When I first heard the NBA season might be ending without a championship I was shocked and a bit sad. Like any Laker fan, I too, wanted to see the Lakers take it all, especially since it’s been so long. But when I got away from the superficial, I was excited, because I thought there was a bigger goal at stake, that being liberty and justice for all.
I was in awe of the NBA players for their bravery, for their sacrifice, for honoring their convictions, and for the change I anticipated they were about to make. And then, it didn’t happen. They agreed to start playing again. I thought there was some real messiness in how it all went down. That and my disappointment compelled me to write about it.
The Title: Just Dribble
The title was a play off the rebuke, “Shut up and dribble,” that Laura Ingraham of Fox News gave Lebron James through her show after he discussed politics in an ESPN interview a couple years back. The idea being that people don’t care about athletes political views, they just want to see them play. Laura clearly was not alone in her belief back then. I’m sure there’s even some in the NBA who agree with her now. However with the social climate of today and so many of the players being black it wouldn’t fly. So instead of telling players to shut up and dribble, I believe the league is metaphorically telling the players to just dribble. They don’t care if the players are vocal about social justice or quiet as long as they continue to play.
The Dates and Locations Used at the Beginning
I think the main purpose of that was to contrast the realities of these black men, while also linking them as black men which is why I only identified them ask black men in these sections instead of Jacob Blake and NBA Players. I got the inspiration to do that from Jimmy Butler who wanted to wear his jersey with no name to convey the message that the people getting killed in the streets by police could just as easily be him. I liked the fact that Jacob Blake and NBA Players live in markedly different worlds, yet their shared experiences as black men still tie them together.
Using Pow Seven Times
Back in 2006, I worked as a admin/editorial assistant temp at a now defunct website called iVillage.com in New York City. During that year, the CBS reality show “Survivor” made the controversial decision to divide teams by race (black, white, Hispanic and Asian). IVillage had just started a television blog where they were going to be reviewing TV shows. Not one to shy away from controversy, I volunteered to take on “Survivors’” race war season and wrote reviews on the show. It was during that time that a 23-year-old unarmed black man, Sean Bell, was gunned down by police in a hail of 50 bullets on his wedding day. I was going to incorporate his unnecessary killing into my episode recap by typing out pow (or I think it was bang, either way) in all caps 50 times. I ended up not doing it, not because I was afraid of what the majority white people that I worked for and with would think. I would have never taken that show on if that was the case. I didn’t go there because I was afraid I wasn’t a good enough writer to convey the message I wanted to convey. Plus, the turnaround time was quick. The show came on Thursday night I believe, back in those days, and I had to have the recap up Friday morning.
So, those seven pows are partly an ode to my former self in addition to putting emphasis in words on the severity of seven shots.
The Main Body of the Post
I was all for the NBA season ending in a strike, boycott or whatever you want to call it – no more play. I believe it takes those types of drastic measures to effect change. I was excited when I read that was about to go down, and disappointed when it didn’t happen. So in this section of the post, I just gave my two cents on what I think happened, how it seemed to me that people began pitting people against each other, and why I didn’t agree.
Trying to be Understanding at the End
It’s really easy to say you should do this or you should do that, especially when you can only imagine what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes. I can only imagine what it’s like to make a nice salary from the career of my dreams. My career experience has been nowhere close to that. While I still believe it was the wrong decision to resume play, I didn’t want to be so close-minded that I couldn’t see where they were coming from.
I wanted to inject myself back into it, not simply because I’m full of myself, but also because I know sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been so vocal about discrimination in the workplace – or mistreatment of any kind for that matter – how much further I would have gotten on jobs. How much more money I would have made. How much more comfortable my life could have been, free from the stress of worrying about how am I going to pay my bills. Conversely, I wondered will the players look back on this pivotal time in history and wish they would have completely ended the season.
So yeah, that’s how I wrote this piece… and right now, I’m really sleepy.
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