[A LifeLube special!]
When Black people talk openly about race and racism in this country, it’s become chic for Whites and other races to say that we are “playing the race card.” Unfortunately, White people created this game of discrimination based on color, and have adeptly used this card for centuries to establish their current sense of power, entitlement and privilege in this country.
by David J. Malebranche, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor at the Division of General Medicine at Emory University’s School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia.Dateline: August 28, 2007Read more about David here.
You can’t turn on a television, open a newspaper or log on to the internet nowadays without being inundated with media coverage of the Michael Vick story. By now if you haven’t heard of
this story, you must have had your head buried in the sand for the past few weeks. Regrettably, the story is an all too familiar one: superstar Black athlete makes bad decision engaging in some illegal activity, he is caught, media frenzy ensues and he is pronounced guilty until proven innocent in the court of public opinion. Several days to weeks later, most Whites gather around the media tree for the public metaphorical lynching, while most Blacks verbally question the double standard in the handling of criminal cases for Blacks versus Whites.Steroid rage, poor parenting, sexual abuse, depression and prior victimization, the list of excuses and justifications come fast and furious when a White celebrity gets into trouble.I speak from the vantage point a Black physician practicing in Atlanta, Georgia, who specializes in HIV, not from the perspective of a veteran football player or sports reporter - but I can’t help but be profoundly disturbed by stories like the current one surrounding Michael Vick; not simply because of the poor decisions he appears to have made, but more so by the lack of context when discussing his background, upbringing and factors that may have led to these decisions. The media tends to delve into the full details of the lives and social context driving the deviant behavior of rich White superstars like Chris Benoit, Lindsay Lohan or Anna Nicole Smith, all in an effort to portray them as victims rather than make them take personal responsibility for their actions. Steroid rage, poor parenting, sexual abuse, depression and prior victimization, the list of excuses and justifications come fast and furious when a White celebrity gets into trouble. But where are the media stories exploring the upbringing, structural context, community life and social networks of Michael Vick that influenced his decisions to become involved in this dog fighting ring? To hear most media outlet and competent sports “reporters,” you would think that Michael Vick came out of his mother’s womb with his mind set on one express purpose in life – to torture and maim pit bulls.
This media double standard when examining the lives of celebrities and athletes of different races and ethnicities bothers me because I witness the same thing every day when approaching
medical illness among Black men. In the United States, Black men are suffering from disproportionate rates of almost every chronic disease known to man compared to our White counterparts, including HIV. But the disparity doesn’t start and end there – we are more likely to be raised in a household without our biological fathers, more likely to be suspended, expelled and not graduate from school, and more likely to spend time in a correctional facility at some point in our lives than men of other races and ethnicities in this country.There are many reasons behind these sobering facts, and involve every level possible, from national policies and social structural inequalities to community, cultural, familial and individual factors. There are harsher sentencing laws for drugs that are more commonly found in Black communities; predominantly White female teachers teach at predominantly Black public schools and enforce rigid definitions of culturally appropriate behavior upon Black boys, punishing those who don’t conform; we allow our young men to exist without positive male role models and send them out to the streets to let other misguided brothers teach them; and we sit back and expect nothing from our young Black men outside of athletics and entertainment, when we know they have plenty of other options for life careers.
If we just ate more vegetables, stayed in school, didn’t do drugs or commit crimes, used condoms every time we had sex, and went to the doctor and took our medications, we wouldn’t be in the predicament we are in right now.But if you listen to medical experts and public health officials explain this crisis, we hear the same superficial focus on personal responsibility and individual behavior: If we just ate more vegetables, stayed in school, didn’t do drugs or commit crimes, used condoms every time we had sex, and went to the doctor and took our medications, we wouldn’t be in the predicament we are in right now. Unfortunately the solutions to these problems are not always as simple as the just “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” suggestion. We tend to either listen to some leaders like Al Sharpton, who say that most of these problems can be blamed on external racist factors, or other self-proclaimed intellects like Bill Cosby, who blames everything on personal responsibility. In reality, however, the factors influencing the myriad health problems facing Black men in the United States are an intricate mix of both structural issues and personal choices.
All of this is not new and neatly plays into age-old stereotypical notions of Black masculinity that emphasize heterosexual and physical/athletic prowess over traditional masculine definitions like education, employment and responsibility that are reserved for White men. These definitions began with slavery, where our only roles we to work and breed, and it continues today on the auction blocks of professional sports’ drafting process, where predominantly Black athletes are bought and sold to predominantly White owners of sports franchises. But one needs to look no further than the media to see how, particularly in this field of athletics, the predominantly White media still manages to establish double standards that brainwash Black men into believing that everything they do is wrong, while White players can act in a similar fashion and not be punished or held accountable for their actions with a similar level of public scrutiny and outrage.
Barry Bonds, who is constantly under negative media scrutiny for suspected steroid use at a time when everyone else was using it, is often demeaned by reporters, and many talk about
putting an asterisk after all of his storied baseball records because he “cheated.” Interestingly, in last year’s World Series, Kenny Rogers, a White pitcher with the Detroit Tigers, was caught with a “brown substance” on his hand during a World Series game that he was obviously using so he could get a better grip on the ball or put more pep in his pitches. Numerous players from the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team complained that his pitches were doing “funny things,” and even though he had a long history of “choking” in the playoffs, last season he was miraculously mowing over batters at the ripe old age of 42. Despite this substance being an obvious infraction of a written rule in baseball, the umpire (also White) discreetly told him to remove it after the first inning, which he did, and the game continued. Detroit won the game, and during the next couple of days on ESPN and other sports networks, many White journalists and reporters came running to Kenny Rogers’ defense and said he wasn’t cheating, even though previous film showed this same “brown substance” on his hand during other playoff games, and the issue was squashed. Kenny Rogers himself said it was just “dirt,” and he didn’t know it was there until the umpire told him, and of course he did the right thing and removed it. But karma has a funny way of coming around, as that game when Kenny Rogers pitched was the only game they won, and Detroit lost the World Series in 5 games. But it was interesting to see how written rules in sports can be remarkably flexible at certain times and with certain athletes.This is not an isolated incident in professional sports, where reactions to athletes and their indiscretions seem to vary according to race. We are constantly barraged with media stories of
Terrell Owens being disrespectful to his coach and teammates when he questions the team game plan, and he is penned as “arrogant,” “selfish” and “not a team player” by the media. But when Jeremy Shockey, an equally loud and boisterous White player for the New York Giants, verbally disrespects and criticizes his coach after they lose, the media merely just ponders how the coach will respond to one of his star players having a problem with the game plan, and none of the negative terminology so quickly attached to Terrell Owen’s name even finds its way to being associated with Jeremy Shockey.Last year, Bob Knight, the White head coach of the Texas Tech basketball team, balled up his fist and hit a White player underneath the chin to get his attention after he committed a foul. Mr. Knight is one of the winningest coaches in college basketball, but has a horrible reputation for his temper, which includes throwing chairs across the court and multiple physical altercations with his players, ranging from head butting to kicking to choking and now to hitting under the chin. In fact, the reason Coach Knight is at Texas Tech now is because he was kicked out of Indiana University for repeated temper tantrums that included physically hitting his players. Even though this recent event was caught on film, multiple White sports reporters were lightning-quick to jump to Coach Knight’s defense, saying he was “just trying to get the player to pay attention.” One White reporter went as far to say that we should excuse his behavior because he is “passionate” about basketball, and this is just how he expresses himself during the game. If this is a valid argument to justify Coach Knight’s repeated physical assaults on his players, why is it that we have rules in the NFL that imposes hefty fines and penalties on players (mostly Black) for doing elaborate end-zone celebrations? Couldn’t one argue that these celebrations reflect Black players’ “passion” for the game? I mean, they are not assaulting other players when they do these celebrations, so what’s the problem? Maybe they are committing a more serious crime than assaulting other players; they are assaulting the conservative European sensibilities of the owners who hold the purse strings in the NFL who would never celebrate after scoring because most of them have never played sports. So while it’s ok for them to exploit these same Black players to sell jerseys, merchandise and tickets to games, it’s not ok for Black players to express themselves on the field in a manner that is not traditionally stoic and reserved.
White male sports fans feel they are entitled to do anything since they pay good money to buy tickets to these athletic events. In their eyes, when they hurl racist insults or throw food and drink at Black athletes from the comfort of anonymity in the stands, these players are merely supposed to turn the other cheek and look the other way.And it doesn’t stop there. While the sports media unapologetically announces the drug and alcohol charges that are brought against Black male athletes (such as Maurice Clarett, the former Ohio State running back), White coaches with a history of admitted alcoholism (such as Eddie Sutton, former coach of Oklahoma State) and DUI offenses, can crash their cars into poles and it be reported as an “allergic reaction to over-the-counter medications.” And when it comes to White fans and Black athletes, the story is unfortunately the same. Most remember the incident with Ron Artest, the Indiana Basketball player that jumped into the stands and “started” a riot at the Detroit Palace after a White fan threw a beer at him. But few may remember last season when a non-Black basketball fan called Dikembe Mutombo a “monkey” at an Orlando Magic game and was appropriately banned from attending games for the remainder of the season, but only after Mr. Mutombo threatened to go into the stands to confront this man as he would not put up with his racist epithets. While this fan’s punishment was just, and goes a long way in making fans responsible for their actions, the dynamic has often been that the middle-aged, “average Joe” White male sports fans feel they are entitled to do anything since they pay good money to buy tickets to these athletic events. In their eyes, when they hurl racist insults or throw food and drink at Black athletes from the comfort of anonymity in the stands, these players are merely supposed to turn the other cheek and look the other way. When the players actually retaliate against a fan’s ignorant, often drunk actions (as Ron Artest did), the media often chooses to pathologize the player, saying he needs “anger management” or “should know better.”
Simply put, most of these incidents and examples I’ve cited merely reflect a great cultural divide in this country. It is no secret that most of the CEOs and owners of major professional and college sports franchises are of European descent, and the majority of players are of African descent. Additionally, most of the sports reporters and journalists in this country are also of European descent, getting paid to write and talk about players of African descent. So who do you really think the majority of these White reporters are going to empathize and identify with, and whose actions they will attempt to justify when it comes to holding players and coaches responsible for their actions? And its not because they may be necessarily “racist” (although some are), its just the fact that when they look at Coach Knight, Jeremy Shockey, Kenny Rogers or a random White sports fan, they see someone who could be their father, uncle, grandfather or son. When they look at Michael Vick, Terrell Owens, Barry Bonds, Ron Artest or Dikembe Mutumbo, they’re likely to simply see a Black man who would not be a part of their family, or merely an “overpaid athlete,” there merely to provide them with high-jumping, slam-dunking, touchdown-scoring entertainment. People are impacted most by situations and individuals with whom they can relate, and the majority of this country is still of European descent, which means that most media reporting and bias will come from this slanted angle.
When we don’t speak up against the inherently racist spin given to news and sports stories in the media, we are giving our young brothers the tacit message that there is a different set of standards and consequences for their behavior than for White men, thus contributing to and perpetuating White privilege and entitlement in this country.I realize that discussing racist bias in the media is not popular in this country’s current climate of over-emphasis on personal responsibility at the expense of ignoring the larger environmental
and social context impacting Black men in this country. But it is common sense that individual behavior does not emerge in a vacuum, and we do not come out of the womb getting kicked out of school, abusing drugs and alcohol, committing violent crimes and engaging in risky sexual behavior. When we don’t speak up against the inherently racist spin given to news and sports stories in the media, we are giving our young brothers the tacit message that there is a different set of standards and consequences for their behavior than for White men, thus contributing to and perpetuating White privilege and entitlement in this country. The unfortunate reality is that we can’t teach the next generation of Black men that racism will ever go away – we can merely provide them with the tools, intellect and empowerment to make wise decisions in their lives, in spite of institutional systems that are designed to establish double standards that benefit their White counterparts.If we expect Black men in this country to “pick themselves up by their bootstraps,” as Clarence Thomas or Bill Cosby would say, this must be coupled with social and structural interventions to combat the pervasive pejorative media representation that we see in our newspapers and on the internet and television daily.
We can start by teaching Black men in this country that we must view our behaviors as a balance of social context and personal responsibility and emphasize the following when it comes to individual behavior:
1) Seek out a male mentor if you don’t have one; be a mentor if you aren’t one
2) Don’t blame everything on racism
3) Be accountable for your actions, good or bad – people will not make excuses or defend you for the same inappropriate behavior that many White men exhibit
4) Be critical thinkers – always consider the cultural source when hearing stories about Black men
5) Celebrate yourself and your achievements daily. Don’t expect to be recognized for your accomplishments by predominantly White institutions
6) Acknowledge some of the positive and negative social and environmental influences in your lives, but don’t use them as crutches –at the end of the day, this country will not make any attempt to understand, justify or empathize with Black men with whom they do not feel a cultural or personal connection.
Some of these points may seem pessimistic, but since racism is embedded in the foundation and fabric of our nation, I could never realistically tell anyone that there will be a time when racist discrimination will not exist. Instead, I would rather encourage our young brothers to embrace a healthy acknowledgement of its continued existence, while equipping them with the capacity for critical thinking and internal fortitude to not allow this racism to become an internalized part of their psyche. However, Black men in this country need more than education and critical thinking to address our overall health status in this country – we need hope. And we are challenged with creating an environment of hope despite an incessant flow of “un-fair and un-balanced” media representations of our actions. When Black people talk openly about race and racism in this country, it’s become chic for Whites and other races to say that we are “playing the race card.” Unfortunately, White people created this game of discrimination based on color, and have adeptly used this card for centuries to establish their current sense of power, entitlement and privilege in this country. Verbally pointing out racist rhetoric and behavior when it occurs means we are merely playing the cards with which we were dealt.
Michael Vick pleaded guilty to federal dog fighting charges the other day. I don’t think anyone would argue against the point that engaging in dog fighting and the participation in a practice that kills dogs for “sport” deserves some form of punishment. But the same animal rights activists and sports reporters who claim being offended at how “inhumane” dog fighting is are conspicuously absent when discussing (and in some cases, viewing) the “sport” of deer hunting, which kills deer and is televised on ESPN on a regular basis. Maybe in some previously written hierarchy of the value of animals’ lives, the worth of a dog’s life was assessed as much higher than that of a deer, or maybe it’s ignored because hunting is practiced by Whites more than Blacks. Regardless, legal experts are stating that Michael Vick will likely get from a year to 18 months in jail, but could face a maximum sentence of five years. Maybe he should’ve taken the “preacher’s wife defense,” and blamed his decisions on post traumatic stress disorder caused by years of incessant ignorant, racially biased media coverage. That way he could go to psychological rehab for approximately 60 days and then return to society a changed man instead of facing five years in prison. Or maybe he could take the “professional wrestler’s defense,” and have an “expert” attribute his involvement in dog fighting on a predatory physician who prescribed him a medication that caused psychological side effects and led to his poor decision making.
Whatever he does, I hope Michael Vick learns from this experience and explores what factors influenced him to make those decisions so he can make better ones for his career and his personal health in the future. I hope he does this more for himself than anyone else, because the media just doesn’t seem to be interested in exploring situations that provide context to the lives of Black men. On the bright side, at least they’re giving Barry Bonds a break.
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