The majority of the NBA is black.
Let us get that out in the open. There is no denying it. There is no avoiding it. There is no getting around it.
Yet, for much of the NBA’s existence that is exactly what some have tried to do.
When you look through NBA history — I mean, really examine it — much of the business model has dealt with many of the financial problems that soon-to-be former Hawks owner Bruce Levenson clumsily expressed in his letter a few weeks ago. How do you sell a sport that is almost entirely black athletes from lower-class background to white corporate fans?
It was a problem David Stern wrestled with a lot more prominently after Michael Jordan, he of the “Republicans buy shoes too” mentality, retired. The NBA returned from its golden age to the same problems that plagued it in the 1970s and 80s. Namely a perception that the players were “thugs” and all the latent racism that came with that.
It was clear in the statements Hawks ownership made and then the statements Danny Ferry made (or repeated, which could be even worse because he had the chance to censor whatever was said previously) that there is still latent perceptions of bias toward race that simmer just beneath the surface even in a league as diverse and forward-thinking as the NBA.
Adam Silver has responded quickly to several issues dealing with race in the NBA. Photo by Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
Adam Silver’s reaction has been rather swift to protect the league’s business but there seems to be little in the way of trying to root out this invidious, hidden racism that still follows the NBA.
There are inevitably going to be some that still see the world in binaries that will never buy the NBA because they have already made up their mind that the players are thugs. Even if you point to all the players in the NFL who have gotten in trouble with the law this offseason and then struggle to mention NBA players who got into serious trouble like intimate partner violence (Ray Rice) or child abuse (Adrian Peterson) or murder (Aaron Hernandez) in the last year.
The NBA has its own examples of players going to prison for serious crimes (Jayson Williams comes to mind) and serious on-court incidents (the fight at the Palace of Auburn Hills in 2004). But those are long in the past. The perceptions some might have about the NBA are unfounded and, quite possibly, steeped in horrible racial stereotyping.
That is what got the Hawks in their mess in the first place.
This atmosphere of stereotyping which fans spend money, which fans cheer and which fans are desirable or interact with other fans best said something about the racial biases still present in our society and still present among those with the power to make personnel decisions and affect lives.
Zach Lowe of Grantland wrote about this in the aftermath of the Bruce Levenson e-mail:
But Levenson veered into unsavory stereotyping in that discussion. He labeled blacks as cheap without using that word, and speculated that racial composition explained why Hawks fans spent so much less on merchandise at games than fans of the Atlanta Thrashers — the hockey team Levenson’s ownership group sold. (To Levenson’s credit, he did at least hint at the socioeconomic forces that could be behind those sales numbers. A more broad-minded course of action would be trying to address those forces instead of swapping out black fans for white, but that’s hard work at which the U.S. has failed for centuries.)
He repeated the old cliché that black people don’t arrive on time, and floated a bizarre theory that black fans don’t cheer as loudly as white fans. He made an indirect link between the majority-black attendance base and the lack of “fathers and sons” at games. He wanted more white cheerleaders, more white people on the Kiss Cam, and less hip-hop music — as if white people don’t enjoy hip-hop.
There is no denying these biases exist. Donald Sterling was only blatant about it. And after these last two ugly incidents, it is clear that owners have to get their houses in order less they be next. And many of these guys have some skeletons in their closet. Whether it is enough to topple their ownership is another issue.
What the Hawks incident exposed though was an issue of the black fan as consumer.
That is an over-generalization. A major over-generalization.
The mistake the Hawks made was thinking that this group of people are all uniform — and stereotyped as well. The Atlanta area has plenty of affluent black families that would not fit the stereotype. They would more likely fall into the category of fans which Levenson described as “white.”
As many pointed out, Levenson’s thoughts were not wholly impure. He was trying to describe a business plan to attract more fans to the game and get them to spend the money. It derailed when Levenson used race to describe different markets. That was never OK in any way. And if Levenson’s analysis is somewhat right, what does this say about the city of Atlanta and its relationship with race? What does it say about our relationship with race?
What became clear in the last few weeks, however, is the NBA is still dealing with the prejudices that harmed the league decades ago. That underlying current of mistrust and prejudice present in society still affects the NBA and its business model.
The league is the most visibly “black” league we have. It is perceived to be the most “black.” It speaks to black communities in a unique way that other sports do not.
The business side has not caught up to this realization. There is still discomfort, seemingly, with who basketball speaks to most. That is the prejudice of the NBA. And that is the prejudice the league has to continue to fight.
