Really, this is getting out of hand and needs to stop. Not sure how or why so many people have taken it upon themselves to be such rat heads. But silly actions seem to build upon other silly actions and soon enough there is a mess to clean up. And then when the black and brown people jump into the mix, it really get’s complicated. I love how one or two people become the spokespeople for an entire group, as you’ll see in the video below. That’s very much a dead end to any conversation and dialogue.
This is rather troubling story and all the worse because this young woman was hired with the agreement that she would be wearing her head scarf while at work. While we haven’t heard from the company spokespeople, aside from the letter from which they quoted in the story, it doesn’t seem as though this fired employee was not doing her job. Hmm…
Frankly, it’s odd that in this world where most of us want to be more multicultural than we are that we don’t see lots of race/culture mixing on a show such as this. Maybe it happens on other shows…I certainly don’t know. But that it doesn’t happen on this one is odd. I wonder if this particular show caters to an slightly older (read: set in their ethnocentric ways) crowd of viewers.
So this guy, Don “Moose” Lewis, wants to start a basketball league for white guys because, among other reasons, white guys need a place to play that “traditional brand of basketball” that they know and enjoy. (That photo to the right is what the roster would look like.) It’s easy to scoff at Moose, and not just because of his nickname–because on the face of it this seems blatantly racist. But my thinking is that the issue is more complex than it first appears–and this is why I want some other people to weigh in on the matter.
Moose says “he’s filling market niche,” that there are plenty of (white) guys to don’t like the upscale tempo of basketball that is played professionally today and they should have a chance to complete in venues where they can earn a living. And there are lot of people who would (and should be allowed to) pay money to watch them play. Good point, Moose. Unfortunately for Moose, there are undoubtedly black and brown men (and women) who want to play “white ball” and so they’ll also have to have a chance to show their (white) skills in the slow lane, so to speak?
Maybe I could overlook this moose-sized oversight if Moose didn’t reveal his hand by saying the following:
“With players on other professional teams carrying guns, attacking fans in the stands, and going through the motions of playing the game, fundamentally sound [W]hite players are a vanishing species…Fans have spoken to the AABA asking to restore on court sanity to the game of basketball. Their pleas are our mission. Only players that are natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league.”
First off, the name looks like ABBA, that notoriously white band from the 1970s. Bad sign. Second, his words sound more like the standard white racist stance on black and brown people and less like a businessman responding to a market need.
Nonetheless, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and imagine that there are people out there who want to watch a slow style game that only native born white people know how to play. If so, then rock on to his bad self and let’s get to the tip off. Just don’t throw the ball too high…since the white brothers can’t….well, you know….jump. Here’s Moose explaining himself:
This article will throw a new light on the issue of the socioeconomic conditions of Native Americans. Remember that there are nearly 600 federally recognized tribes within the borders of the United States. And at least one of them is getting rich off of liquid black gold. Mind you, as you can read in the article, it is not without negative consequences that always come with sudden infusions of money into any system. But it’s worth thinking about.
Of course, oil refineries ALWAYS bring pollution and this will be no different. Pollution will destroy natural resources and harm people’s health. Cost-benefit.
This is a story that will humble most any listener. And frankly, I’d love to have every undergraduate business student in the U.S. listen to it–particularly those who assume that they’ll eventually land in six figure jobs with complimentary gold cards and regular frequent flier upgrades. (Not all do, of course, as most Penn State business majors are simply happy to get a job interview…I fully recognize that.) Nonetheless, many of them will make this kind of money, of course, and not necessarily because of their own abilities. Somebody has to fill those positions and, being staffed by mostly washrag talent from top to bottom, most companies simply reproduce what they know drawing on the vessels of empty vision and stale thinking that are available to them.
If that sounds judgmental and harsh, it is. But only because I just listened to this story and in my lifetime and travels I have met far too many people like Yvrose Jean Baptiste, the woman highlighted by NPR in this story. Had the creator/fate decided that her spirit should enter a body in a more developed nation, she’d very quickly have risen to the top and won any race or competition that required guts, determination, stamina, and outside-the-box creative thinking. This is a woman with an unmatched entrepreneurial spirit and a gutsy grit that would shame all but a few standouts on the path toward financial security here in the U.S. — people who are on THAT path only because they were born in a land a few hundred miles north of the land mass we call “Haiti.”
I hate to sound so damn uppity myself, especially because I’m pretty “wash rag” and mediocre in most of what I do, but listen to the story and then ask yourself: How would I get on in Haiti and what might Yvrose do if she had the opportunity walk through the world wearing my shoes?
I’m curious about what you all think of this. The problems of not recognizing same-sex marriage/unions are far ranging and leave deep wounds on many families….and “the children.”
