The relative lack of attention to the racial makeup of this team during the preseason is telling. This is going to be one of those mid season "story lines" ESPN will run with. And in the end it will be run as as expose on just how racist we still are. I can see it now "What does the popularity of the Timberwolves tell us about race in America" by Jamell Hill.
And in the end it will be another exercise in white guilt and why it's so wrong to cheer for your own kind. This is not going to be swept under the rug, this is the booster shot in the vaccination of the white identity of America.
What you say is interesting SchaafC. I don't know how effective commentary like that will be, though, in making white males feel guilty about appreciating a majority white team. If anything, it may push the majority of them to a greater racial consciousness. That is more specifically: tick them off, which is, as we all know, part of the path. As in "I know am not racist. Can't I just enjoy my favorite basketball team without being called a damn racist? And by the likes of Charles 'Flakey White-Stuff' Barkley."
Because the truth is most will like the Wolves out of an implicit racial allegiance, ostensibly because of their "grit", "quiet humility", "sportsmanship" and "teamwork". I think that's the other side of the coin, when it concerns all this insinuation and subtle psychological abuse that's heaped upon our people. Our people have been driven to hating themselves without even knowing it and so when they invariably start to love themselves again, because the slightest ray of light punctures the darkened clouds, it will also be without even knowing it, without considering themselves racist.
Telling our folks they are racist because of the basketball team they follow may not be the most effective tactic once that self-love starts to swell. Consider, for example, how muted any criticism of the film Lord of The Rings has been when even the most shallow analysis has to agree that it is a film essentially about European racial and cultural pride ("Men of the West stand!").
And I don't think it's because there aren't non-whites out there who would love to pontificate all day long about how racist LOTR is. Certainly there are. And those critics did find a forum. But how large was that forum really? How much purchase did their arguments have? Did wiser heads prevail i.e. instinctively see no usefulness in pushing such a position? Why poke a sleeping bear with a stick when the morphine drip is working just fine?
It may seem frivolous to now bring up Skip Bayless. But I think it is also worth considering the “Skip Bayless factorâ€. As much as he is, individually, an insignificant, caste-system blowhard, willing, for instance, to throw elite, tragically underrated athletes like Decker under the bus to make a laudatory point about Tebow, he is important as a type.
His instincts, in the Kevin McDonald parlance, are implicitly white. Hence the athletes he most fervently advocates are whites (Though certainly not without exception. After all, his credibility in a caste-world is predicated on his willingness to periodically give disproportionate recognition to black athletes). Without question though, his subconscious racial allegiance, however strong, is the tension that underlies his roundtable discussions with Stephen Smith. In fact, I am certain it is this very tension to which the show owes its ratings. And likely the producers are aware of this.
I see an issue like this, if raised in any salient fashion, going directly to a discussion between Skip Bayless and Stephen Smith. And, I could be wrong, but I don't see Skip lying down on this one i.e. conceding that the Timberwolves deliberately selected a majority white team as a policy. Because, the truth is, I don't think Skip would ever believe this is what occurred. That's the beauty of implicitly white caste-system blowhards. They don't know just how racist they and their kindred “implicits†really are.
On the other hand, I could see criticism of the Timberwolves on these grounds affecting organizational decisions and thereby impacting personnel decisions going forward. I could see the Timberwolves going after blacks to restore their good name in the league. And certainly the more successful they are, the greater access they will have to higher quality black athletes who otherwise are uninterested in playing in Minnesota because of cultural and climatic reasons.
Of course this is all based on the Wolves
actually being successful. Otherwise, they are the Washington Generals and no one cares because they make the caste system’s point.
But the deepest point that I will attempt to make I alluded to with this question: “Why poke a sleeping bear with a stick when the morphine drip is working just fine?†I think our enemies are willing to make token concessions if they feel that it will mollify us, yet be undisruptive to the larger trends. So what we get one white basketball team to root for while our race literally goes the way of the wooly mammoth? It’s the reason we are obliged to be much more than sports fans.
Wow that was a long post. Thanks for reading if you got this far!
