Race and Basketball: Why whites lose interest

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/18/nba-race-buzz-bissinger_n_825284.html
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Read this article before continuing, emailed courtesy of Jonathan England.

This article points out some things that are problematic of the NBA in that white fans can not connect to the players because they do not see hard working individuals, but slackers that slide by on being physically gifted. The author also makes other claims and though I agree with some of the issues that he brings up and also the reality of the situation of white fans, I think that being a fan of sports means liking a player for where they are from, what situations they have overcome and where they are today. To say that white fans are losing interest in basketball because the majority of players are black is a ridiculous claim.

Another claim the author makes is that whites look at black men as lazy asserting that some think that "they don’t have sufficient desire, their body language during timeouts connotes boredom, they are always looking in the stands for the next concubine, [and] they just don’t have that blue-collar work ethic that makes great white athletes great". This again creates problematic assumptions because if black athletes were so disconnected and had a lack of work ethic, then why do white men still fail to usurp black men as the best athletes. Black men are not out there to look around and cruise by. If the sport had more racial parity then we would probably see black and white men who were lacking in work ethic. We would see great white players and black players instead of feeding into the stereotypes that we do today.

Though scouts may be looking for black players to play the sport, white men can still work to show that they have the skills to be great players. Saying that black men are just naturally better has no basis. Black men may put more effort into the sport from a young age but do we say that about white men in golf. They put in years of hard work to get to the level that they play at and are not pointed out as just naturally gifted to play the sport. If anything, white men are learning of the hardships that many African Americans go through to interview for a front office job in a major company or the lead role in a huge Hollywood production. The few main people will get a shot such as the Denzel's but the new talent will have to struggle to find a way into the spotlight. One can even go so far as to say that white American men are too lazy to compete against the work ethic of the African American basketball player. There are white men all over the globe that are superior athletes, yet it is basketball that is singled out as the sport of slackers.

This article was weakly thought out and should be better constructed to consider both sides of the problem. The only thing I agreed with totally, was the last paragraph which stated that basketball is "a game that is embedded more than ever with beauty and grace and strength and acrobatics". The author should go back to his notebook on this one and rethink his strategy of attacking loaded issues.