posted by Sam Richards

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:

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Diana Nicholson, the mother of Taraha Shenice Nicholson, is comforted during a news conference in Tarboro, N.C.

posted by Sam Richards

Part of this story is about social class…maybe most of it is. I don’t know and nobody does. Race and class are so intertwined that they’re impossible to disentangle. My raised eyebrow to the fool who says it’s all clear to him or her.

All I know is that when I read this story I cannot even possibly imagine that these events would be silenced if the victims were middle class, and certainly not middle class and white. I really don’t expect the media outlets to cover every negative and sad event from across the land, but I have to wonder how much a life is worth and why some lives are worth more than others.

Read the story and chew on the question that is embedded into that last statement. It’s going to take you a few minutes, but it should keep you thinking. HERE IS THE LINK TO THE STORY.

UPDATE: Perhaps you’ve been following the case of the man in Cleveland who tortured and killed 10-11 women whose bodies were buried or hidden in his house in a poor section of the city. The man is black, as were most (perhaps all) of the women. This case juxtaposes well with the one in North Carolina in that the relatives of the missing Cleveland women all report that the police entirely disregarded their attempts to report someone as a “missing person.” In one case the aunt of a missing woman was (purportedly) told to just sit tight because her niece would return “when all of the drugs were gone.” It seems as though the message is the same: the rape, assault, and disappearance (i.e., murder) of poor and marginalized women is not really a public concern.

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posted by Sam Richards

So I heard on the radio this morning that Egypt’s most powerful (Muslim) cleric, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, has spoken out against the niqab, the full, face-covering/headscarf (not to be confused with the burka–a full body covering). He has proclaimed that these should be banned from the various schools of the Al-Azhar University. He has asserted that niqab “has nothing at all to do with Islam.”

This is from the Press Trust of India:

Cairo, Oct 9 (PTI) Egypt’s prestigious Al-Azhar University has barred students from wearing face-veils or Niqab in female-only classrooms and dormitories.
The Al-Azhar supreme council, in a statement yesterday, said that it has decided to ban students and teachers from wearing the Niqab inside female-only classrooms that are taught by women.
The ban extends to women dormitories and to schools affiliated with the university.
It said that the aim of the ban is to spread the spirit of confidence, unison, comfort and sound understanding between the teachers and their students.
The decision was announced by Sheik of Al-Azhar Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, who was recently criticised for forcing a girl to take off her face-veil inside an institute affiliated with the university.
The Muslim brotherhood, the largest opposition bloc, has asked for his removal, describing his action as part of a larger plan to de-Islamise Egypt.

This struck me because it sounds rather progressive and, dare I say, “feminist.” It does not sound at all like some proclamations I’ve heard recently by other Egyptian (Muslim) clerics. Listen to this one:

Now that’s what I’m talking about. Real machismo. I’ve always thought that God/G-d/Allah wanted straight men to have a way to unequivocally express how manly they were in their own homes so as to show that he is on our side — he is a “he,” afterall, isn’t he?

So here’s the deal. This should show all of us that Islam, like all other religions, is ripe for interpretation. I mean, c’mon, god–the g is lower case now in deference to the atheists among you–either wants women to be beaten or to not cover up. Not sure if a bikini is acceptable, but these are two very different interpretations of the will of the creator and I’m struck by how anybody at all can speak for god. Reminds me of some words I read years ago: “You can be pretty certain that you’ve created god in your own image when your god hates all of the same people and things that you do.”

I guess I’d like to leave you with the following: Just like your secular and religious leaders have different interpretations for their people’s actions, so too do the leaders of other lands and cultures. Keep that in mind the next time you hear something that sounds really crazy that has been proclaimed by one of a billion or so followers of some belief system. Perhaps it’s just that one person’s sense of reality! Maybe not every so-called follower agrees with that person — like when Ahmadinejad in Iran expresses his desire to Nuke Israel, or when the Pope decides that using condoms will not help prevent the spread of HIV.

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