I’m someone who approaches sports analytically first, and “writerly” second: Sports stories are great, but as with any description of the world, they should stick to the facts, or at least acknowledge them when they complicate the narrative.
So while I found this episode entertaining, it was also maddening in how it erased Jews from the Celtics’ dynasty teams, particularly the coach of the Russell Celtics and architect of the “White Celtics”, Red Auerbach (BTW, Google “celtics gm 80s” and see the blurb it highlights. It would behoove Google and other “Forces For Good” to not make Douglas Murray’s point for him), and the general flabbiness of defining what a “Black Team” and a “White Team” are.
If I were to guess, it sounds like Laymon falls into the same trap that Sokol described regarding announcers in the 80s and 90s: “Blacks” were “natural athletes” and “Whites” were “scrappy”. This manages to insult everyone except sports fans who put the racial imaginary ahead of the beautiful reality of the sport right in front of them. Of course, Laymon makes no bones about his racial imaginary (the ambivalence to Mahomes because he fails Laymon’s brown paper bag test was…something), so as I said: entertaining, but maddening. There’s a reason I don’t listen to sports radio and ESPN take factories.
Even then, further mysteries abound: Was Jerry Rice Black enough, playing for the preppie-white Bill Walsh Niners, but coming from a HBCU? Ozzie Smith showcased his athletic talents taking the field every home game for the Whiteyball Cardinals, who’s smallball and fundamentals-based approach is usually associated with whiteness; is he Black enough?
A few links I found while writing this comment:
The Wikipedia article on Red Auerbach that Google helpfully highlighted to imply that Auerbach was racist: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Auerbach (I didn’t know Auerbach innovated the fast break; I associated it with the Showtime Lakers)
I also recommend Ezra Edelman’s 30 For 30 documentary on the Big East. I was 13 in 1984, when St. John’s, Georgetown, and Villanova all made it to the Final Four, and finding out more about how the league started and piggybacked off of ESPN was a lot of fun!
Yes, it's true that symbolically coding teams as black or white because of their style of play or their literal styles is, in some sense, partaking in the same kind of racial imaginary we were criticizing with the white commentators, but I'm not sure it's vulnerable to the same critique when, as in Kiese's case, you're acknowledging how constructed it is, and how personal it is.
We come to the game with the biases we have, and sometimes we should try to overcome them but sometimes we just have to go with them but try to be self-aware about it. You acknowledge this, but then say it's maddening. Why maddening? This is precisely the kind of thing I'm interested in unpacking on the podcast. Yes these categories are super flabby and subject to so many exceptions that you'd fail miserably if you actually tried to codify them in some way, but that's part of my point. We deploy them anyway. It's interesting to explore what's guiding us, unconsciously or culturally, in doing so.
Also, I think you may not be giving Kiese sufficient benefit of the doubt with the Mahomes thing, for instance. I took that as him reflecting on how the culture perceives these players, not trying to justify his own preferences. To the extent that it does influence his own preferences, I think he was being pretty vulnerable about how indefensible they are.
If your broader point is that we weren't sufficiently nuanced in some of our discussion, then I'm totally willing to grant that. This was a first stab for me in this realm, and I was consciously trying to get some clarity through the process. In general this is a challenge I'm finding I have with this podcast, which is that sometimes I want to branch out past the topics where I really know my shit, but then inevitably when I do that the conversation ends up being a bit muddier in certain ways, because I don't have as clear a sense of the big picture.
A question for you. Are there writers or podcasters out there who are doing this kind of analysis really well? My vague sense is that almost no one is, which is one reason I felt comfortable stepping into the breach. but I could be totally wrong about that.
Totally unexpected yet fantastic conversation. Always happy to hear an intelligent sports discussion, which is not necessarily easy to find. Good timing with March Madness as well. I was just in Brooklyn to watch the first round of the tournament.
Thanks! Dumb luck on the timing. Jason has been working on his book on race and sports in Boston and one thing led to another and he suggested Kiese’s essay. Glad you enjoyed it. I had fun.
I can imagine that feeling. I probably wasn’t dialed enough in to college basketball to notice. But certainly there were/are some interesting dynamics around white who do well in these heavily black environments, particularly the ones who play “black” in some sense.
I’m someone who approaches sports analytically first, and “writerly” second: Sports stories are great, but as with any description of the world, they should stick to the facts, or at least acknowledge them when they complicate the narrative.
So while I found this episode entertaining, it was also maddening in how it erased Jews from the Celtics’ dynasty teams, particularly the coach of the Russell Celtics and architect of the “White Celtics”, Red Auerbach (BTW, Google “celtics gm 80s” and see the blurb it highlights. It would behoove Google and other “Forces For Good” to not make Douglas Murray’s point for him), and the general flabbiness of defining what a “Black Team” and a “White Team” are.
If I were to guess, it sounds like Laymon falls into the same trap that Sokol described regarding announcers in the 80s and 90s: “Blacks” were “natural athletes” and “Whites” were “scrappy”. This manages to insult everyone except sports fans who put the racial imaginary ahead of the beautiful reality of the sport right in front of them. Of course, Laymon makes no bones about his racial imaginary (the ambivalence to Mahomes because he fails Laymon’s brown paper bag test was…something), so as I said: entertaining, but maddening. There’s a reason I don’t listen to sports radio and ESPN take factories.
Even then, further mysteries abound: Was Jerry Rice Black enough, playing for the preppie-white Bill Walsh Niners, but coming from a HBCU? Ozzie Smith showcased his athletic talents taking the field every home game for the Whiteyball Cardinals, who’s smallball and fundamentals-based approach is usually associated with whiteness; is he Black enough?
A few links I found while writing this comment:
The Wikipedia article on Red Auerbach that Google helpfully highlighted to imply that Auerbach was racist: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Auerbach (I didn’t know Auerbach innovated the fast break; I associated it with the Showtime Lakers)
A more realistic take on the Celtics from a saner time (2007): https://www.espn.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=adande_ja&page=Celtics-071219
I also recommend Ezra Edelman’s 30 For 30 documentary on the Big East. I was 13 in 1984, when St. John’s, Georgetown, and Villanova all made it to the Final Four, and finding out more about how the league started and piggybacked off of ESPN was a lot of fun!
Yes, it's true that symbolically coding teams as black or white because of their style of play or their literal styles is, in some sense, partaking in the same kind of racial imaginary we were criticizing with the white commentators, but I'm not sure it's vulnerable to the same critique when, as in Kiese's case, you're acknowledging how constructed it is, and how personal it is.
We come to the game with the biases we have, and sometimes we should try to overcome them but sometimes we just have to go with them but try to be self-aware about it. You acknowledge this, but then say it's maddening. Why maddening? This is precisely the kind of thing I'm interested in unpacking on the podcast. Yes these categories are super flabby and subject to so many exceptions that you'd fail miserably if you actually tried to codify them in some way, but that's part of my point. We deploy them anyway. It's interesting to explore what's guiding us, unconsciously or culturally, in doing so.
Also, I think you may not be giving Kiese sufficient benefit of the doubt with the Mahomes thing, for instance. I took that as him reflecting on how the culture perceives these players, not trying to justify his own preferences. To the extent that it does influence his own preferences, I think he was being pretty vulnerable about how indefensible they are.
If your broader point is that we weren't sufficiently nuanced in some of our discussion, then I'm totally willing to grant that. This was a first stab for me in this realm, and I was consciously trying to get some clarity through the process. In general this is a challenge I'm finding I have with this podcast, which is that sometimes I want to branch out past the topics where I really know my shit, but then inevitably when I do that the conversation ends up being a bit muddier in certain ways, because I don't have as clear a sense of the big picture.
A question for you. Are there writers or podcasters out there who are doing this kind of analysis really well? My vague sense is that almost no one is, which is one reason I felt comfortable stepping into the breach. but I could be totally wrong about that.
Totally unexpected yet fantastic conversation. Always happy to hear an intelligent sports discussion, which is not necessarily easy to find. Good timing with March Madness as well. I was just in Brooklyn to watch the first round of the tournament.
Thanks! Dumb luck on the timing. Jason has been working on his book on race and sports in Boston and one thing led to another and he suggested Kiese’s essay. Glad you enjoyed it. I had fun.
Representation matters. Or something.
I still remember how happy I was when Thompson gave a couple white kids scholarships.
I can imagine that feeling. I probably wasn’t dialed enough in to college basketball to notice. But certainly there were/are some interesting dynamics around white who do well in these heavily black environments, particularly the ones who play “black” in some sense.