Goose? Gander?

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The NBA is 78% black, and I have seen very few protests over this fact. But if an NBA team happens to be two-thirds white... well, that's outrageous!

Also, let us note well: a league that has been over 75% black for two decades is certainly not "at the forefront of diversity among America's professional sports leagues"! I personally think this is just fine: the NBA's teams should be free to hire whomever they think can play ball the best, and if a team is 100% black (as has surely happened), well, so be it: that's their choice for the best team they can field. But it is kind of ludicrous to call that "diversity," don't you think?

Here is a real lack of diversity: "In the present-day NBA, the number of American-born white players continues to diminish -- 85 were on rosters in 1990, 48 by 2005 and nine were regular starters a season ago."

But I don't blame the NBA for this and call for civil rights actions to redress it: the problem is that most American white guys at some point became so intimidated by American black guys that they gave up trying to compete in certain areas: it is the exact same reason that the average white guy, if thrust into a black dance club, either simply won't dance at all, or will do some ironic pseudo-dance in an attempt to refuse to really participate while appearing to take part. (Tonight I watched Jimmy Kimmel, faced with the unbearable task of dancing in front of three black men on stage, respond by doing something that looked like an imitation of a harpooned octopus writhing on a boat deck.) The right solution is not a lawsuit, but, white guys, grow some coglioni!

Comments

  1. Anonymous12:53 AM

    Please don't get me started on the whole diversity/equality contradiction. My head will explode at the thought of such twisted lines of reasoning.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. gcallah1:02 AM

      And Joe, I bet you can dance. If I feel like dancing these days, I go to the Dominican club in my neighborhood, so that I am around guys who aren't embarrassed to be doing what they are doing!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous4:02 AM

      Actually, I think that I suck at dancing (though I have been told otherwise) and thus I am not comfortable dancing in most cases. Indeed, in the case that you pose, I might be more apt to freely dance, just as I am more apt to feel free playing my music with other musicians (as opposed to playing alone in front of an unfamiliar audience).

      Social trends ("trend" may not be the right word), or the sub-groups thereof, are undoubtedly based upon familiarity and openness, as well as a certain level of comfort (which tends to increase confidence in what one is doing).

      Of course, I am not accusing you of this, but I think that those who frame the natural tendencies of human relations within the construct of equality and/or diversity only presuppose what that nature *should* be; not what it is, how it will develop, or any true understanding of how it arrises. To say that all people must wear black shoes is no more arbitrary than saying that all people must have equal income, or that we must be tolerant of other's diversity, or that we should have quotas in basketball based upon race.

      They're selfishly ignoring the nature of what it is to be human, instead only focusing on their own ideal of humanness. Plus, the contradictions found in such an ideal are more numerous than the number of pre-pubescent girls at a Bieber concert!

      Delete
  2. Anonymous12:55 AM

    To me it is like saying "the path to equality is to create new inequalities" or "the path to diversity is sameness". It just doesn't compute.

    ReplyDelete

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