himself in the good times,” he writes. “He knows the drill now: Step out of the way, and let the angry mobs run past him and the owners. Let them chase his players down the street, around the corner and all the way to the lockout’s end and beyond.”

Continue reading @ NewBlackMan: Not About a Salary, but a Racial Reality: The NBA Lockout in Technicolor.