Category Archives: Popular Culture Musings

NewBlackMan: Does It Have to Be The Shoes?: Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Wings”

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Does It Have to Be The Shoes?:

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Wings”

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

“It’s gotta be the shoes”—Mars Blackmon

These six words in many ways defined the late 1980s and 1990s, encapsulating the rise of hip-hop, NIKE, Michael Jordan, and the racial-class narratives embedded in each of them. For a teenager growing up in the 1980s, in many ways this phrase defines my generation. Rather than generation X, we are the “It’s gotta be the shoes generation.”

The problems inherent in such an ethos crystallized for me after watching the new video from Seattle’s very own Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

“Wings,” directed by Zia Mohajerjasbi, initially plays on the childhood memories associated with Air Jordans, ideas that likely resonate with many of this generation today.

I was seven years old, when I got my first pair

And I stepped outside

And I was like, Momma, this air bubble right here, it’s gonna make me fly

I hit that court, and when I jumped, I jumped, I swear I got so high

The joy of success on the court, of ballin’ like the big boys, was not a pure accomplishment, but one that was wrapped up in commercial ideas and commodification from the jump. The purity of being able to touch the net was never, in his mind, indicative of his own skills but that of the shoes. It had to be the shoes.

Yet, the tune (in the song and for the young boy in the video) quickly changes, away from childhood dreams and nostalgia for the sweet smell of brand-new kicks, to the painful realities about shoes.

And then my friend Carlos’ brother got murdered for his fours, whoa

See he just wanted a jump shot, but they wanted to start a cult though

Didn’t wanna get caught, from Genesee Park to Othello

Carlos’ brother, like other kids, in the 1980s, learned all too painfully about the value placed on a pair of shoes. Worth more than a life; worth more than a future; the quick transition from “wanting to be like Mike,” to fly, to stark reminder about those killed over Mike’s shoes is a powerful message. Here, Macklemore not only illustrates the value placed upon shoes but challenges listeners to think beyond the nostalgia for balling in new Jordans to remember those who died for those new air Jordans.

Yet, the song is not purely about the cultural meaning and history behind shoes, but a powerful commentary on commodification. It is a story of the valued put on shoes culturally, economically, socially, athletically, and stylistically, even though shoes are shoes.

We want what we can’t have, commodity makes us want it

So expensive, damn, I just got to flaunt it

Got to show ‘em, so exclusive, this that new shit

A hundred dollars for a pair of shoes I would never hoop in

Look at me, look at me, I’m a cool kid

I’m an individual, yea, but I’m part of a movement

My movement told me be a consumer and I consumed it

They told me to just do it, I listened to what that swoosh said

Look at what that swoosh did

See it consumed my thoughts

Highlighting the ways in which products define our sense of identity, demark coolness, and otherwise tell the world something about us, “Wings” laments the power ascribed onto shoes. It questions that stock we put into consumption and products, a process that merely enhances the stock value of companies like NIKE.

In this regard, the song and the video simultaneously show a process, the difficulty in challenging the marketing and message to say, “they are just a pair of shoes.” The allure of the American Dream, of coolness, and the product are seductive. In fact, this is part of the marketing strategies of companies like NIKE, which invest in the production of image and advertizing, all while minimizing costs of labor. In selling a dream, in selling hipness, athleticism, coolness, and an overall image, the shoes themselves and the conditions of production are erased and rendered meaningless.

Sue Collins, in “‘E’ Ticket to NIKE Town, describes this tactic as “commodity fetishism.” It is “the kind of “magic” that occurs when we displace value as a product of human labor by projecting it onto objects as if the value were inherent. Marx described a commodity as a mysterious thing because ‘in it the social character of men’s labor appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labor; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labor is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves but between the products of their labor.’” She continues as follows:

Fetishism in postmodern consumer culture entails emptying commodities of meaning or ‘hiding the real social relations objectified in them through human labor’ to make it ‘possible for the imaginary/symbolic social relations to be injected into the construction of meaning at a secondary level.’ Production, then, empties, and advertising fills, and in this way use value is subsumed by exchange value. The Nike swoosh and the Jordan brand as cultural commodities not only constitute a symbolic code, they also take on a system of significations, coded abstractions realized by “ideological labor,” to borrow from Baudrillard. In the fetish theory of consumption, the so-called magical substance of consumer products is really part of a generalized code of signs, what Baudrillard refers to as “a totally arbitrary code of difference, and that it is on this basis, and not at all on account of their use values or their innate ‘virtues,’ that objects exercise their fascination.”13 In advanced capitalism, objects lose any real connection with their practical utility and “instead come to be the material correlate (the signifier) of an increasing number of constantly changing, abstract qualities.”

Whether in the pain and suffering of those who labor in NIKE factories, or those who died over the shoes, we can see the damages resulting from commodity fetishism. “Wings” highlights the production of consumers obsessed with shoes not as a functional tool but as a commodity that encapsulates a myriad of narratives and signifiers.

What I wore, this is the source of my youth

This dream that they sold to you

For a hundred dollars and some change

Consumption is in the veins

And now I see it’s just another pair of shoes

This song spoke to me in so many ways: its message resonates with my own childhood experiences and my constant pledge of allegiance to the shoes (and the matching hats); it connects to the persistent inner battle between my critical self that understands commodity fetishism and the realities of worker conditions and the consumer in me that wants; and mostly it speaks to me as a father who increasingly struggles in helping my daughter see those shoes, sweatshirt, jeans, etc as neither sources of joy nor signifiers of cool but simply clothes. I am hoping that her generation will heed the message of “Wings” and not follow in the footsteps of the “it’s gotta be the shoes” generation.

 

via NewBlackMan: Does It Have to Be The Shoes?: Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Wings”.

NewBlackMan: Brandon Marshall and the Challenge to Mental Health Treatment Inequality

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Vulnerable:

Brandon Marshall and the Challenge to Mental Health Treatment Inequality

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

On Sunday, amid all the hoopla about the start of NFL training camp, player movement, and the start of the NFL season, Brandon Marshall quietly told the world a secret, announcing that he was living with a Borderline Personality Disorder.

Right now today, I am vulnerable, I making myself vulnerable, and I want it to be clear that this is the opposite of damage control. The only reason I am standing here today is to use my story to help others who may suffer from what I suffer from, from what I had to deal with. I can’t explain to you and paint a vivid enough picture for you guys where I been in my life, probably since the end of my rookie year.

Noting that neither the cars nor the fame, neither the success on the field nor the joys experienced off the field resulted in happiness, Marshall highlighted the despair that he has experienced during his life:

I haven’t enjoyed not one part of it and it’s hard for me to understand why . . . . One of the things I added to my prayer was for God to show me my purpose here. When I got out of the hospital, I called my videographer and I said, Rob, grab your camera and just come to my house and just start shooting. I said I’m very depressed right now, I probably won’t talk, I probably won’t even leave my theater room, but you just shoot and don’t stop shooting. I said, I don’t know where we’re going with this, I don’t know what’s going to come out of this, but something good is going to happen.

Marshall is not the first high-profile African American athlete to publicly document the struggles with mental illness. Several years ago, Ricky Williams spoke about his illness (Social Anxiety Disorder) “to up the awareness and erase the stigma.” Likewise, Ron Artest, who has publicly acknowledged his own disease, has gone beyond chronicling his own story, testifying before congress while raising money (through auctioning off his championship ring) for mental health awareness among youth.

Continue reading at  NewBlackMan: Brandon Marshall and the Challenge to Mental Health Treatment Inequality.

NewBlackMan: “No Dad at Home:” James Harrison, Colin Cowherd and the Case Against the Black Family

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“No Dad at Home:”

James Harrison, Colin Cowherd and the Case Against the Black Family

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

In a recently published article in Men’s Journal, James Harrison questions the fairness and the administrative philosophy adopted by commissioner Roger Goodell. Referring to Goodell as a “crook,” “puppet,” “dictator” and a “punk” (among others things), Harrison problematizes the ways in which race operates within the NFL. “Clay Matthews, who’s all hype — he had a couple of three-sack games in the first four weeks and was never heard from again — I’m quite sure I saw him put his helmet on Michael Vick and never paid a dime,” notes Harrison. “But if I hit Peyton Manning or Tom Brady high, they’d have fucked around and kicked me out of the league.” And: “I slammed Vince Young on his head and paid five grand, but just touched Drew Brees and that was 20. You think black players don’t see this shit and lose all respect for Goodell?”

In a lengthy piece, entitled “Confessions of a Hitman,” Harrison discusses a myriad of issues. Yet, his comments about the commissioner, and his references to racial inequality in the punishment of players, have not surprisingly prompted the most widespread media commentary and condemnation. For example, Gregg Doyel, with “Goodell is a strict disciplinarian, but he’s no racist,” scoffed at the claim the Goodell is a racist or even that he treats black players differently/unfairly (he and others may want to read the work of Herbert Simmons and Vernon Andrews – here is a second piece by Andrews).

Goodell runs his league the way strong parents run their family: With rules, with parameters, with discipline. No shortcuts. No excuses. Tough love all the way, and if the players don’t like it, well, it happens. Does a 16-year-old like it when he sneaks out for a night of drinking, gets busted, then gets grounded for three months? No, the teenager doesn’t like it. Shocking

Building upon this argument during a discussion about Doyel’s piece, ESPN’s Colin Cowherd took to the air to recycle longstanding arguments about black families, single-mothers, absentee fathers, and the purported cultural shortcomings of black America.

Here is something that is interesting, if you look at basic metrics or numbers in this country. 71% of African Americans no Dad at home; no disciplinarian. Fathers are often louder voice, the disciplinarian. Many of those kids don’t grow up with a dad, raised by mom, sister, aunts, nieces, uncles whatever.

They go to college where they are stars. And basically even their college coach, as we saw with Ohio State, pretty much lets the stars run the program. The NFL is one of the first places where many star players finally see discipline. Finally have an authoritative male figure – buck stops here, I will make all the calls, you will not get an opinion.

This was not the first time Cowherd talked about black families in relationship to sports, having questioned John Wall’s leadership abilities because of his limited relationship to his father (his father was incarcerated during Wall’s childhood, dying of liver disease when Wall was age 9).

Let me tell you something: I’m a big believer, when it comes to quarterbacks and point guards. Who’s your dad? Who’s your dad? Because I like confrontational players, I don’t like passive aggressive. Strong families equal strong leaders. Talent? Overrated. Leadership? Underrated. And you can say, well, Colin, can you just go out and say anything crazy and get people to e-mail. That’s not the point. You wouldn’t e-mail if I was an idiot, because you wouldn’t listen to the show. You listen to the show because we make good points.

I simply have a different opinion than you do on John Wall. I like the character of Derek Fisher, the rebounding and distribution ability of Rajon Rondo, that’s what I like. That’s what I want from my point guards. You celebrate the assists more than the buckets…..I know he’s great. So don’t confuse [me saying] John Wall’s no good. No, John Wall’s an A+ talent. I don’t think he’s ever gonna be an A+ win-championships point guard.

In both instances, the efforts to recycle the Moynihan report, to define father as natural disciplinarian and mother’s nurturing, to link cultural values to family structures, and to otherwise play upon longstanding racial stereotypes, is striking. However, I would like to reflect on his recent comments in a substantive way.

First and foremost, the idea that 71% of black children grow up without fathers is at one level the result of a misunderstanding of facts and at another level the mere erasure of facts. It would seem that Mr. Cowherd is invoking the often-cited statistics that 72% of African American children were born to unwed mothers, which is significantly higher than the national average of 40 %. Yet, this statistic is misleading and misused as part of a historically-defined white racial project.

Continue reading at NewBlackMan: “No Dad at Home:” James Harrison, Colin Cowherd and the Case Against the Black Family.

NewBlackMan: Locked Out and Demonized: Challenges Facing the NBA’s Black Players

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This has

Led to that

Locked Out and Demonized:

Challenges Facing the NBA’s Black Players

by David J. Leonard | special to NewBlackman

Deron Williams made it official, signing a contract with Besiktas, a top tier team in Turkey. While not the first NBA player to sign a contract as a result of the lockout, he is clearly the most high profile (superstar) to do so thus far. Others may follow suit, with Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant, Rudy Gay and Stephen Curry all noting interest in the prospects of playing overseas. Having already written on the larger implications here, in terms of both the lockout and the globalization of basketball, what is striking is how Williams’ decision to sign overseas and the possibilities from other superstars has provoked a backlash from fans and media commentators alike.

Not surprisingly the patriotism and loyalty of players has been questioned, as his been their commitment to the American fans. Similarly, players have been criticized for being greedy, whose sole motivation is to “get paid” (the fact that players were locked out by the owners often gets OBSCURED – ignored – within these discussions). Yet, what has been most striking is the systematic questioning about these players willingness to play overseas. Recycling longstanding arguments about athletes as pampered, over indulged, and spoiled, a charge that has commonplace against black athletes, these commentators both question the willingness of these players to play in non-NBA conditions all while questioning their mental toughness.

For example, Berry Tramel, in “NBA players’ threat to go overseas is weak,” seems to question the seriousness of threat, asking if, “The players want us to believe they’ll sign on to play in venues and under conditions wholly inferior to the NBA standard? In case no one has noticed, the NBA is lavish living. First-class travel. First-class accommodations. First-class officiating. First-class training staffs.” Similarly, David Whitley, with “NBA stars would get rude awakening playing overseas” further emphasizes how the NBA lifestyle that players are accustomed to, would not be available to them in Europe or China. “It would also give players a taste of how 90 percent of the hoop world lives. It isn’t finger-lickin’ good. There aren’t a lot of charter flights, much less extra-wide leather seats or five-star meals.” In “NBA lockout causing European exodus?”

Umar Ali, while acknowledging the possibility of NBA players going overseas, focused on the horrid conditions there and the spoiled nature of the players themselves.

Though the accommodations pale in comparison to what the average player receives while playing in the NBA – five-star hotel rooms, luxury vehicle transports and catered food compared to second rate rooms on the road, cramped buses and whatever is provided for sustenance – there is still enough to sway players to consider making the transition.

Ali seems to be alone with the majority of the commentaries depicting today’s players as high maintenance divas who would not accept the conditions overseas. Skip Bayless, on “First and Ten,” scoffed at the prospect of the NBA stars playing in China or Europe longer than a week “because they will not like it. They will not like the conditions; they will not like the travel; they will not like the food, the TV they aren’t able to watch.” His “debate” adversary, Dan Graziano, not surprisingly agreed, adding “The lifestyle these guys lead over here . . . if they think that will follow them to Europe or Asia . . . it will be a very short period of time before they realize they were mistaken.”

Continue reading at  NewBlackMan: Locked Out and Demonized: Challenges Facing the NBA’s Black Players.

NewBlackMan: Death Isn’t a Slave’s Freedom: The Historic Erasure of Curt Flood’s Life

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Death Isn’t a Slave’s Freedom: The Historic Erasure of Curt Flood’s Life

by David J. Leonard

| special to NewBlackMan

Nikki Giovanni once write that “death is a slave’s freedom” aptly surmising elements of Curt Flood’s life and his struggle against America’s white baseball establishment. Denounced for his efforts to challenge baseball’s slave-like conditions and crucified for his efforts to connect baseball to slavery, to American racism, Flood experienced neither vindication nor compensation in part until his death, at which time Flood tasted freedom in a certain way – freedom from the death threats, abuse, ridicule, and American racism.

Yet after watching HBO’s recent documentary The Curious Case of Curt Flood, I am less sure that “death is a slave’s freedom” in that Flood was unable to escape demonization and ridicule, as the film turned his life into a spectacle of sorts. In an effort to illustrate how the human cost faced by Flood and his family, to highlight the difficult path to redemption, the film spends an overwhelming amount of time on Flood’s personal tragedy. Evidence in the divorce from his initial wife shortly after he fought to live in an Alamo neighborhood and the financial, emotional, and physical impact on Flood during and after his suit against Major League Baseball, Curt Flood’s life is a testament to the costs of resistance and struggle.

Yet, the film goes too far in this respect, turning Flood’s life into a spectacle, a train wreck that the audience is suppose to stare and marvel at for the duration of the film. Focusing on alcoholism, fraudulent paintings and the personal demons that haunted Flood, The Curious Case of Curt Flood highlights the narrative grip that confines Flood in our contemporary moment. In “The Way It Is: HBO’s The Curious Case Of Curt Flood,” Nasir Muhammad & Stephane Dunn elucidate the film’s flaws in this regard, seemingly questioning its narrative focus on the tragedies experienced by Flood and his ultimate redemption, turning an important history into a “E’ Hollywood” story. They quote Stan Hochman, whose critiques of the film illustrate the powerful ways that death is not a slave’s freedom:

The courageous athlete who dared to challenge an unfair system is depicted as an alcoholic, a womanizer, a woeful husband, a dreadful father, a lousy businessman and a fraud who never really painted those portraits he churned out that enhanced his image as an artist . . . .In the history of warts-and-all biographies, this one slithers near the top of the list.Curt Flood was a freedom fighter. That didn’t begin with his challenge to Major League’s Baseball Reserve clause or his rhetorical links to a larger history of slavery

To continue reading head to NewBlackMan: Death Isn’t a Slave’s Freedom: The Historic Erasure of Curt Flood’s Life.

White Boy Remixed: Whiteness and Teaching Race

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White Boy Remixed: Whiteness and Teaching Race
| special to NewBlackMan

This summer I have dedicated to reading that stack of books I have been wanting to read. The 4th installment (I will write about the other three books on my blog) was Mark Naison’s memoir – White Boy. Naison, a professor of African American Studies at Fordham University, chronicles his personal, political and academic journey, responding to those who have ubiquitously asked how he as a white man became a professor of African American Studies. With a tremendous amount of honesty, openness, complexity, and vulnerability, Naison explores his own history as a teacher, activists, and source of community empowerment. While the book chronicles a powerful story of the 1960s – the anti-war movement, the Panthers, Columbia, identity politics – it is a story of a dynamic man whose life and insights teach us just as he has taught his students for several decades. In telling the story of the “white African American Studies professors, Naison offers a narrative that highlights how whiteness matters but how it does not define or over-determine the arch of his life or career. It is a story that resonates with me on so many levels, leading me to want to share my own story.

Like Mark Naison, I have been consistently asked about my entry into Ethnic Studies. In my first class at Washington State University, I had a student that constantly wanted to know my story. The student could not understand why this White guy was teaching African American film – what had lead me to be me – In the course of the class, he asked “How I can to be the Eminem of Ethnic Studies?” While the class oohed and aahed, some thinking it was a slight against me and others thinking it was a point of celebration, I saw it as a good question, one that could lead (and did) into some important conversations. Another day I had a group of students who came to my office asking me to settle a bet about how I came to Ethnic Studies, each having a different theory – (a) I grew up in the Black community; (b) I had a Black girlfriend or a Black wife who had taught and encouraged me to learn; (c) I was just down. In fact, I have been asked several times if I have a Black girlfriend who educated me about blackness, taught me to be committed and down, and pushed me down my educational and career path.

On another level, I have been asked if I am a “culture vulture,” in the tradition of Elvis, in that I am “taking” and “impersonating” something that I am not, in my educational and professional choices. I have also experienced much celebration being a white guy in ethnic studies. Most often such comments reflect desires for colorblindness as a presumed end goal; that is, my presence in Ethnic Studies supposedly embodies the fulfillment of King’s dream or a sign of progress. A student once sent me an e-mail that said that world was changing racially, for the better, because the best rapper was white, best golfer is black, best basketball player was Asian …and their ethnic studies teacher was white. Not to be outdone, a student cited my presence in Ethnic Studies as evidence of colorblindness, to discount our discussions about racism and inequality. However, what the student failed to see is whether or not their teacher was White, or the president is Black, racism remains a constant.

I am certainly defined by my whiteness, whether teaching ethnic studies or driving through Colfax; yet my relationship to Ethnic Studies, social justice struggles, my scholarship, my pedagogy, my ideology, my gaze upon the world, and my understanding of racism/privilege/inequality is not overly determined by a monolithic white identity formation. As Bakari Kitwana argues in Why White Kids Love Hip Hop, “Each Person has a unique story that brought him or her to hip-hop. Looking at the micro reasons as well as the macro ones helps us make sense of a contemporary hip-hop scene in which a new generation is affected by America’s racial history and in the process is constructing a new politics.” In others words, my arrival to and place within the field of Ethnic Studies (or a larger racialized discursive field) reflects a myriad of factors and experiences, ones that are neither defined exclusively by nor immune from the realities of whiteness, racism, and contemporary racial politics.

I grew up in Los Angeles in a middle-class family that spent most of its income on schools, not so much because of concerns of “safety” or even the quality of education available in the public school system. I went to an elementary school founded by Hollywood Communists, including Charlie Chaplin. During my life, I have never gone to school where we did not call our teachers by their first name; I did not receive “grades” until the 9th grade. More instructive, both detention and the pledge of allegiance were completely foreign concepts to me until high school. This educational background clearly established a foundation but this only tells part of the story.

Continue reading at New Black Man

Yao Ming’s Exit: Globalization and All Its Possibilities

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  MY LATEST BLOG POST FOR NEW BLACK MAN

  

Yao Ming’s Exit: Globalization and All Its Possibilities  | Special to NewBlackMan
   Yao Ming is reportedly retiring from the NBA.  A player of immense talent and potential, his career for some will be a disappointment.  While debating his on-the-court successes, whether or not he is a hall-of-famer, and the large basketball significance are interesting, I think his retirement should elicit thought and reflection about the globalization of the NBA.  His importance to the game, in global sports marketing, and in terms of larger social forces transcend the game and that has always been the case.  In 2003, when Yao’s statistics were pedestrian at best, I wrote in Colorlines about the larger significance of his arrival to the NBA.
   The star power of Yao Ming is not the result of his extraordinary stats for the Houston Rockets. He averages a respectable 13 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. The flurry of magazine covers, billboards, and television commercials featuring Yao reflect the desires of American and Chinese companies to cash in on Yao’s popularity. Beyond the efforts to sell basketball to more than 2 billion Chinese nationals, the NBA hopes to capitalize on the sudden explosion in ticket sales to the Asian American market. Asian Americans buying group packages for Rockets games represent 11 percent of the buying public, 10 percent more than last year. In cities across America, Yao attracts fans to the Rockets’ away games to such an extent that a number of stadiums, in places like Detroit, Boston, and Oakland, have offered special “Asian American nights.” When the Rockets played the Golden State Warriors this spring, the Oakland arena announced parts of the game in Mandarin. Rockets’ coach Rudy Tomjanovich frequently boasts of Yao ‘s importance in bridging cultural and political gaps. In other words, Yao is presumably schooling America about Chinese culture and history.
    Since 2003, Yao Ming’s economic, social, and cultural importance has increased tenfold.  According to a 2007 study, 89 percent of Chinese between the ages of 15 and 54 were “aware of the NBA,” with 70 percent of youth between the ages of 15 and 24 describing themselves as fans.  More recent numbers show a game increasing in popularity, despite Yao’s diminished presence.  On average, NBA games (despite being aired early in the morning) deliver 558,100 viewers; NBA.com/China generates roughly 12 million hits per day. A two billion dollar market, China has proven to be immensely important to the NBA’s global expansion and its overall financial success.