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Here come J. Hill with her once again insightful
articles about what it is to be some sort of black. This latest attempt claims the black community is rooting for this team for vendication.
Here are some excerpts from the article. first the title:
For the black community, a Redeem Team gold is especially important
I don't understand how the black race can be embarrassed because the USA Basketball team lost. I can understand being embarrassed because they didn't carry themselves with pride (not saying they didn't) atleast that would be something to look down upon.
The previous failures of the national team brought a strong sense of embarrassment to both African-American fans and players. Basketball was stylized and grown by a number of black players who became heroes in the black community -- from Julius Erving to Michael Jordan to LeBron James. Of all the major professional sports, the NBA is the most influenced by black culture and it's the one pro league where blacks enjoy a significant leadership presence as coaches and general managers.
Her obligatory "the Whites didn't get the same treatment" doing something similar or someting totaly unrelated. Lets not forget Hockey is just ahead of soccer on the average US fans list of things to watch. Egh, who cares about facts when we can play the Black vs White or the White vs Black card?
The losing created a majority of the animosity -- "basketball power" Puerto Rico drilled the U.S. by 19 points in Athens -- but the character of that team didn't exactly win people over. Carmelo Anthony and LeBron complained about playing time and the players' nightlife and luxury hotel accommodations suddenly became major story lines. It didn't matter that the U.S. hockey team was far more disrespectful when they destroyed their rooms in the Olympic athlete's village following elimination in the 1998 Olympic tournament in Nagano. Our basketball team became the enemy.
Are we really at the point where we have to stretch things this badly?
Foreigners became in vogue in the NBA, and black players were characterized as having too much 'tude and being too tattooed.
This was the very next line. I guess the fact that 90% of people said the US didn't bring ANY shooters must of really meant "Black players can't shoot". Good thing we added that White guy Michael Redd to the team as a shooter.
The insinuation seemed to be that our players weren't smart enough to cope with the international game and the lack of U.S. success was used to denigrate urban basketball, its culture and its players.
This is my favorite part of the article. We went from TEAM USA to how important the "All Black" Celtic team furthured the NBA by beating those damn "Euro" Lakers. I am at a loss for words (now).
The Redeem Team's brilliance only has furthered the important momentum created by the Celtics' destruction of the Euro-Lakers in the NBA Finals. The Celtics, who had an all-black starting five, also did a lot to change some of the negative perceptions associated with black basketball players. By out-hustling and out-defending the Lakers and doing all the little things black ballers supposedly consider uncool, the Celtics proved international players aren't necessarily better investments than Americans.
So my question to the fellow CL'rs why are the journalist so insistant on making the Olympic team more than what it is? Why do we have people complaining about stats when we are winning by 30 points a game? Why are people complaining that so and so wasn't on this team so they lost? WTF is going on? I know when 2012 comes I will not follow the Olympics through the US media thats for sure.
