Home / Coaching Tips / Featured / A different look at Isiah Thomas
This is a blog posting that I put up several months ago, during the Isiah Thomas/Knicks sexual harassment case. My views on this issue have been unpopular to say the least, though I didn’t get even one online response despite posting this article in at least 10 blogs. In fact, this posting seemed to be the kiss of death for all blog conversations on the topic. I’m sure there will be many who read this and disagree…that’s ok…if you feel a certain way about what you read, then respond and start a dialogue!
I am amused by the media lambasting of everything that the Knicks basketball coach does except, of course, coach basketball.
Mark Kriegel wrote an article that can be found online on Isiah Thomas’ statements regarding White men calling Black Women bitches, and about how he doesn’t view it in the same light as a Black man making the same statement. Kriegel talks about Isiah’s comments in the context of his “If he was Black, he’d just be another good guy” reference to Larry Bird in the 80’s and seems to conclude that Isiah Thomas should just know better.
I should say up front that I am in fact a fan of Isiah Thomas. Despite being told more times than I can count that I’m not really a fan but rather am just too easily seduced by the man’s smile to recognize the devil that lies beneath, I have been a fan since I was a kid . Please don’t hold that bias against me, though. The article is still misdirected.
Isiah Thomas’ statements about Larry Bird 20 years ago were a commentary on the negative stereotypes placed on Black players vs. the positive ones placed on White players. The commentary was right on the money. Most people would agree that his delivery wasn’t the greatest, but forget that it was impossible for him to deliver it smoothly. By making the statement to the media, he was in essence getting right up in White America’s face and telling it that it continues to operate on racist stereotypes. What he was saying really had very little to do with Larry Bird as an individual. I think that Bird’s response, which was something akin to, “If it doesn’t bother me, it shouldn’t bother anybody else.”, shows that he understood this to be the case. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that the larger response was to twist the controversy around by labeling Thomas a racist. That process isn’t nearly as uncomfortable as self-reflection.
Still, Kriegel does acknowledge that that those statements and similar ones from other athletes, did have some real value by bringing racist stereotypes towards African Americans into public discourse and prompting some positive change. I’d like to think that there has been some growth in this area, though Donovan McNabb might disagree. There are some white coaches out there who still think that any Black player (or team) can be beaten just by using a pump-fake. They might not agree either.
The stereotype of Black women as “bitches” is one of the most damaging in our culture:
“A stereotype persists of African American women as immoral and therefore less deserving of protection from violence or sexual exploitation. In 1744, Edward Long, in an attempt to support slavery, published his conclusions about African women. He characterized them as “ignorant, crafty, treacherous, thievish, and mistrustful.”
- Marilyn Yarbrough with Crystal Bennett, Cassandra and the “Sistahs“: the Peculiar Treatment of African American Women in the Myth of Women as Liars
Journal of Gender, Race and Justice p. 655 (Spring 2000)
My point? A white man calling a black woman a bitch is a very bad thing. It reinforces racist stereotypes that were created by white men. That’s why a white man calling a black woman a bitch could easily be perceived as both sexist and overtly racist, even if that was not the intended message. A black man saying the same thing is certainly sexist, but it would be hard to argue that it is racist as well. This doesn’t make it good, honorable, or ok for a black man to make this kind of comment. It makes it different than if a white man said it. Or, in the words of Isiah Thomas, “I do make a distinction”.
The much subtler (and probably completely unintended) message supports slavery and the negative images that came from it. African Americans struggle against the burden of those images every day.
Does anybody remember the movie “Higher Learning”?
So…here’s a different theory on Isiah Thomas’ commentary on women, bitches, and race. It wasn’t a promotion of sexism or of self-loathing behavior by African American men. It also wasn’t intended as a rallying cry for white men who want to feel discriminated against. (Similar to the: “Why can they call each other the ‘n’ word but I can’t?’ Here’s a question: Why the hell would you want to?).
He was pointing out that, on some level, he perceives a white man making that type of statement as rubbing racism and slavery in his face. If I’m not mistaken, his grandfather was a slave, a reminder that the slavery isn’t ancient history, it’s very recent history. He also grew up in the West Side of Chicago, a place that some would say reinforces perceptions of racial opportunity gaps.
His mother’s story is as well known as his own, and shows that he may not hate black women so much after all.
Again, I shouldn’t be surprised at the public response. Its easier to demonize him than it is to reflect on matters of race.
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