Obama, Cosby & All Star Weekend


Obama and Cosby don’t have anything to do w/ Allstar weekend, at least on its face. Give me a couple of days I will come up with a link. lol!

Dope article in the TIMES OF ALL PLACES on racism and how the Allstar weekend is being portrayed in the media.

Stain of Racism Feeds N.B.A.’s Renegade Image
HARVEY ARATON

My wife and two sons were with me at the recent N.B.A. All-Star weekend in Las Vegas. The crowds made us feel more claustrophobic than threatened, but maybe that was because we weren’t roaming the nightspots any more than we would have in Los Angeles or New York.

Look for trouble in any densely populated city, and especially where people consume alcohol, and chances are you’ll find it, with or without America’s usual sports suspects — the N.B.A. and its alleged army of hip-hop followers — to blame it on. Rather than stay out into the wee hours, we went to a legends brunch to hear Magic Johnson and John Havlicek speak, to catch glimpses of Kareem and Dr. J.

Contrary to what you might have heard, All-Star weekend was not confined to a strip club or even the Strip.

You can argue that Las Vegas was not the ideal site for an event that traditionally attracts thrill seekers hoping to attach themselves to celebrities and their posses. But the casting of the weekend as a lawless referendum on the N.B.A. product has become exaggerated to the point of being imbecilic and has left Commissioner David Stern in a delicate position, between a Pacman and a hard place.

In an e-mail message, Stern said he was inclined to let the Vegas storm pass, move on as the regular season hits the homestretch. He also said he was ”not necessarily a majority among N.B.A. management,” meaning the strategy is ”subject to change.”

He may yet ask why nobody blamed Nascar for the death of a motorist who was shot in a road-rage encounter during a traffic jam after leaving the Daytona 500.

He may have to point out again that no N.B.A. player was involved in any Las Vegas transgression, compared with a number of N.F.L. players who over the years have turned Super Bowl week into episodes of ”Miami Vice.”

He may crunch crime statistics relative to other sports events and large gatherings like New Year’s Eve that, he said, would prove that All-Star weekend was no behavioral aberration.

Opening an offensive may also be subject to critical interpretation, Stern acknowledged, writing: ”It sounds so damn defensive to throw other numbers out there to defend what has to be acknowledged as bad behavior, although of the 400-plus arrests in Vegas, almost 200 were for prostitution — there I go again.”

Without question, there were people in Las Vegas you wouldn’t have hired as the baby sitter or wanted to run into at the wrong time and place. But check the newspaper clippings and broadcasts from the actual weekend: Nobody raised the terror alert to red, at least not until waking up Monday and hearing about an ugly incident that involved the Tennessee Titans’ Pacman Jones hours after All-Star weekend formally concluded.

Hindsight is 20-20, but a troubled football player accused of inciting a triple shooting — how, exactly, is this a reflection of Stern’s league?

A few hundred arrests over several days, roughly half for prostitution in a city that is the home office for Hookers R Us — how does this qualify as an indictment of a certain (read: African-American) element now said to have been running rampant everywhere but between Dick Bavetta and Charles Barkley during their charity race?

Isn’t it possible that a fair percentage of those arrested included some from among the tens of thousands in town for conventions unrelated to the N.B.A. or to celebrate the Chinese New Year? Or are only black people vulnerable to the seductions of Las Vegas?

”The subject is just so delicious that everyone from Imus to Letterman thinks it’s just hilarious to dump on the ‘hip-hoppers,’ ” Stern wrote. ”Of course, race plays a part in the perceptions. Do you doubt that there were more African-Americans in Las Vegas last week than at any time in its history, and some people felt threatened by that simply as a matter of culture?”

It must be noted that Jason Whitlock, an African-American columnist for The Kansas City Star and America Online, initiated the criticism of All-Star weekend. But his perceptions represent only one of the hundreds of journalists in Las Vegas and ultimately have become less the issue for Stern than the latest round of mostly uninformed N.B.A. bashing it triggered on Talk Show America.

We know Stern’s league has issues. But, once again, pro football players and their entourages have been on a criminal rampage for years while a majority of the news media ignored the sobering reality on the way to another Super Bowl buffet.

Maybe it was the relative anonymity of the average player in a team-first league, compared with the N.B.A.’s individual marketing strategy, that has wrought a more flamboyant and inflammatory product. And maybe, as the Dallas Mavericks’ owner, Mark Cuban, argued via e-mail: ”Football pays the bills for the sports media in every N.F.L. city and some non-N.F.L. cities. It’s that simple.”

Americans respect selling power, benevolent or not, and no athlete wielded more in the 1990s than Sheriff Michael Jordan. But not long after the Bulls’ dynasty crumbled, the N.B.A. was being characterized as too young, too edgy, too scary — code for too black — as it was said to be in the late 1970s, pre-Magic and Bird.

Now it’s also the hip-hop capital of America, Thugs R Us. As if what was possibly the worst N.B.A. disturbance ever, the Pistons-Pacers brawl in November 2004, wasn’t at least half the responsibility of a largely white crowd at the suburban Palace of Auburn Hills.

Talk about drunk, about lawless. And in that case, we do have the video to prove it.

  • So the verdict is that negros are ignorant and don’t know how to act BUT, violence in the NFL is not worth mentioning, nor does it constitute news.

And that’s why it is awesome to have the best ED drugs free samples of viagra online and you should have a consultation with your doctor and let them know about the disorder completely so that the doctor can advice you as per the disorder. greyandgrey.com buying generic viagra Only when he fails to satisfy himself or his partner consistently. The reasons for this problem can be for any number of medicines and so there is no limit to how many you want to buy online. generic levitra http://greyandgrey.com/lectures/nysba-fall-2006/ Moreover, according to a recent survey, 50% of male under an age group of 40-60 generic sale viagra are fighting with erection problems.

  • Witlocks article gave me the impression that he does not Like Black People, and the Vegas activities gave the the green light to tell the world about it.
  • I never thought of how many people EAT off football, and consequently have an incentive to keep mum about football related violence.
  • Too young, too edgy, too scary, code for being black. That is a dope t-shirt idea.

Somebody send me his address so I can send him a thank you card.

===========
===========

I love what Koch means to hip hop.

It forces cats to crunch the numbers.

As record sales keep sliding, the rise of Koch coincides with the lowering of rappers? expectations. Five years ago, no self-respecting rapper ? certainly no self-respecting New York rapper ? would ever have bragged about selling 400,000 records. But if you?re not going to sell a million CDs with a major label, you may well be better off at Koch, accepting a lower recording and promotional budget in exchange for a higher royalty rate. That?s why rappers are so ambivalent about Koch: signing there means giving up the dream of pop stardom, or, at any rate, deferring it.

=============
=============

Sports serves as a wonderful platform for racialicious ponderings. God Bless America.

==========
==========

Comments

  1. Nexgrl says

    I was in LV for All-Star Weekend. I haven’t read or heard all of the media fallout from it. I have also been in LV during a 4th of July Weekend. It was the same kind of crowded. The difference of course, was black and white.

    I spent a lot of time both weekends away from the strip because it was just too crowded.

    There is a whole lot more that I could say, but I’ll just leave it at that.

  2. Hummingbyrd says

    There is a whole lot more that I could say, but I’ll just leave it at that.
    ============

    Gurrrl Say it.

    Thats what blog fun is about!

  3. neo says

    When things go bad in America, do this? DO WHAT?!

    BLAME IT ON THE BLACK PEOPLE!

    We did it when we bumped those nigraz over on ‘dem boats

    We did it when we got on dem hose-s

    We did it again duurin Katrinauh

    and we gon’ do it again in Vegas..

    …what more can we say? (c) Jigga..

  4. Nexgrl says

    Okay HB,

    I stayed at the Stratosphere. That hotel is already low on the totem pole, but it was ultra low All-Star Weekend. I made my plans late, so that was my option because I refused to pay a fortune.

    Thursday was cool. Friday was alright but had the tendencies to get worse. There were clusters of folks hanging at the elevator entrances, and escalators leading to the parking garage.

    Friday and Saturday, the elevators smelled like a brewery. My friend was in one of the world towers, on a floor with Suites. The minute you stepped off the elevator, you smelled weed. The further along you walked in the halway, the more potent the smell.

    Saturday night I went to see Jamie Foxx. The show was good. The walk to the Aladdin was another story. Each cluster of folks we passed, you got a contact high.

    The smell lingers in everything so, the casinos began to smell like weed. The smell wasn’t everywhere but definitely in spots.

    Car loads of men and women getting their “talk” on with pedestrians. Bicycle cops giving out tickets to those car loads. It reminded me of Freaknik.

    After the concert while walking the strip, there were clusters of Las Vegas Sherrifs.

    The strip at 3 a.m. wasn’t so bad. A few drunk chics stumbling with and with out their shoes on.

    The taxi stand lines were so long at the top casinos, that we walked to the Frontier. Taxi cabs were droping folks off near the curb and busting a U. They weren’t trying to go to the Frontier taxi stand.

  5. Hummingbyrd says

    Thursday was cool. Friday was alright but had the tendencies to get worse. There were clusters of folks hanging at the elevator entrances, and escalators leading to the parking garage.
    ===============
    Parking lot pimpin beeches!

    It reminded me of Freaknik.
    It reminded me of Freaknik.
    It reminded me of Freaknik.

    Wowsa.

    Did you see the Beyond beats and Rhymes Docu?

    Dude went to down to spring bring in the and filmed and the images totally reminded me of freaknik.

    Its like.

    You gather a lot of 20 &30 something negros, in hot weather.

    Boom.

    Freaknik.

  6. Nexgrl says

    No, I didn’t see the documentary. You are the second person in the blogworld to recommend, so I better start searching for it now.

  7. Hummingbyrd says

    HI NS,

    Debra Dickerson on some other n*ggas payroll.

    I put her on that Jason McWorter, Juan Williams, Im a n*gga but I won’t admit it list.