As a Hispanic, watching the media’s use of terms like “white” and “Hispanic” and “Latino” in the Zimmerman-Martin case has been an occasion for much eye-rolling. The way the press uses these terms betrays just how completely ignorant most reporters and talking heads are about even the basics of ethnicity and race in this country. Also, it’s a fair bet that the “journalists” at CNN and NBC have never actually seen a Hispanic who wasn’t scrubbing toilets or peeling potatoes back at the reporters’ Chevy Chase estates, so they can be forgiven for being so clueless on this matter. Our media elite might have to leave Martha’s Vineyard to actually meet a Hispanic who didn’t fit their preconceived notions of race and ethnicity.

With the Zimmerman-Martin case, Zimmerman is labeled as simply white, in spite of his claims of Hispanic heritage, because that’s what the media has determined will produce the most fertile ground for “racial” conflict. Had Zimmerman been the victim of a shooting, and the shooter were also white, then Zimmerman would of course then be labeled Latino, and the case would then be a national story on the oppression of Latino persons of color by whites in this country. In fact, Zimmerman is pretty obviously white or perhaps mestizo. What is not deniable however that he is also Hispanic. I don’t know why this is so hard for the media to grasp, but let’s just make this clear: According to anthropologists, ethnologists, historians, and census takers, “Hispanic” or “Latino” is not a racial designation. It is a term that denotes ethnicity.

Hispanics can be of any race. There are white Hispanics, black Hispanics, and even Asian Hispanics. Examples would be former Mexican president Vicente Fox, Cuban musician Ibrahim Ferrer, and former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, respectively. There are also, of course, mestizo Hispanics, such as Benito Juarez. White non-Hispanics are properly referred to as “non-Hispanic whites” in the technical jargon, and among us Hispanics, we simply refer to such people as “Anglos” for lack of another easy-to-use term. We all know, however, that only the mestizo Hispanics, who look like the stereotypical Latinos in the minds of many Americans, count as fully “Hispanic.” Indeed, my mother who is a dark-skinned Hispanic is often forced to have conversations like this with Anglos and other non-Hispanics:

Stranger: What are you? I mean racially? Mom: Uh, well, my parents came here from Mexico Stranger: Hmmm, you don’t look “Hispanic” Mom: Maybe if I donned a sombrero and put my hair in braids I would look Hispanic enough for you?

And so on.

Left liberals are often the worst about this. Being utterly parochial about race and ethnicity, as so many Anglo leftists are, they fancy themselves the arbiters of who is sufficiently Hispanic and who is not. Such is the case with the talking heads during the Zimmerman-Martin affair. Zimmerman, perhaps because of his German last name, is deemed white without any qualification because, well, that plays better as racial high-drama. And we all know that all Hispanics have Spanish surnames just like Nestor Kirchner, Salma Hayek and Bernardo O’Higgins, the George Washington of Chile.

Vicente Fox, Person of Color

Why should we refer to Zimmerman as a Hispanic? Well, because we know that he and his family claim that he is Hispanic. They know better than we do. A Hispanic is simply a person raised in a culture in which Hispanic cultural elements are a dominant or influential factor in one’s life. Such things include the Spanish language, a feeling of shared heritage and cultural solidarity with other Hispanics, and sometimes but not necessarily, Roman Catholicism. If someone has been raised in or lives in such an environment, such a person is probably Hispanic. It has nothing to do with race, and it has nothing to with the origins of one’s last name.

There is a reason that questionnaires with demographic information ask two questions to determine one’s status as a Hispanic or Latino: What race are you? and “Are you Hispanic or Latino?

NB: I don’t know if Zimmerman is a murderer or not. We have trials to sort those things out.

Important to the anti-Muslim narrative is the idea that Muslims reproduce at prodigious rates, and that this poses an existential threat to the West. Specifically, Muslims are reproducing so quickly, that within a generation or two, they will overwhelm the entire Western world.

These predictions are usually muttered by brooding prophets of doom who predict the near-impossibility of Western civilization over triumphing over the implacable foe. This is a common theme at various “race realist” (i.e. racist) web sites and other nationalist web sites that forever repeat myths about American exceptionalism and the U.S. state’s duty to defeat the global threat of the foreign races.

Rick Santorum has more or less built his entire career on the idea that Muslims are the great threat of our age and that all of Western society must be reformed into militant soldiers against Islam. We must “wake up” to the threat, Santorum believes. Watching the anti-Muslim crowd alternate between violent screeching for Holy War and sombre brooding over the grave threat, it is difficult to not think of the anti-communists of the days of yore, like Whittaker Chambers and Frank Meyer, who, being ex-communists, were absolutely convinced that the world was but in the midst of a losing rear-guard action against the superhuman army of Stalinist Soldiers of the Millennium.

It turned out, however, that the communist ubermensch was more interested in blue jeans and Coca Cola than in immanentizing the eschaton.

What sort of apparel and soft drinks motivate Muslims, I can’t say, but it does seem they now have at least one more thing in common with the Westerners: collapsing birth rates. Notes one researcher:

“Of the three major monotheistic religions, all of which encourage fertility, Islam is the one that encourages procreation the least,” he explains. The factor that explains different fertility rates around the world continues to be, not religion, but education levels. In addition, there are other political and sociological factors that differ from country to country, and which the examples below illustrate.
In short, a demographic Homo Islamicus does not exist. And instead of clashing civilizations, the world is headed towards demographic convergence.

Meanwhile, according to John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, the Catholic population in Africa has increased 6,700 percent over the past century. Globally, there are not many more Muslims than the 1.1 billion Catholics, and when we add in other Christians, there are nearly twice as many Christians as Muslims.

But the the purveyors the Holy War will never be satisfied, and just as the anti-communists beat the drum for more and more government, more war, and more police statism, just as William F. Buckley called for a totalitarian bureaucracy in America to defeat communism, so it is for the anti-Muslims. Rick Santorum will not rest until the last American freedom has been extinguished in the name of killing a few more Muslims, but even if he fails, it seems likely that debt, bankruptcy, war, tyranny and societal dysfunction here at home are much bigger threats than a bunch of supposedly hyper-fertile Muslims.

Many libertarians, perhaps most notably Thomas E. Woods, support the decentralization of power from the federal government, including the power of nullification. Many people fear and denounce this power, often because they like the immense power of the central state and are supporters of big government. There are, however, some very real concerns by people who desire freedom as their highest political goal. A simple question, which is asked in various forms is “if decentralization leads to more freedom, why did African slavery thrive in a more decentralized America, and only go away (well, sort of) when the central state forced it to go away?” Similar statements could be said of Jim Crow.

Tom Woods briefly addresses a critical point which bears emphasis: a major problem with decentralization is that decentralizing power may have huge negative effects for people who cannot vote.  The very people who are most obsessed with them not having political power are the people who are most empowered by the receding power of the central state. This points to the people that libertarian activists should concentrate on protecting: non-citizens (including both legal and illegal immigrants) and convicted felons in states which strip them of the franchise. As most minorities have the ability to exercise the vote, the greatest evils of the past have no chance of being repeated. And some unprecedented benefits may come about. Without the significant support of the federal government, individual states could not maintain the murderous drug war at the levels at which it is currently prosecuted.  Family and morals-destroying welfare programs would have to be greatly scaled back without the ability to print money. Taxes would have to be levied to pay for these things, forcing citizens to carefully evaluate just how much they wish to impoverish themselves in the attempt to eradicate various victimless crimes.

The benefits don’t end there. Freedom would be catching in this country for several reasons. Our national myths support the value of freedom. The proximity of states and the freedom of movement among them, in the face of massive differences in the amount of liberty inside them, would mean that the most inventive, industrious people would tend to leave less free areas and go to more free ones. This would impoverish the most oppressive states, further pressuring them to liberate. Perhaps the single most important factor which would allow liberty to really catch in the United States is that the US military would not be looking to crush these efforts, as it does in other countries. If liberty is to be permitted by any government, it is likely that it will have to be permitted in the USA, as the American government is among the world’s most fervent supporters of foisting government on people, whether they like it or not, in the name of “stability.”

I’ve written on the phenonenon before, most recently, while examining the trite hate-fest that pretends to be media coverage surrounding LeBron James. And frankly, I’ve found myself disagreeing with Bryant Gumbel on a number of salient points throughout these discussions. This time though, Gumbel is on-point. Recently he made these comments, regarding the NBA Lockout and how NBA Commissioner David Stern is handling it:

Stern’s version of what has been going on behind closed doors has of course been disputed, but his efforts were typical of a commissioner who has always seemed eager to be viewed as some kind of modern plantation overseer, treating NBA men as if they were his boys. It’s part of Stern’s M.O., like his past self-serving edicts on dress code and the questioning of officials. His moves were intended to do little more than show how he’s the one keeping the hired hands in their place.

His comments have drawn a lot of ire, much of it from black media members. (In full disclosure, I tend to discount white media member’s discomfort when a black person uses a supposed slavery analogy. Call it a personal failing.)  Try though I may, I can’t find what is incorrect about Gumbel’s statement.

It’s accurate, right down to Stern’s approach in handling “his” players. Apparently, invoking slavery–or seeming to invoke slavery–since Gumbel didn’t call the NBA players slaves, is a special case of Godwin’s Law. I get that too, but here’s the thing.  The fact that those who are under control are better paid is no reason to conclude that control is not taking place. (A similar analogy is applicable to the American State and its “freedoms.”) The amount of compensation doesn’t necessarily change the relationship between those under control and those who control them.  (It can however, and I’d be among the first to admit, make the control feel better!)

Sometimes, the plantation is in our minds. One of my idols, Carter G. Woodson, might suggest that this is often the case.  The walls surrounding this mental plantation were on full display during a recent “debate” I watched on ESPN. Asked if the players should start their own league, one of the commenters said “No!” He suggested that they should instead hold out and continue to fight the owners, hoping that they eventually receive–what this commenter thought–was appropriate compensation, or a “better deal” from the owners.

So, they’re not really on a plantation, i.e., they can leave and “do their own thing” whenever they like, but instead of doing that, they should debate with the overseers about how much cornmeal is enough? Damn. I’m forced to quote Woodson again:

When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his “proper place” and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary. … History shows that it does not matter who is in power … those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning.

Count me among those who hopes, desperately, that just this once, rich guys living in a mostly-free society tell their ostensible overseer to go jump in a lake, and use free enterprise to their own advantage. (They probably won’t—but a guy can dream, right?)

…cross-posted at LRC.

After a horrific and murderous weekend in NYC, Mayor Bloomberg, frustrated that folks determined on committing crimes are ignoring those magical incantations and spells enacted by local legislators, does what must necessarily follow in the mind of the statist: call the feds.

“We cannot tolerate it,” Bloomberg said while speaking at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn. “There are just too many guns on the streets and we have to do something about it.”

New York has the toughest gun laws in the country, but Bloomberg said the city alone cannot stop the onslaught of shootings. “We need the federal government to step up,” he said.

The problem of crime is that it finds a way. And prohibitions are, at best, marginal; but they are totalitarian nonetheless and have no place in a free society. To try to control the means of the few by subjecting the entirety of society to the dictate of a despot is a symptom of desperation. After all, not every place experiences the same level of overall crime or the same numbers of crimes committed by firearms.

And then there is the elephant in the room. As Robert Wicks points out, “‘getting guns off the streets’ is just code for ‘getting poor urban minorities to disarm themselves.’” Indeed, NYC’s own government report on crime shows that minorities both commit and experience a higher percentage of crimes. Yet because most minorities are not criminals but potential victims, gun disarmament leaves minorities in a greater situation of peril. Of course, politicians do not understand economics or how incentives work so they would never think that ending drug (and gun) prohibition, welfare, taxes, zoning and licenses, rent control and compulsory education would radically lower crime across the board.

As for Bloomberg, his policies, and the policies of Albany, are–let’s face it–pretty much an epic fail. The last thing anyone needs is the federal government coming in to “fix” things.

Uppity Negro: N.—a Black person who is committed to reversing the crimes of self-refusal, self-denial, and self-hatred that are endemic to the Black community and detrimental to the Black psyche. Syn.—UNAPOLOGETIC. VAINGLORIOUS. MULTIFARIOUS. JUST AUDACIOUS. ~ The Urban Dictionary

Having written on both LeBron and Kobe it should be pretty clear that I like sports. What I find particularly fascinating is how a combination of selective logic and the availability heuristic drive almost all sports discussions, be they on “sports talk radio” or during the ostensibly more journalistic major network coverage. In the case of Kobe, I was amazed that something as innocuous as a video game could draw so much discussion, but then again, the discussion of irrelevant crap even remotely involving sports has spawned an entire profitable network. Just ask Disney. (FTR, I openly admit to watching way too much of this particular network.)

Recently, I found myself Tweeting about LeBron James quite a bit. (Yes, I obviously have time to kill.) I have also found myself responding to several negative posts about him among my Facebook friends. Over the last few days, people I don’t even know have exchanged barbs with me about James. Ironically, this is despite the fact that I was fiercely hoping for a Dallas victory. How did this author—a staunch supporter of Dirk, J-Kidd, and the Mavs—morph into a protector of LeBron’s image? Truthfully, I do not know. Well, I did not know, until I watched a particularly interesting telecast on “The LeBron Network,” which is occasionally also referred to as ESPN.

During the episode, amid ample dissection of the game itself, much was made of a statement James made during the post-game press conference. At some point during the presser, after he had been asked a breathtaking variety of insipid questions ranging from “Did you choke?” to “Why do you think you perform so poorly during the clutch?” James was asked, “What do you think about the people who hate you?” (or words to that effect). No, I am not making this up. Whatever happened to asking sports figures about, well, sports—Xs and Os and the like?

LeBron responded with some variant of, “Tomorrow those people will wake up with the same life they have, and so will I.” I was proud of him. The reporters on ESPN were aghast! Surely, he will regret saying that later, they opined. My question is simply, “Why?” What LeBron said was accurate. Maybe he should have been more sheepish in his response. Sheepish always plays well for the cameras. Maybe he should have continued to respond politely to even more insulting, vapid, and frankly, silly questions. Good for him that he did not. After some consideration I now realize that LeBron’s biggest offense that night was the same as his biggest offense throughout this whole saga, dating back to The Decision.

LeBron James is an uppity Negro!

I’m not the first person to draw this conclusion. Skip Oliva implies a similar conclusion in his piece, “LeBron and the Collectivist Mentality.” Says Oliva:

James is the ongoing target of one of the most vehement public racism campaigns in recent memory. And when I say racism, I don’t mean he’s being targeted because he’s African-American. That type of racism is generally taboo. James is a professional athlete, which is one of the few groups the mainstream press not only condones racism against, but also actively promotes.

Oliva stopped short of saying James is a target of died-in-the-wool racism. This author won’t pull up short. LeBron James is an uppity Negro. In fairness, Oliva made the above statement over a year ago. He now says, “I’m 100% on-board with the notion that this is straight-up anti-black racism.” He shared with me that this wonderfully even-handed piece from Deadspin provided the tipping point for his point-of-view. (Parental guidance suggested for anyone following that link, and by the way, it is not even-handed.)

If there is one thing the press doesn’t like, it’s an uppity Negro—particularly when those members of the press think they have somehow bestowed greatness upon that Negro. (“We made you, nigger, and we can break you.”) In this case, James had the gall to actually collude with two other darkies to decide for whom he and they would play basketball. The nerve! He did this with the stated goal of winning the NBA championship. Say what? He even had the moxie to openly state that he and his compadres would win multiple NBA championships. Tacky? Sure. It seems pretty clear to me that he was, at that point, just mugging for the camera (i.e., not having a serious discussion of his team’s prospects), but apparently statements made during a made-for-fans celebration are fodder for public debate and reprisal. Tacky statements from sports figures ain’t exactly something new, are they? Again, if we return to Oliva, we get a clue as to what really galls me about this situation:

I’ve heard reasonable basketball minds differ as to whether James might be closer to a championship in Chicago or New York. Such debate is normal and fun. What I’m critical of is the collective consciousness of the press harping on nonsensical talking points that seek to portray James as somehow antisocial or mentally unbalanced. I believe such criticism originates from the false belief that professional athletes like James must conform their behavior to social norms that the critics themselves would not adhere to. (Emphasis added.)

Exactly. We can debate if The Decision, i.e., the announcement of his plans to “take his talents to Miami,” was handled properly, but as Oliva states elsewhere in his piece and as I state in mine—previously posted here—the movement of high-profile players around the NBA, and elsewhere, is routine. Anyone who seriously thinks LeBron is the first superstar to be teamed-up with another superstar would do well to repeat one phrase to himself:  Boston Celtics. (Boston even calls their three studs “the Big Three,” just as sportswriters have dubbed the Miami triumvirate of Wade, James, and Bosh.) As an aside, Kobe Bryant publicly pouted in Los Angeles—while privately threatening to leave—until the Lakers went out and stole “the most skilled big man in the NBA” and brought him to L.A. to help Kobe win, which he promptly did. That the Miami case can be presented as somehow unique is laughable, except for one thing—the Miami case happened because the players directly pulled the strings, versus the normal course of events, whereby team owners and management do so. Damned uppity Negroes!

Conclusion

Will the Heat win multiple championships? I don’t know and, really, I don’t care. Did LeBron choke against Dallas? I’ve played a lot of sports and I actually have no idea what that phrase even means. (Wiki didn’t help, since the definition they gave didn’t apply to this case.)  More to the point, as Wade so eloquently answered that tacky question, the terminology “choked” is overused. The use of such a designation suggests that the Mavericks do not deserve due credit. Basically, saying the Heat choked is tantamount to saying that Dallas won by default. What a compliment! (Apparently, Dallas has the power to make four consecutive teams, even the vaunted Lakers, who they swept, become chokers.  The Force is strong with the Mavs!)

That the same group of supposed journalists can simultaneously ask if Miami choked while celebrating Dirk Nowitski’s clutchness is testament to the cognitive dissonance that we’ve come to expect from the typical coverage of U.S. sports and embrace as we enjoy it.  That the same people who over-praised, over-promoted, and over-hyped a 26-year-old basketball prodigy now attack him for being audacious is par for the course. After all, unapologetic audaciousness is the very definition of being an uppity Negro.

For a little historical context, one has only to look at the post-NBA career of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Kareem was always, always the prototypical uppity Negro—and now, one of the smartest men to ever play in the NBA, cannot get a sniff at an NBA coaching job. Clearly, not pandering to the press and not displaying appropriate levels of “humility” is not only a recipe for ridicule and personal attacks, all too often from people who should know better, but also a way to make sure you spend lots of time watching other guys get opportunities while you do not. While I can appreciate the age-old wisdom of “going along to get along,” part of me also hopes folks like LeBron James continue to follow the advice offered by Frederick Douglass, in his Narrative, when he says:

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence.

Granted, Douglass was speaking of issues far more important than basketball. It strikes me that amazingly negative attitude toward LeBron James is about more than basketball as well.

Forced eugenics programs where “sub-standard” humans are involuntarily sterilized are evil. You don’t have to be a libertarian to agree with that. But leaving aside the fundamental objection to the injustice of such programs, the most notable case upholding an involuntary negative eugenics policy in the United States reveals something else troubling about proponents of the command-and-control state.

Carrie Buck

In his Buck v. Bell decision, that titan of modern American “legal realism” Oliver Wendall Homes, Jr. famously justified his decision to allow the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck by stating “three generations of imbeciles is enough.” The 1927 ruling inspired a blossoming of eugenics laws across the United States targeting not only the mentally handicapped, but also petty criminals and social undesirables like the poor, women who were sexually promiscuous, and others who happened to be of a different ethnicity than the eugenicists.

But poor Carrie Buck wasn’t even really retarded. She was a troublemaker or a rape victim, depending on who you believe. Her daughter (the third generation to which Holmes referred) wasn’t an imbecile either. She was actually on her school’s honor roll the year before she died of measles. If Paul Lombardo’s version of the story is correct, that case is a terrible, terrible example of the trauma of a woman’s victimization in rape and subsequent pregnancy being compounded by central planners. Holmes the eugenicist was too concerned with aggrandizing the power of the state at the expense of the individual to be concerned with whether the woman to be sterilized in the case before him was even “unfit.”

[Note: For more on the Progressive historical context in which Buck v. Bell was decided, see Michael Giuliano's September 2008 article in The Freeman.]

Reason’s Matt Welch criticizes Rand Paul for Paul’s assertion that the right to healthcare implies slavery. While it is true that in minds of many, the term “slavery” specifically refers to chattel slavery as practiced in the United States prior to the end of the American Civil War, the term itself is not so limited. And this is not the first time that a prominent person has used the term in regard to employment restrictions: Curt Flood was well known for saying “A well paid slave is nonetheless, a slave.” The same applies here. Indeed, I have compared modern attitudes and events to slavery myself, more than once. Of course, there are critical differences between Rand and Flood and myself, with melanin levels likely being the most important one. But just as Flood’s comparison in the past was apt, so to is Paul’s comparison in the present an accurate description. It is easy to see that there have been far worse tortures in the past than waterboarding, or even beatings, but I would certainly still call the latter “torture.” So, too, would I call forced labor of any sort “slavery.” Wearing a smock rather than rags does not change the name.

In an amusing exchange, Edmund Morris, probably best known to educated Americans as a biographer of Ronald Reagan, went nuts when braindead fourth-rate pundits Bob Schieffer and Arianna Huffington kept asking him idiotic questions about how various long-dead historical figures would feel about current events in America. Morris rightly thought the whole thing was stupid and said so, using the F word.

He then went on a diatribe about how Americans are lazy and obese:

Morris went on to criticize the American people, who he said “are insensitive to foreign sensibilities, who are lazy, obese, complacent and increasingly perplexed as to why we are losing our place in the world to people who are more dynamic than us and more disciplined.”

Knowing Morris, I highly doubt these comments stem from any kind of Menckenian individualism. Rather, I suspect that Morris is one of those war-crazed neocon types who thinks that various iron-fisted militarists  like the British imperials and the Spartans should be emulated. Hence, the stuff about “discipline.”

So the whole exchange just helps to illustrate that shows like “Face the Nation” or “Meet the Press” are a complete waste of time.  Who watches these shows? I mean, other than octogenarians?

But to answer the question posed to Morris: ““What would Teddy Roosevelt think of today’s politics, Edmund?””

I can channel ol’ Teddy for you right now and tell you what he would say were he to survey the political scene in America:

Wow, America has really gone down hill since I died. I can’t believe that you people let Negroes hold public office!  For shame. Also, someone told me that you let the dusky races of Central America have nominal control over my great Panama Canal.  The first think you should do is whip those coolies into shape and take that back. In fact, I hear there are Chinamen in warships patrolling those waters. If you’re not careful, Anglo-Saxons won’t rule the world. I shudder to think of such a world.  And worse, I heard that eugenics has fallen out of favor in America. How are you supposed to wipe out the undesirables if you don’t forcibly sterilize all the weak and the Colored people?

“A debate on ESPN about Kobe being in that “Call of Duty: Black Ops” commercial, holding a rifle, convinced me of two things…” ~ First Tweet

“…One, ESPN has a lot of retarded debates about issues that are less than important.” ~ Second Tweet

“…Two, I watch too much ESPN.” ~ Third Tweet

My previous blog rant about a sports figure—regarding the LeBron Decision and the wrath it wrought—opened with this line, “I have an admission to make…” Here we go again.

I have another admission to make, this time about the Tweets I posted, as shown above.  I was wrong about ESPN.  They don’t debate about issues that are less than important, well, not in the way I originally opined.  (That those debates remain somewhat retarded is not similarly incorrect.)  This issue is not only important, but also emblematic of and intertwined with many other issues.  In fact, it dawned on me as I watched a panel discussion on “Outside the Lines: First Report,” that the Kobe-holding-a-rifle-in-a-commercial issue is both important and confusing.  By the way, the coverage, particularly on Yahoo, is worth checking out.

This issue is—these issues are—important because the discussion of black men—particularly prominent black men—and weapons, is tied up in the same psychological murkiness that I attempted to clarify via the lens of racist gun control.  The issue is confusing because any discussion seems to meander through any number of sub-issues, some germane and some peripheral, at best.  (As an aside, my third admission via Tweet, that I watch too much ESPN, is hardly worth debating.  It is what it is.)

That professional sports are fraught with racist collectivism is far from a discovery.  Furthermore, these issues are not new, which is probably why they tend to recur.  Given the exorbitant coverage of celebrity in the MSM, any time a prominent black man makes news, it presents an excellent opportunity to drive viewership.  Paraphrasing the old quote from It’s a Wonderful Life about angels and ringing bells, every time a high-profile black man does anything even remotely newsworthy, a budding TV producer gets his wings.

My own view is that the enchantment with these issues—and their presentation via sports television—is indicative of more than a sports-centric misinterpretation of value.  Plaxico Burris is in jail in some measure because he is a high-profile black athlete.  I might argue that Mike Vick went to jail for much the same reasons.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but “uppity Negros” have been getting whipped in America for about as long as there has been an America.  (I know.  I know.  Again, that’s unfair.)  Ergo, figuratively whipping them via the court of ostensible public opinion via sports entertainment is a tried-and-true strategy.

The Issues:  Separated, Exposed, Filleted, and Glazed

There are several issues that must be separated before one can even begin to have a meaningful debate about what I’ll call from this point forward, “The Kobe Commercial.”  First, do violent video games promote violence?  Second, is Kobe trying to promote violence by appearing in a commercial for a violent video game?  Third, is Kobe breaking a contract—moral, ethical, implied, or specific, by appearing in a commercial for a violent video game?  Forth, does Kobe have a responsibility, as a public figure and ostensive role model, to exclude himself from any activity that might be construed as unseemly?  Fifth, is Kobe somehow glorifying war at a time when America is engaged in a real war?  Bonus question:  Even if Kobe does not have a personal responsibility, can his employer, the National Basketball Association, treat him as if he had such a responsibility and impose sanctions upon him as a result?

Let’s address the easy answers first.

Violent video games do not lead to more violence in society.  The two academics on ESPN’s Outside the Lines episode confirmed this, and no one should find it surprising, despite the hype that tenuous links between gaming and episodes like Columbine appear to have.  (As an aside, the book, “Killing Monsters” which I own, but have not yet completed, provides similar evidence.)  Simply put, vicarious violence is not real violence and might even provide an outlet for violent tendencies.  Society might be less violent because people can express violent tendencies via fantasy.

Even if video games made people more violent, the issues are separate. Appropriate penalties for violent behavior are available regardless of its genesis.  Kobe is, and should be, free to play and advertise any game he likes, whether he enjoys playing it, as is the case with Black Ops, or not. Moral busybody-ism does not a restriction on the activities of Kobe Bryant provide.

Is Kobe promoting violence?  Again, no.  Given the fact that violent video games don’t make people violent anyway, no other conclusion is reasonable.  Kobe is not killing anyone in real life.  He is promoting a video game that he plays and enjoys.  Any discussion of promotion beyond that is utterly ridiculous, bordering on insane.

Contracts:  Implied and Otherwise

Has Kobe broken a contract with his employer?  Similar to the first two cases, no.  Now, as anyone who watches the goings-on which emanate from (NFL commissioner) Roger Goodell’s echo chamber can attest, it does seems possible for the commissioner of a major sport to take almost any action against one of his employees under the color of “conduct detrimental to the league” by imposing sanctions despite a lack of evidence, civil or criminal charges, or frankly, anything else.  As such, and as ESPN’s Skip Bayless implied, (NBA commissioner) David Stern could still sanction Kobe, although it is not clear that the NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement allows Stern the kind of wide latitude as is afforded Goodell.  (For those keeping score at home, this is the answer to the bonus question above.)  If Stern does sanction Kobe, don’t get it twisted:  He’ll be trying to protect his league and its profits, not making a statement about morality.

Does Kobe have an implied contract with “his fans” regarding such behavior?  Once again, the answer is no, but this time for different reasons than previously.  The game he is promoting is and was enjoying record sales volume.  As such, one could actually conclude that Kobe is responding to the actions already taken by the public.  Kobe is promoting something that many, if not most, of his fans already like.  He’s closer to bandwagon jumping than setting a trend!  Kobe’s appearance in the ad is cool because the game is popular.  The video game is not popular because Kobe is cool.  (For the record, I don’t play Black Ops, or any other video game for that matter, but I admit to thinking Kobe Bryant has been cool for a while.)

Glorifying War—Precluding Peace?

Does The Kobe Commercial glorify war?  It is on this question that this debate gets interesting.  Skip Oliva provided the best summation of my feelings when he responded to my Tweet with one of his own:

Funny how the media usually gets more outraged over depictions of violence then [sic], oh, actual violence caused by government.

Exactly.

In fact, it was at the points where panel members tried to suggest that the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan were so sacred as to necessarily preclude violent video games that I nearly lost my lunch.  Come again?  If all the war on Earth was contained in X-Boxes across the U.S., I wouldn’t care one bit, and I bet there would be more than a few dead Iraqi civilians who’d still be alive.  If one wants to get high-and-mighty with disgust over violence, better to do so with regard to legitimate violence like predator drones killing unarmed people.  The fact that Kobe Bryant smiles in a fake-assed video game presentation has no effect on that, one way or the other.

I do not doubt, for a single minute, that the types of violence that Todd Walker fights, particularly among young black men, is a plague on the Inner City.  In full disclosure, I do wonder if that violence is not a result of the massive disarmament of law-abiding black people, that is, too much gun control versus too little.  I also do not doubt that violence, even make-believe violence, is not everyone’s “cup of tea.”  I already noted that I don’t play any first-person shooter games and, from a personal standpoint, find them somewhat distasteful.  Value is subjective, though.  And since we know that these games don’t cause violence, decrying Kobe’s involvement in advertising one that is already selling like hotcakes seems horribly misplaced.

Dan Devine, in the interesting piece from Yahoo (linked above), provides an educational bit of context:

…the backlash got some fresh legs when tech scribe Sam Machkovech wrote at TheAtlantic.com that the “troubling melange of gun, grenade, and rocket combat acted out by blue-collar workers, children, and celebs like Kobe Bryant and Jimmy Kimmel” was a major disappointment that “comes closer to selling real death than any video game possibly could.”

In fairness, Devine notes that the whining subsided as quickly as it started.  But the sentence above still troubles me.  Somehow, so the apparent narrative goes, Kobe acting out in a video game sells real death better than 750 military bases around the globe, better than sanctions that killed half a million children, better than state-sponsored anti-drug violence, and better than thugs in special uniforms killing whomever they like.  I find it ironic, if depressingly typical, that people generally, but the media specifically, as Oliva so pointedly notes, loudly decry that which does not lead to violence while simultaneously remaining largely silent over, or at least puzzlingly acquiescent of, that which is a startling example of it.

Cross-Posted at the LRCBlog.