I'm In Gregg Doyel's Hate Mail Again

So, while I critiqued Gregg Doyel in my last post, I have generally come to enjoy some aspects of his work. Sometimes he's willing to say things that otherwise don't get said. I assume this is, at least in part, to get conversation going. It's typically easier to get that going by saying something extreme or something unorthodox. Unfortunately, in the case of his column on the WNBA the other day, it was something that, while creating conversation, can actually be too orthodox as to be dismissive. Other times, though, it can be much more compelling.

As part of this, I've learned to appreciate his weekly Hate Mail responses to readers for what they often are--friendly banter. I suppose I've come to this appreciation in part simply because Gregg has included me and responded to my comments several times in Hate Mail over the last two years. It started off rather rocky, but for my part I have come to appreciate it. And I'm sure that's at least in part because it feeds my ego to get the public attention.

With that in mind, I was in Hate Mail again this past week, coincidentally enough with a comment that involves gender. One might argue that my comment to Gregg undermines my critique of him, but I'd say it doesn't. The argument that male/female and masculinity/femininity are constructions doesn't mean people can't struggle with identifying with them. Indeed, because these constructs are so deeply embedded in our society, many people do struggle with identifying with them, at least in part because society asks us so heavily to do so. Indeed, the need to identify with what society sees as feminine has been a significant obstacle for many female athletes throughout the history of American sports. And the need to identify with what society sees as masculine has led many men to pursue violent and aggressive interests out of a sense of feeling the need to show or prove their masculinity. Some readings of Hemingway suggest that various aspects of his life--including the heavy interests in bullfighting and baseball--reflected that same kind of struggle.

Women in the NBA: Sometimes I'm Embarrassed to Be Identified as a Man

You may have heard or read that a couple of weeks ago, in response to a question about it from Sports Illustrated reporter Ian Thomsen, David Stern asserted that he believes a woman playing in the NBA is "well within the range of possibility." Predictably, many a person has sounded off on this subject to dismiss the idea, using all sorts of arguments based in biological determinism, jeremiads about political correctness, and various other avenues for suggesting that there is no way a woman will ever play in the NBA. Just see Thomsen's mailbag from a week ago for some of these kinds of comments and argument, many of which are dismissive of the idea, and one of which characterizes Thomsen's article on Stern's comments as such "nonsense" that the author has stated that he or she will no longer read Thomsen's work. Today, Gregg Doyel added to this long list of dismissive arguments, with this column, in which he states flatly that he's not being "sexist"; he's just being "right."

I was planning on writing about this subject anyway as my semester came to a close and I qould finally have some time to get back to this blog. Then, given that I have a history of correspondence with Gregg, I wrote to him today in response to his column on the subject. In lieu of writing something additional when I think I summed it up in my message, here's the text of my message to Gregg:

Gregg,

Theories of biology upon which arguments against women's possibilities lie are inadequate to begin with. As many a transgendered person can tell you, the binary split of people into man-woman is not a complete picture of reality. It is a system of classification that was developed by people and that, in Western society, as well as other societies, has been used as the basis to relegate men and women to different positions with different opportunities time and again. Indeed, the whole biological theory itself is a theory built in Western science, created by men who already believed that the difference between men and women existed. They did not study things and then come to that belief; they already believed it ... just like many white Europeans developing scientific theories throughout the ages already believed that biological racial differences existed and, thus, their theories and discoveries reflected that starting-point belief that they already assumed as taken for granted from the beginning, thus perpetuating racism in the process. The man-women split does the same kind of thing and then has been used throughout the ages to perpetuate denial of opportunities, rights, and privileges based on this distinction. Over time, those differences have made it so that men and women, from the time they are conceived, are already positioned to do, think, and feel different things by society. Only recently has this been in any way challenged to any kind of an effective extent, and even with that, there is plenty still to rethink and reexamine. In the end, perhaps there are some general biological differences that might be noted between the group of people considered "men" and the group of people considered "women," but to out and out say one knows these differences without having really accounted for the years of social distinctions that contributed to these distinctions is to perpetuate the system that discriminates against women by closing off a possibility before it is even allowed to develop. In a word, it perpetuates sexism, and, thus, the kinds of biological deterministic arguments that you have put forth that close off this possibility of being examined are sexist.

You’re not alone, as your message board (to which I posted this same response almost verbatim) reflects, many would buy the biological argument—including people of various genders. And that is not to say that one can’t believe that biology makes a difference in men's and women's aptitudes. Perhaps it could ultimately be found to have some legitimacy … but perhaps not as well. And that’s the problem. The argument as you and so many others articulate it already assumes its full legitimacy and, thus, closes off the door to even entertaining another possibility, though that possibility may turn out to be legitimate. In the process, the vocalization of this argument not as “I believe” but as “I know,” as you have done in your column, rests on assuming what is a belief to be a truth, and in the process it becomes a significant part of the system of the oppression of women. 100 or even 50 or even 30 years ago, many people were sure of things women could not do that they are now doing despite people making specious knowledge claims like yours. Similarly, 100 or 50 or 30 years ago, many people made similar kinds of knowledge claims about being black, or “colored,” and used them to deny opportunities, rights, privileges or even simply the possibility of imagining a different future. Yet, today, we can refute those claims quite readily.

So, in the end, yes, your argument is sexist, and I hope I’ve explained effectively to at least some degree why.

While I have singled out Gregg here to the extent that my message (and, thus, this post) is in response to his column, I do not wish to single out Gregg Doyel in the overall argument here. As I suggested in my message to him, he's nowhere near alone in believing. Additionally, Gregg Doyel didn't start this kind of argument. To a large extent, he and so many others are vocalizing what they've been taught and/or learned to think. Yet, that's exactly how sexism works. People don't believe they're being sexist; they just believe that what they believe is truth, because that's what they have learned to think. When, however, the origins and bases for these ways of thinking go unexamined, and the possibilities for other ways of thinking are summarily dismissed as "nonsense," as "stupid" (as the title of Gregg's column explicitly indicates), or other such derogation, then we have oppression. And to that extent, Gregg Doyel, the folks responding to Ian Thomsen's column, and the many various people who continue this dismissal should be held responsible for their part in perpetuating that system of oppression, and at the very least (though there is more to it than this) their arguments should be met with strong, persistent, and continuing critique.

Perhaps ... Finally ... Some Progress?

The winning streak ended today ...

The winning streak of non-white head coaching hires at FBS (Division I-A) college football programs ended today at 2. Before Bobby Bowden officially retired from Florida State University today, head coaching positions opening up this year had been 2 for 2 in hiring non-white (in each case African American) head coaches. Western Kentucky hired Willie Taggart, while Memphis hired Larry Porter. Of course, the argument could be made that the streak is still intact, since technically Jimbo Fisher had already been selected when he was made coach-in-waiting behind Bowden awhile back.

The point here is that the early returns are favorable for perhaps seeing a long-overdue increase in opportunities for non-white head coaches in FBS college football. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come this year and in the future. I will certainly be watching.

World Series could mar Philly transit negotiations

I know, I know ... There hasn't been much on this blog lately. Please stick in there my 3 or 4 (dare I hope 5?) regular visitors. There will be more to come, hopefully soon. The semester has got me running ragged.

I do, though, have a short post for today. On ESPN.com the front webpage link to a story titled "Strike could mar Philly transit services" reads "Philly sports weekend clouded by transit talks." Don't both the title of the piece and the title of the link reflect something rather profound regarding the position of labor in contemporary United States society. At the very least, they suggest that big-time sports rank higher as a priority. Imagine if these read "World Series could mar Philly transit negotiations" and "Transit talks clouded by Philly sports weekend," respectively ...

I've Often Wondered ...

At the end of most of his Forde Yard Dash columns, ESPN's Pat Forde recommends a place to eat from a town that he visited the weekend before while reporting on college football. I've sometimes wondered, while reading his column, what place in Bowling Green, Ohio, he would pick if he ever did so. Well, this week, I received my answer, since Forde came to the BGSU-Boise State game this past Saturday (which I also attended). As Forde wrote on Tuesday, "When thirsty in the bucolic burgh of Bowling Green, Ohio, The Dash recommends a beer at Campus Quarters (40), an energetic joint across the street from Doyt Perry Stadium and the Bowling Green campus in general. The excessive country music in the place is offset nicely by a good beer selection, and it has indoor corn toss." So, there we have it: Campus Quarters, right on Wooster, just across from the Harshman Quandrangle. I guess it makes sense. It's down by the stadium area, it's a local place rather than a national or regional chain, and it has been around awhile. Now, if only DiBenedetto's hadn't just moved last spring from their same old location a couple doors down from Quarters, maybe my favorite sandwich place would have made the column instead ...

Sports are Important ... Because They're Important.

On Thursday, this story on the Detroit Tigers and the city of Detroit ran on ESPN.com, while this story on how some people in Detroit can’t even afford to bury loved ones who have died ran on CNN.com. I’ve written before on this blog about the ludicrousness of the idea that the success of sports teams translates into some kind of relief to a city or region. While there may be occasional instances in which a sports team or event has some kind of bearing along these lines to a geographical entity, the sports media plays this connection up way too often. In his Thursday column, Jerry Crasnick did exactly that. Yet, really, will the Tigers making the playoffs, or making the World Series, or winning the World Series really do anything to help alleviate problems like the inability of people to afford to bury people or the many other difficulties that a people and governments in places like Detroit faces? No. At best, the playoffs and World Series will cause a little more money to be spent in the city as people visit the city to see the games. Maybe one more big-name free agent will sign to play for the Tigers and, thus, spend a little more of his money in the city. Yet, that money will do little to assist with the economic issues the city faces. At most, taxes collected on income, property, and sales will add a little more into the hopper for the city and state governments. And when I say little, I mean really little. The amount that that will generate is miniscule in comparison to the state and city budgets and the amounts needed to improve living, working, and economic conditions in the city. So, it’s rather disingenuous for sportswriters to make these kinds of claims, and, as I said in my previous post, this all just seems like another example of the sports media justifying the importance of sport. They set up a tautological argument that at its core goes something like this: sports are important because they help geographical regions, and they help geographical regions because they are important signs of a city’s prominence and success.

And, meanwhile, a very similar kind of thing may be happening to the city of Chicago and the United States as whole in regard to the Olympics. Check out what The Agon wrote about this for more.

I love sports. I enjoy watching them. They help keep me going sometimes when I'm driving, when I'm working, and so on. But let's not kid ourselves by overestimating their significance. And let's recognize how self-serving these kinds of stories about the significance of sport can be.

Sometimes You Can't Make It Own Your Own

I became a fan of U2 in the Summer of 1988. Over a year after it came out, on a whim I bought The Joshua Tree, since it had produced three big hits. It was all part of my 15 cassettes for 1 cent or whatever the deal was for a Columbia Record and Tape Club membership at the time. I, of course, knew U2’s major hits at the time but had never been particularly enthused by then. It all changed when I listened to my new The Joshua Tree tape. I was hooked, and by that fall, when Rattle and Hum came out, U2 was my favorite band, which is where they have remained in the 21 years since then.

So, it was with excitement that finally, this past Sunday, I got to see them in concert. They kicked off the American leg of their 360º tour in Soldier Field in Chicago Saturday night. I couldn’t make it that night, but my wife and I made it to show number two in the same venue the next night. If you want to read my standard concert review of the show, it’s available here on tunesmate.com. For the purposes of this blog, I want to examine another aspect of the concert.

In particular, I found the makeup of the U2 audience interesting. When I was in high school in the late 1980s, I remember once a friend of mine wishing for a big concert to come to our area. It was a pipe dream and we all knew it, but we still found ourselves pondering it. He was thinking of the likes of Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, etc. Then, he looked at me and said something to the effect of “If it were up to you, though, we’d probably get something like U2.” It wasn’t meant to be approving of the choice, and it reflected, I think, some of the identity of U2 amid the hard rock trends of the late 1980s. That identity was furthered reflected a couple years later when, during my freshman year of college, a few guys in my dorm got into a war of words on one guy’s door that reached the level that the resident advisor had to step in. The one pair of guys might have been categorized as the “frat boy” style, while the other pair might have been categorized as part of the alternative scene. Among other things, at one point the frat boy pair wrote something on the other pair’s door disparaging them for their “U2 mushroom music.” In other words, for as big a draw as U2 had been during the period of The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum, the band wasn’t completely considered the kind of mainstream, stadium-busting rock that would appeal to the popular partying crowd.

The crowd on Sunday seems to have signaled that that has changed. In many ways, U2 seems to be what the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Eagles, and so on have been—one of the all-time most famous bands who have at times been considered edgy and who can sell out and rock out stadiums of 50,000-70,000 people. In many ways, given their age, their career paths, and their appeals, U2’s latest tour reminds me of the Steel Wheels tour that the Rolling Stones undertook in 1989-1990. Many in the crowd seemed to be there to drink a lot, rock out to music, and just have a good party.

While to a large extent, that’s par for the course on a stadium tour like this, this makeup of the crowd seems to become an issue of particular significance when we examine what might be called the “political” aspect of U2. While driving home from the concert, I heard a DJ on WGN radio out of Chicago talk about how he would have liked more humor and less politics at the shows this weekend, but that he was okay with the politics that U2 interjected, because that was U2; it’s part of their identity. This particularly caught my ear because I wanted them to include more politics into the performance, though I realized full well why they might not have done so. It also got me wondering how effective the political aspects of U2’s performance were.

At one point, the audience was asked to wear masks or hold up pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi, who was elected democratic leader of Burma in 1990 but was immediately overthrown by a military junta and has been under house arrest for the better part of the two decades since. The band played the song “Walk On,” which was written about her, and volunteers wearing masks surrounded the stage. Before the concert, ushers had masks available, so I had one that I had gotten then, and I held mine up throughout the song. Yet, I was clearly in the minority. I noticed one other person in my entire section wearing the mask, a few people in the next section holding them up, and a few others here and there. In fact, even though Bono had just explained who Suu Kyi was, the guy in front of my wife and I turned to my wife to ask who the picture I was holding up was.

Other aspects of the concert linked to political issues, including a message from Desmond Tutu on the big screen leading into the band playing “One” and, toward the end of the concert, Bono offering information about the amount of money that had been raised for AIDS relief in Africa. The themes of these “political moments” tended to be an emphasis on human rights, democracy, and freedom, along with a sentiment, as reflected in the song title “One” and Tutu’s speech before it, that we are all one world, needing to work together. Politically speaking, it was all pretty general stuff. I mean, this wasn’t Bono asking us to support a specific plan for national health care or a view on abortion or something else that might divide the audience in a much readier way. Yet, it is, as the WGN show host’s comments indicate, stuff that’s considered “political” (and, thus, something that is, by that perspective, to be distinguished from “entertainment,” “humor,” and any number of other categories that could be applied to the performance).

And, to some degree, I would assume U2’s efforts have some effect. My wife and I learned more about Suu Kyi during the performance. I’m sure others in the audience did as well. Yet, if the crowd participation during “Walk On” is any indication, that effect was rather limited. On the whole, it’s a rather privileged audience that went to this concert. Tickets were by no means cheap, the price of parking was pretty high, tee-shirts at the concert were $40 a pop, and that’s not even including all of the ancillary expenses that come with making the trip (and given the limited venues that the tour is playing, I’m sure many folks like me were and will be making four, five, six, or more hour trips to see a show on the tour). So, the political messages that U2 offers have potential to reach an audience that might have some money or resources to contribute to the causes of human rights, democracy, and freedom that U2 is espousing. Yet, to what degree is that limited by the audience’s motivation to care? Many of the folks didn’t seem to take particular interest in these aspects of the concert, preferring instead to take this time to get their next beer and wait for the next rocking song to which they could pump their fists and dance. Or they preferred, like the guy on WGN, to view these elements of the concert as a metaphorical mosquito—not a huge annoyance that keeps you from hanging out but just enough of an annoyance that you vocalize your displeasure. Meanwhile, for those of us who did take interest in these parts of the concert, to at least some degree, U2 was already preaching to the choir.

In the end, then, I think that generally U2’s messages about human rights, freedom, and democracy are on the whole good for the world. At the very least, my wife and I learned something important. At how many other concerts can one say that? Yet, like so many instances involving the confluence of politics and popular music, we need to recognize the limitations of the stadium rock concert as a forum for political discourse. And, perhaps, as part of that, there’s a need for voices that push society to reconsider how it thinks about that confluence. Should it be such an annoyance, and if so, toward what political ends does that sentiment serve? And, if one does listen to what U2 says, where does one go from there? Does one simply think about it, only to put it aside after the drive home, or does one donate money or time to a cause or talk about it with others after the concert? Does one take other actions?

On the back of my Aung San Suu Kyi mask, I’m offered some suggestions for action to take. The mask lists a number of websites to visit to find out how to help, including this one for the United States, this one for Canada, and this one globally. The wording in a circle on the side reads “Wear to work or college, when you’re at home drinking a cup of tea… especially to be worn at U2 shows when the band plays Walk On.” These are contextualized by the bolded quotation from Suu Kyi: “Please use your liberty to promote ours.” So, U2 is asking the privileged audience to act beyond just listening at the concert. Yet, the audience has to be motivated to even care to act in the first place. And that is where I’m concerned that things might be lacking, particularly with the current audience that U2’s tour is drawing. And it’s not that I don’t want U2 to draw this audience, nor that I think there’s no place for concerts to be about partying and listening to good music. After all, I did my fair share of dancing and singing at the show. It’s that I want that and I want more. I want a world where we can all have a good time and learn something about ourselves and other at the same time. Music seems to have that potential, but only if both sides (performer and audience) participate.

The State of Discipline in the College Arena

I have something more to consider for three weeks from now.…

You see, I tend to root for Boise State in college football. I believe that they (along with Utah) are ideally representative of the discrepancy between the six conferences that get automatic bids to BCS bowl games and the five conferences in the “FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision” of Division I college football that do not. Three years ago, Boise State ended up the year as the only undefeated team in the FBS, having defeated Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, while also soundly defeating Oregon State (which was the only team pre-UCLA to beat USC when USC was discussed as a potential candidate for the championship game before losing to its cross-town rivals). Yet, Boise State did not win the championship; Florida (after defeating Ohio State in the championship game) did. While some actually tried to argue that Boise State was a winner in the BCS system that year because they got the opportunity to play in a BCS Bowl, I would argue and have argued that those very arguments are excellent examples to illustrate one type of hegemony. It’s a case of excluding or marginalizing someone and then arguing, quite the opposite, that those who have been excluded or marginalized have actually been treated quite well (they’re “winners,” after all). I still to this day argue that Boise State was cheated out of their opportunity, and I look forward to them and other schools from the WAC, MAC, MWC, Conference-USA, and Sun Belt running the table and showing again and again that they deserve fairer consideration.

And this year Boise State may again be the team to do it. They’re certainly getting buzz as such a team. Yet, in three weeks, my interest in seeing them run the table will be tested. On September 26, Boise State will visit my alma mater (and current employer) Bowling Green State University, and I am planning to take my soon-to-be-ten-year-old nephew to the game. I started a tradition of taking him to football games last year, getting him a membership in the Falcon Kids Club (see here if you’re interested), which gives him free admittance to most BGSU sporting events, along with a tee-shirt, birthday card from mascot Freddie Falcon, and membership card. I’m hoping he’ll develop a loyalty to the Falcons (which I think he is) and, perhaps, even come to school here someday. (NOTE TO BGSU ADMINISTRATION: Please see this as one of the many things I’m doing and willing to do to promote enrollment.) We went to see Eastern Michigan-BGSU for a football game last year. We’re planning on at least the Boise State-BGSU game this year.

So, I’m planning to be at the game, but I have to recognize the dilemma that I face by this game. I am, after all, going to root for BGSU. They are the team I follow and support. Yet, if BGSU wins, it destroys Boise State’s undefeated season (assuming it’s still intact when they play each other). I’ll still be pulling for the Falcons to win. (Indeed, maybe BGSU can run the table, though I doubt they’d get the same respect as Boise State if they did, even though the Falcons’ schedule isn’t necessarily an easy one). It seems, though, that after last night, I have one more reason to root against Boise State….

Last night, while working on various things here at home, I listened to the BGSU Falcons defeat Troy on 88.1 WBGU—one of the two campus radio stations here in Bowling Green (and, by the way, kudos to Pat Dougherty and Anthony Bellino from BGRSO on the call). Then, I watched the Boise State-Oregon game on ESPN, which Boise State won to begin its trek toward another undefeated season. I looked up from my work long enough to see the game end, then turned my attention back to my computer screen. When I looked up again, the cameras were following Oregon player LeGarrette Blount, who was being restrained and led off the field by coaches and teammates while he appeared to be yelling back and forth with some Boise State fans who were in the stands. As I later saw on replay, after what appeared to be some verbal exchanges from Boise State’s Byron Hout, Blount punched Hout in the jaw and knocked him to the ground, before being restrained and led out by coaches and teammates. ESPN’s post-game coverage was dominated by this event, from what was shown on-camera to what the announcers discussed to the very first question the sideline reporter asked winning head coach Chris Peterson. ESPN.com’s coverage of the game has also been dominated by the event. Today, the headline for the game coverage read “Punched Out: Oregon's LeGarrette Blount lost his cool Thursday and he might lose more. Should he be punished?” You can even click on that headline and see a replay of what happened between Blount and Hout. The official recap of the game also leads with the post-game event, using the title “Postgame punch mars No. 14 Boise State's commanding win over No. 16 Oregon.” It is then this theme, not the game itself, that dominates much of the recap, with one line even claiming that “Blount’s actions took away” from Boise State celebrating its victory.

Yet, there’s something awfully revealing buried in that recap. To the side of the recap you can click on a photo of fans watching Blount punch Hout on the scoreboard screen at Boise State’s stadium. My question here is “How did the fans know to even heckle Blount as he was being led out?” The answer: they knew because the folks at Bronco Stadium were making sure they saw it happen … repeatedly.

So, here’s the deal. Yes, Blount did something inappropriate. (Though, the context of the sporting event is part of the equation here. A punch like Blount’s would have been business as usual in many a hockey game.) It appears that there’s going to be some disciplinary action taken against Blount, and my point, at this juncture at least, is not to comment on what is or isn’t appropriate disciplinary reaction (as certainly plenty of media members have, like here and here). I do, though, want to comment on who is being discussed as deserving of disciplinary action. Yes, Blount threw the punch, but for what reasons did the folks at Bronco Stadium repeatedly show it on the scoreboard? It certainly seems to have exacerbated the situation by stirring up the fans, who then engaged with Blount as he was led off the field. I would have a hard time believing the Bronco Stadium folks didn’t realize that might happen.

This is then a rather blatant example (among many in American culture, in sports and out of sports) in which individual transgressions are analyzed, discussed, highlighted, emphasized, condemned, and utilized as the basis for discipline, yet institutional and organizational transgressions, including the ways in which organizations and institutions contribute to violence and inappropriate action, not only go without discipline, but also go without critique or even attention.

So, I’m trying to think of ways to try to draw attention to institutional and organizational culpability. My initial thought is that I might make a sign or a tee-shirt or something for the BGSU-Boise State game that reads something like “Welcome Broncos … to a stadium that doesn’t incite fans to provoke violence.” Maybe, though, that kind of technique would just contribute to the problem by being a kind of provocation itself. That is, of course, the dilemma of so much critique—even the means of critique end up, at least to some degree, reinforcing the problem. Yet, maybe, something like this could register in some folks’ minds and at least be a small step to addressing the issue. And, maybe, I’d not only be teaching my nephew to root for the Falcons, I’d also be teaching him some critical thinking skills. Who knows? I’m not sure if I’m going to do anything and, if so, what I will do, but at least I do know I have one more reason to cheer on my alma mater….

Tunesmate

As I'm sure you can tell if you read this blog regularly at all, one of my interests is popular music. I've blogged about it numerous times and will do so again, I'm sure. I'll keep doing so here, but starting today some of my thoughts on popular music will also appear on a blog my buddy (and college roommate) Marc Majers set up recently called Tunesmate. I've linked to it on the side of this blog with my other Links of Interest. If you're interested in opinions on and discussion of popular music, as well as being introduced to or reminded of various artists and styles, you might like this site.

Ballpark Names

Like last summer, this summer I went to New York City. Unlike last summer, this summer I did not go to a Mets game. While visiting with my wife and her sister last month, we did have one evening in which we could have hopped the subway out to Queens to go. The Mets were even in town playing the Rockies, and, given the Mets' season, I doubt it would have been hard to get tickets. I mentioned going and my wife even talked about going, but in the end we didn't go. If I had even shown just a touch more desire to go, I'm pretty sure we would have gone. Yet, that desire wasn't there.

That lack of desire has nothing to do with the Mets' play this year. Indeed, I've often argued that a true Mets fan enjoys the team when it's underachieving or even just plain bad. That, to me, is part of the fun and identity of being a Mets fan.

Rather than that, my lack of interest in going to a game this summer had a lot more to do with a lack of interest in going to the Mets' new ballpark. Last year, I wanted one last game at Shea Stadium. This year, I feel little interest in visiting the new stadium, CitiField, which is named after a corporation that was recently bailed out by the government, yet retains the naming rights it paid millions of dollars to have on this stadium. The situation has even caused some to suggest the stadium should be called "Taxpayer Stadium" or other names of that ilk, and I guess I tend to concur, since I routinely call it "Taxpayer Field" when talking about it.

Now, I'm not one who decries the loss of sports to commercialism. I recognize full well that those deep ties were established well over a century ago. Wrigley Field, for instance, may be one of the great sites of baseball public memory, but the stadium still bears the name of the team's once-owner, who also happened to sell gum named "Wrigley's." Or, just read the book Albert Spalding and the Rise of Baseball: The Promise of American Sport, by my former advisor at Michigan State University, Peter Levine, as one example that illustrates the many commercial manipulations that occurred as major league baseball developed. So, naming the ballpark after a corporate entity is not the horrible new practice that's destroying baseball that some might have one believe.

My problem here is that I'm tired of the ballparks changing names all of the time. It's awkward, for instance, to have to call the Diamondbacks' stadium Chase Field after knowing it as Bank One Ballpark for years. I understand that Bank One no longer exists, since it merged with Chase, so that is a different situation than a company being bailed out by the federal government. Additionally, I suppose most, if not all, of us can understand the reasoning for changing the Astros' stadium from Enron Field to Minute Maid Park. So, it's not like changing stadium names isn't without merit, and I doubt selling naming rights is going to change any time soon. However, I tire of it, and, while driving my dad to the airport the other day, we hit upon an idea for how we are going to deal with it.

From now on, I'm going to make a conscious effort to call the stadium the team's name. So, rather than CitiField, I'll call the new home of the Mets "Mets Stadium." The Diamondbacks' home will be "Diamondbacks Stadium." To me, the San Francisco Giants, whose stadium once had three different names in four seasons, play in "Giants' Stadium." I'll do this in other sports, too. The Cleveland Cavaliers play in "Cavaliers' Arena." The Detroit Red Wings (and their annoying fans) go to "Red Wings Arena" (though, to be honest, this is a harder one to change, since "Joe Louis Arena" has a little more gravitas to me). And, in a case that is perhaps one of the biggest joke stadium names of all, rather than calling the home of the Arizona Cardinals "University of Phoenix Stadium," I'll just refer to it as "Cardinals' Stadium." (Remember that this is a team that wanted to get away from having to play at a college team's stadium, after playing in Arizona State University's Sun Devil Stadium for years. So, they moved out of there, only to sell their naming rights to another college, making it sound like they just swapped college homes.)

This new practice is not without limitation. If, for instance, I call Jacobs ... I mean, Progressive Field ... "Indians Stadium," I'm still perpetuating the politics of naming a team after Native Americans by referencing the name. So, perhaps, I'll just call that one "The Cleveland Baseball Stadium." Ditto the football stadium in Washington. Additionally, in cases where teams have the same nickname as another team, it could be confusing. Of course, in one case, at least, I can just call the home of the New York football teams "Giants/Jets Stadium."

And, of course, the beauty of all this is that my favorite place to watch baseball of all the ballparks that I've visited won't really have to change, but for an "s" that would get morphed into another "s" when saying it anyway. After all, "Dodgers Stadium" is already called "Dodger Stadium."

Back to Blogging

Summer vacations and other commitments are now over. The new semester is but a week and a half away. So, I'm back to the blogging board. I have a number of things I want to write about, but I just haven't found the time amid the summer hustle and bustle. Yes, that's right: summer hustle and bustle. So, expect more blog volume in the coming weeks.

I've started with something on Ted Nugent that I've been meaning to write for awhile. I've also got something on Richard Marx cooking and something on baseball ready to write.

Let me also take this moment to remember Les Paul, who died today. When I picked up playing guitar (I played bass, not having the patience to learn to play chords on a guitar) in the late 1980s, rumor had it that Paul lived in some rural part of Ohio. After playing guitar with a friend of mine and an elderly man who wasn't Paul who lived down the road from my friend, my sixteen-year-old imagination fantasized that one day I would happen across a chance to play with Paul on his front porch, too. Who knows if the rumor was even true, but rock and roll dreams die hard ...

The Nuge: The Jerk or The Stooge?

I’ve known for while that I don’t agree on a lot of political issues with Ted Nugent (a.k.a. “The Nuge”). For instance, his take on English as a national language clearly differs from mine. However, some of his comments from a few weeks ago demonstrate that, frankly, Ted Nugent is a jerk. While his take on Barack Obama is one thing to address, it’s what this news report later reports him saying that show just how much of a jerk he is. According to Nugent:

There is gluttony and denial in our economy. Basically, it can be most simply understood by the U.S. government and its citizens being credit card pigs. You can't buy another leather jacket when you've already got six. You claim you can't make ends meet and you owe five grand, much less 250 grand, on your credit card, you chimp!? Of course, I'm the bastard for saying it. People are pigs from the blubber that they have intentionally infested ourselves with and then they have the audacity to squawk for health care but not care about our health? How does that work?! If the producers of 'Planet of the Apes' were offered the current American script that was playing out before us, they would turn it down because it's too stupid. It wouldn't qualify for a 'Planet of the Apes' script!

Only the guilty need to feel guilty, but anybody who claims they can't make ends meet is a liar! Anybody that owes money on their credit card is a pig. If you smoke or drink or have blubber, you get no healthcare until you show me you care about your health. You can't stab yourself in the eye every morning and then charge me for your eye doctor! What the f---?!

Nugent is, of course, basing his comments on good ol’ folksy “common sense” kinds of ideas here. You know, it seems wrong for someone who continually doesn’t take care of her or his health to demand that the rest of us keep paying for it when he or she refuses to make changes that benefit her or his health. I mean, sure, that sounds appropriate in the same kind of way that, for instance, I as a teacher don’t just give passing grades or extra credit or makeup opportunities to students who don’t do the work necessary and who don’t seem to want to make changes to study habits, etc. so that they can pass their classes.

And, sure, I’d guess most, if not all, of us can look at what has gone on in this country’s economy and agree that there has been gluttony and denial.

However, Nugent doesn’t stop there. He goes on to include a lot more people in his criticism, saying explicitly that anyone who owes money on a credit card is “a pig” (and, thus, to be viewed negatively, I would assume). And, of course, if any of that debt is attributable to health care, well, then, you’re an even bigger pig, according to Nugent, who, by the way, in the report claims (with a very strange and not really accurate way of defining what it means to be “liberal”), “I’ve done the right things. I've never been liberal so I've got a nest egg. I've always lived within my means."

Again, maybe he has a point. Perhaps there are deeper cultural trends in the United States, whereby we all, even in everyday little things that we do, contribute to the overuse of resources, engage in unhealthy practices, and live above our means. So, perhaps there is need to feel some guilt and, beyond that, to do something to change these ways of life. I’m willing to consider all those aspects of what Nugent says. However, what I am not willing to accept is his high-handed, self-righteous, hypocritical way of discussing this.

First of all, many health developments that happen are not simply a matter of not taking care of oneself. People don’t ask for brain aneurysms to sprout up, lack of work doesn’t cause people to have hereditary conditions, etc.

Secondly, credit card debt is not simply a matter of gluttony. Sometimes, it’s a financial risk taken in hopes of paying off in the end. For instance, a person might go in debt some now in order to go to school or work a lower paying job or pay for professional development opportunities in hopes that these will, in a few years, land that person in a position where he or she can pay that debt off. Isn’t that, in fact, the kind of personal finance risks that many conservatives who are the political buddies of Nugent would say helps make the United States great? Additionally, many of us out here didn’t choose for our houses to need unscheduled maintenance or for our cars to break down or other such cash-guzzling emergencies that afflict everyday people every day.

So, Ted, you’re wrong to generalize the way you have about why people have to spend money on health and why people have debt. Additionally, you’re wrong to act like you are above all of this.

I ask you, Ted, how did you get where you are? Can you really tell me that throughout your entire career none of the promoters, companies, agents, media networks, and other individuals, groups, and organizations that helped build that career did so on credit? I find that possibility at best unlikely and—more to the point—ludicrous. I would challenge you to show me otherwise. If you can fully and legitimately show that, then I’ll gladly retract this. But that just does not seem possible, given the numbers of individuals, groups, and organizations you have had to work with to sell you albums, go on your tours, and produce your reality television shows, let alone any other endeavors you have. All I need to look at is Viacom, which owns MTV Networks, which owns VH1 (the network that hosted your previous reality shows) and CMT (the network airing your reality show that starts this month). Viacom didn’t make it to where it is today as a media conglomerate without going into debt. (See, for instance, here and here.)

Additionally, can you really say that you haven’t been involved with anything that contributes to health problems? There are many ways that the “horsepower” that you advertise on your own website contribute to smog and other environmental conditions that affect the health (and, thus, the pocketbooks) of many people who are not even involved in these activities. Also, many meats featured in your own publicly sold cookbook Kill It and Grill It have health issues that correspond with their consumption. Furthermore, for as much as you rail on drinking and smoking in your comments, you are still fine with attending and advertising for a 2007 Washington, D.C., event featuring plenty of alcohol and tobacco products as parts of the night’s perks.

You see, one of the big problems with the kinds of discourses that you and so many others (especially, though not exclusively, in conservative camps) promote is that they’re based on arguments that chastise those who take part in the very same institutions and practices that have made you who you are. It’s as if you forgot, you ignore, or you are too ignorant to recognize that your success is not entirely your own doing and that to achieve your success you’ve had to rely on many of the same things against which you rail.

So, yes, I’d agree with you, Ted, that there’s plenty of denial in the United States today. I’d add, though, that there are many different forms of denial, and your comments suggest that you live with one of the most insidious, selfish, and mean-spirited forms of denial.

Of course, maybe you’re not in denial. Maybe you realize that plenty of your fans probably aren’t in much of a position to pay for their health needs, to pay to fix their simple everyday appliances, to pay to fix their homes, etc. So, they can listen to you, never invest in their futures, live meager existences until they die earlier than they had to die … and the divide between the rich and the poor will remain or, in all likelihood, grow. It’s hegemony at its strongest, keeping the working classes from making gains in society by ideologically convincing them to stay poor, while you benefit off the same things you’ve convinced them not to pursue.

If it’s this latter option, then you are, as I said above, a jerk. You know what you’re doing and you’re laughing maliciously in the faces of the people on whom you trample. If it’s the former option, then you’re still a jerk, because you’ve chosen to forget about or ignore all of the things that helped you get where you are and would help others do the same.

There is one other option. In this option, you’re not in denial and you’re not maliciously and knowingly using people. In this option, you simply don’t realize the implications of what you are saying. You don’t recognize that your career has been built off these things and that many of the things that you support have implications that help produce the things against which you complain. I really don’t think this is true. I think you’d have to be pretty damn dumb for that to be the case, and, frankly, I don’t think you’re that stupid. However, if by some chance you are, then you’re not a jerk. No, in that case, you’re not just “The Nuge”; you’re a Stooge.

If You Believed ...

I’ll give you one guess what song is going through my mind as I write this post …

Sorry it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. I have a number of thoughts for things I want to post about, but haven’t found the time to sit down and write out what I want to say yet. Perhaps in the next couple of weeks …

Today, though, I’d like to acknowledge the fortieth anniversary of the day that people walked on the moon. Most notably, Neil Armstrong is remembered for being the first person to set foot on the moon. This weekend, I noticed that CNN.com ran a short editorial piece by Bob Greene about Neil Armstrong’s hometown: Wapakoneta, Ohio. There, you can find the Armstrong Air & Space Museum, which looks like a big golf ball as you drive past on I-75. I know this because I’ve driven by it scores of times and I’ve been to it several times. I grew up what is almost exactly a half-hour’s trip from it. So, for Cub Scouts, for school field trips, and I think a couple times with my father (who was curator of another museum in the area) or my grandfather (who was a bit of an air and space enthusiast), I went to the museum periodically. Though I’ve been meaning to go back since I relocated back to Ohio a few years ago, I haven’t yet, meaning it’s probably been around 25 years since the last time I was there.

I have glimpses of memories from the place—barely enough to even mention, for fear I’d completely misrepresent what was there then or is there now. All I remember are some pictures on walls and a kind of spacewalk room. My most vivid memories of Wapakoneta, though, involve something different, yet strangely similar. You see, while I go to the movies frequently in my adult life, as a kid my family didn’t go very often. We did, though, see a number of the big blockbusters in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, like the Star Wars films, E.T., and (actually when my brothers and I cajoled my mom’s brother into taking us) Back to the Future. Usually, my dad and his brother would also take us to see a Star Trek film whenever one hit the theaters, making me into the Trekkie that I am today. Many of these films we saw in Lima, Ohio, but I distinctly remember seeing two films at the old theater in Wapakoneta. One, in 1983, was Return of the Jedi. (I can even still remember the pillar I had to look around to see some of it.) The other was in early 1987. (For some reason, I remember that it was the same week that they announced that Billy Williams was elected to the Hall of Fame, which led me to buy my first Billy Williams baseball card that day at a baseball card shop in Wapakoneta and start my collection of Billy Williams cards, which I still have today, with only the most expensive among the set—his 1966 Topps card—missing.) In this instance, the film was Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (“the one with the whales,” which tends to be regarded as one of the better Star Trek films and, on my own personal list, would rank second among Star Trek films, behind the second film with the Next Generation cast (“the one with the Borg”) … see, told you I was a Trekkie; I’ve even got a list of how I would rank the Star Trek films …).

The funny thing about all of this is that it didn’t dawn on me until I was reading the aforementioned CNN piece that my two most vivid memories of Wapakoneta are about seeing films that are about space—indeed, films from what are probably the two biggest space-oriented media text franchises ever. I don’t really believe in some kind of “fate,” so I take it as coincidence that I happened to see these two films in Wapakoneta and that those are my most lasting memories of the town. However, two things might make this a little more than coincidence. First, there is always the possibility that these films ran longer there or were a bigger deal in Wapakoneta than in many other places, since space is such a part of the town’s identity. That might contribute to it being a little more than coincidence that I saw these films there … though, I saw the other Star Wars and Star Trek films that came out when I was kid elsewhere. Second, perhaps subconsciously I so heavily associated with Wapakoneta with the air and space museum, that my mind latched onto these connections to space-oriented films in some way as well … though, that doesn’t explain the Billy Williams connection.

In the end, though, regardless of how coincidental my connections are, all of this shows just how significant space exploration has been in the last half century. That interest has become stitched into United States culture and society in many ways, in large part because the government (particularly with John Kennedy’s famous pronouncement that the United States would have a man on the moon before the 1960s were over) explicitly advanced this movement and the Hollywood industry, toy industries, and so on followed suit. And through all of this, so many space-oriented narratives have been built off a mythology that is evident in Bob Greene’s piece on CNN.com: what might be called the mythology of small town wholesomeness. Greene assigns it to Wapakoneta as he writes wistfully of the town. Many narratives of American history and identity build off this same theme, perhaps most prominently reflected in the prominent, though very limiting, idea that rural towns and cities in the Midwest (like Wapakoneta) constitute the moral center of American values. Many space narratives have followed suit, placing the origins of their protagonists into those rural environments. Star Trek and Star Wars are no different. Captain Kirk, after all, came from Iowa. And Luke Skywalker was a moisture farmer on the desert wastes of Tatooine before the Rebellion came calling. So, even as American stories have reached “to explore strange new worlds” and “to seek out new life and new civilizations,” that search has very much been rooted, physically and ideologically, in the familiar world of the rural United States. That is, of course, why space narratives have been associated with the Old West, with Star Wars being called a Western and Star Trek calling its scene “the final frontier.” (And, here, my friends, I’m sure is my Billy Williams link, since the popularity of baseball is built on a similar mythology, complete with the Field of Dreams in, of course, Iowa.) This is also, though, of course, how the mythology of the Midwest as the moral center of the United States carries on, bearing with it the politics of that morality. After all, it is in these kinds of rural spaces that a lot of the most persuasive forms of exclusion in American history—from sexism to racism to homophobia to xenophobia—have maintained firm ideological holds.

When I look back, then, at my memories of Wapakoneta, I hold nothing against the town. Indeed, I have happy memories of the town. Yet, I know little about Wapakoneta, other than my few memories and whatever information I might look up about it. Still, I have to wonder if Bob Greene, even though he is originally from a town in Ohio that’s not too much farther from Wapakoneta than the one I’m from, knows that much more than I do. The problem is that his column seems to imply that he does. It’s as if he knows the town’s soul, because it must have a good soul simply because it’s a Midwest town. That is, after all, what the mythology of small town wholesomeness tells us. And perhaps Wapakoneta is, on the whole, a good place. Yet, it’s not the automatic assumption that because it’s a Midwest farm town it must be a good place that should make that determination about Wapakoneta. In fact, quite the opposite is the case, since it’s that kind of assumption that, even when put forth rather innocuously in places like Greene’s piece, helps reinforce the deeper obstacles to democracy and inclusion that so often take place in Midwest farm towns.

So, let’s celebrate Neil Armstrong, NASA, “a man on the moon,” and Wapakoneta, if we wish, but let’s not forget the politics of how we go about doing so.

Another Stark Contrast

I get it. Jayson Stark doesn’t seem to particularly like Manny Ramirez and he does seem to like Andy Pettitte, while I tend to sit on the opposite sides of those fences. So, I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge that I might jump too quickly to defend Ramirez and I have already on this blog recognized that I might be too ready to dismiss Pettitte. That said, I still have an issue with Stark’s treatment of Ramirez vis-à-vis Pettitte. In his latest column, Stark voices indignation at the way in which Manny Ramirez is being celebrated and welcomed as he returns from his suspension for testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug. I guess I’d say Stark has just cause for his indignation. There probably is something inappropriate about the fanfare being made of Ramirez as he returns. And it’s not like Stark is saying Ramirez should not be allowed back. As Stark writes:

Manny Ramirez deserve a second chance? Absolutely. But does he deserve to be celebrated by anyone who isn't a tunnel-visioned Dodgers fan? Absolutely not.

If that's the greeting America heaps on him, though, the moral of Manny's story will be clear to every one of us:

It's time to grow some cool hair. Immediately.

So, Stark is upset by the lesson potentially being learned here and the message being sent. Yet, I wish he would be a little more reflective of these kinds of things when he discusses Andy Pettitte. Now, in fairness, when Andy Pettitte was admitting his performance-enhancing drug use, Stark did say that Pettitte doesn’t deserve to be excused and that Pettitte must deal with harsh consequences for having taken the drugs. Stark also, though, in comparing Pettitte to Rodney Harrison of the NFL, to show his indignation about how Harrison was not being treated more harshly for use of a performance-enhancing drug, wrote of Pettitte:

… he'll deserve his inevitable trip to principal Selig's office. He'll deserve whatever boos he hears on Opening Day, and on every road trip for the rest of his life. He'll deserve whatever price he has to pay for this.

But that doesn't mean we can't put his offense in perspective, judged against the more heinous and selfish offenses of others, judged against the context of his career.

I can’t disagree with Stark for saying we need to put these offenses into context, but I would ask Stark to reconsider his suggestion about how heinous and selfish Pettitte’s offenses were. In particular, for as much as Ramirez as flawed, at least he’s not claimed to lead some kind of pure life, nor has he profited by offering such a characterization of himself. Pettitte, on the other hand, in 2005, published a book claiming exactly that. The book, titled Strike Zone: Targeting A Life Of Integrity & Purity, is marketed with the following statement:

While life as a big league baseball player has brought Andy Pettitte fame and accolades, it has also brought with it temptation. However, Andy learned to deal with temptation long before he donned his first major league uniform. While still a teenager, Andy committed himself to Christ and a life of purity. With his target identified early on, he has been able to hit the strikezone throughout his life.

While Ramirez is not free of responsibility for his actions, it seems to me the far more heinous and selfish context here is to profit off claims to living a “pure” life when one is doing anything but. Stark seems upset that the moral of the Ramirez story would be that everybody will love you and welcome you back if you grow your hair long and have a goofy, happy-go-lucky persona like Ramirez. Yet, Stark’s treatment of Pettitte would have us fall victim to what might be an even worse moral: It’s time to claim status as a born-again Christian and write a book about how to live a morally upstanding, “pure” life, even if you don’t in reality live the life you’re preaching.

Sorry, Jayson, but to me that’s the worse context and the worse moral.

Dis(Parity) in the NBA: One Year Later

Now that the Los Angeles Lakers have won the 2009 NBA title, as a follow-up to my post a little over a year ago on Disparity in the NBA, let’s look at how NBA championships since 1980 now stack up:

8 franchises have, among themselves, won the last 30 NBA championships, for an average of 3.75 championships per franchise.

Taking out the Philadelphia 76ers’ win in 1983 and the Miami Heat’s win in 2006, 6 franchises have, among themselves, won 28 of the last 30 NBA championships, for an average of 4.67 championships per franchise.

Those numbers are up from 3.5 and 4.33, respectively, before the Boston Celtics won the championship in 2008.

Gregg Doyel Update #4: Cheap Amusements

I made Gregg Doyel's HateMail again today. He cut off some of my message. I don't remember word for word what I wrote, but the full message went something like this:

Dude ... What's with the new picture? I had to look at it a few times, and I'm still not sure it's you. I know the Arizona Cardinals claim that making the bird on their logo look "tougher" helped them gain the ferocity to make the Super Bowl, but do you really need to be like the Detroit Lions and try to follow suit? I could relate to your old picture. You were a doofus just like the rest of us. But now? You look like a muscle-head with whom I have little in common (or like Chris Daughtry ... I'm not sure yet). You and I are both smart enough to know I'm not going to stop reading your columns, but I had been praising you lately and now I'll probably have to go back to critiquing you. And here I was thinking that my critique of you last year had helped produced a brighter, more eloquent Gregg Doyel. Now I need something else to stroke my ego. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Again, my wording in the message might have been a bit different, but that was the gist of it.

Anyway, there's not really any particularly more profound point to this post other than my own cheap amusement, as I mentioned in my title. Speaking of which, though, there's a cool book by Kathleen Peiss from the mid-1980s called Cheap Amusements that examines at the leisure activities of working-class women around the turn of the 20th century. I had to read it for two different courses while working on my Master's degree in the mid-1990s. If memory serves me correctly, it's written in a style that's relatively accessible for non-academic audiences, even as it maintains academic credibility. Of course, the best part is that she starts out the book by quoting Cyndi Lauper's song "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." In writing a review of the book for one of the courses for which I had to read it I decided to start off each paragraph by using the title of a Cyndi Lauper song at the beginning of the first sentence of the paragraph. So, one paragraph started "Time after time ..."; another started "True colors were shown ..."; and so on. The professor didn't catch the references and marked all of the "awkward" opening sentences to paragraphs. I never told him what I did. I'd be very surprised if he even remembers it, but obviously it made an impression on me ... but, then again, I do, as I mentioned in my message to Gregg Doyel, have that ego to stroke and, of course, I am a big fan of Cyndi Lauper.

And, no ... I didn't find a way to start a sentence with "She Bop" ... but, then again, maybe I just wasn't being inventive enough ...

Barack Obama and Gay Rights

Ragan Fox (assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Cal State-Long Beach and fellow ASU alum (I was directly in front of him in the graduation line when we both earned our Ph.D.s)) recently offered a post on his blog in which he associates gay men and women supporting Obama's administration with being in an abusive relationship. I found it to be an insightful connection about an important set of issues, so I thought I'd share it here.

21st Century Breakdown

I was thinking about writing something about the recent situation involving Wal-Mart's refusal to stock Green Day's latest album, but then a fellow faculty member at my university wrote a column in the school newspaper about it and I have just completed and sent a letter to the editor in response. So, rather than rewrite something else for my blog (since I really need to get back to working on other projects), I figured I'd link to his column here and include my letter below:

Dr. Phil Schurrer’s column on Wednesday, May 27, harkens back to another column he wrote in February, in which he discussed what he considered to be polite and impolite speech, railing against things such as language usage and having to hear about sexual orientations. Among the topics these columns addressed was his distaste for “vulgar” words. Many of these words, though, are only considered “vulgar” because historically those in power, who came primarily from a white, European Christian, upper-class background, saw them as such. To this day, that they are considered objectionable reflects the power that that group continues to have. Continued treatment of them as unquestionably objectionable thus contains real potential to marginalize other groups’ perspectives.

Dr. Schurrer’s discussion of Wal-Mart and Green Day reinforces these power relations. It may be that Green Day was doing this for publicity, as Dr. Schurrer suggests. However, Wal-Mart’s actions are every bit as much publicity. Wal-Mart’s policy publicly endears them to some constituencies, as it suggests that the interests of those who do not like this language are more important than the interests of others. As this involves what are historically considered “bad” words, Wal-Mart is privileging the historical sensitivities of white Christian upper-class Europeans over others’ sensitivities. What if, as an alternate scenario, someone believes that any reference to God in a song is offensive? Should Wal-Mart accommodate this sensitivity, too? Should they do so for any number of other subjects that could also potentially offend? In another scenario, to go back to Dr. Schurrer’s mention of sexual orientation, why is it considered inappropriate for some folks to discuss sexual orientation, yet we see heterosexual couples kissing on the scoreboard at baseball games, we celebrate weddings (which express sexual orientation whether same-sex or different-sex), and our media texts are dominated by one heterosexual romantic film and song after another?

Dr. Schurrer wrote in September that “if a university is to truly be a ‘supermarket of ideas,’ then all sides of an issue need to be aired. This is not saying we agree with all points of view, or that all ideas are equal in value. But respect for others mandates that we give them the same respect that we seek.” Yet, he seems to suggest that his supermarket of ideas should not include some forms and kinds of expression when he proposes that that supermarket must occur within rules that he wants imposed so that some sensibilities, which often coincide with the sensibilities of dominant groups, are not offended. In another column last September, he referred to some of these rules as “common courtesy.” Yet, in March, he defended conservatism on the grounds that you can “depend on it to back the individual over the collective.” Given the correlation between “common” and “collective,” his positions continually seem to run counter to his praise for conservatism, as they back the collective over the individual and they do so in ways that very much involve power relations that, at a minimum, it would seem, ought to be recognized and discussed.

In his most recent column, Dr. Schurrer called Green Day “juvenile” and questioned the band’s maturity. Last fall, in his piece on diversity, Dr. Schurrer argued that “if we're going to be truly ‘diverse,’ we need to listen to those views [that differ from ours] with the same degree of respect and concentration as those who think as we do. To do so is a sign of intellectual activity and maturity.” With all due respect, couldn’t Dr. Schurrer’s own statement about maturity be applied to Wal-Mart and the many unexamined rules and “common courtesies” that his columns have mentioned over the past year? I truly respect Dr. Schurrer’s views and sensitivities, and I think there is plenty of room for discussion of what language use and actions are appropriate, what topics are important to discuss, and so on. However, Dr. Schurrer’s use of language seems to reflect something much less inviting.

Sentimental Favorite in the Indy 500

I’ve recently come to the full realization that the Indianapolis 500 is my favorite sporting event of the year. I guess I have probably realized this for a long time now, but I never sat down and acknowledged it so fully until this past year. I have literally interrupted vacations for the Indianapolis 500, including once making my wife sit in a hotel room in California for a few extra hours one Memorial Day weekend while I watched the race. I’m still mad that I missed Arie Luyendyk’s first win in the race because I was graduating from high school and my high school has for years held its graduation ceremony at the same time as the race … despite the fact that it’s only a few hours from Indianapolis in an area heavy with racing fans. Every May, I watch qualifications runs and Bump Day, I pore over statistics about the drivers, and I reread about past races. I love a lot of sports and, outside of Indy car racing, I’m not much of an auto racing fan, but for some reason the Indy 500 is my favorite sports event. I suppose when I have more time to reflect on it, I’ll try to understand why that is. For now, though, with the race happening this weekend, I want, as a fan, to offer some public declaration of support for my sentimental favorite: Sarah Fisher.

Much is made of Danica Patrick as a female driver in a male-dominated enterprise. I root for Danica and certainly support her, but there is little question that her questionable use of sexuality is a major aspect of her popularity. On the other hand, Sarah Fisher’s public persona is much more rooted in her connection to driving. With this Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, she will become the woman who has made the most starts in the race, as she runs her eighth Indy 500 race, surpassing her current tie with Lyn St. James. She is also running her second consecutive race as not only a driver, but a racecar owner. She may not have a high chance to win, as the bigger teams tend to dominate the Indy Racing League races. As a smaller outfit, it’s difficult to maintain the car and speed of the larger teams. Yet, there is always a possibility and Fisher’s experience and ability only add to that chance. For her talent, her experience, and the honorable way in which she carries the mantle of female auto racers, I’m rooting for Sarah Fisher this Sunday.

Oh yeah … and her appearance on The Daily Show this past Monday doesn’t hurt either.

Race and Politics in South Bend

On Sunday, while we were discussing the topic of some folks protesting Barack Obama’s commencement speech and honorary degree at the University of Notre Dame, my wife asked me if I thought racism had something to do with it. I took her question to mean an inquiry about whether or not people who didn’t like Obama for some reason explicitly involving race were using another issue as a means of expressing their dislike for him. I responded with a no—that I didn’t think it was racism and that the same folks who have expressed these concerns about Obama have done similarly for white folks as well. Then, later that day, I got to thinking about it …

On the surface, I agree with my earlier comment. I don’t think this is explicitly an issue of race. However, upon further thought, I think it does involve racism and can be instructive about how racism is conceptualized and discussed. Here’s what occurred to me:

I think it’s a fairly safe assumption that it has been and continues to be an easier path for a black politician to have a chance to run for president as a Democrat than as a Republican. That’s based on my sense of how Democrats and Republicans are perceived and how they present themselves in terms of how they represent black constituencies and issues of significance to those constituencies. I’m not meaning to inject my own political leaning there. While personally I do believe that Democrats tend to be better than Republicans at recognizing and addressing issues of significance to black men and women, I have plenty of criticisms of how Democrats handle these issues in addition to criticisms of how Republicans handle these issues. So, my argument here is not based on who actually does represent black interests better. Rather, I’m arguing that within popular consciousnesses, Democrats tend to be aligned much more fully with black candidates. Certainly, some black candidates have run for office as Republicans (J.C. Watts, Michael Steele, Lynn Swan, Ken Blackwell and Alan Keyes (who was among the protestors at Notre Dame this weekend) come to mind); however, the path to the possibility of presidential candidacy has tended to be more associated with the Democratic Party. So, then, it seems to be little surprise that Obama ran for and was elected president as a Democrat.

As the presidential candidate of the national party, he is also expected to maintain the party platform. This is as true of Democrats as it is Republicans and it tends to be especially true on the issue of abortion. It’s quite doubtful that at this moment in American history any Democrat could gain the party’s nomination for president while advocating a pro-life position and it’s just as doubtful that at this moment in American history any Republican could gain the party’s nomination for president while advocating a pro-choice position. One only needs to look at the lengths that Rudy Giuliani went to in 2007 and 2008 to distance his own pro-choice stance from what he might do as president. It’s quite conceivable, then, that Obama’s own private position on abortion could range anywhere from falling right in line with the party position to veering slightly from it to differing quite widely from it, and that, as a Democrat, he is asked to maintain adherence to the party’s position regardless of his own personal feelings.

Putting these two together, then, the protests of Obama do involve racism. They do so in that they help perpetuate a system that continually closes off opportunities for minorities (in this case African Americans). In this specific case, saying someone does not deserve honor based on her or his stance on abortion is not explicitly excluding a person based on race. However, when we look at the structure of contemporary United States politics, there is definitely an argument, based on what I have just described, that saying someone like Obama does not deserve honor does perpetuate exclusion of African Americans. If we work with the assertion that a black candidate has a better chance to run for president as a Democrat and the assertion that a Democratic candidate for president my maintain a pro-choice position, then a position that holds the candidate’s position on abortion against that candidate—particularly when tying it to what is defined as “honorable”—does significantly contribute to the reduction of opportunities for black men and women. In the process, it does reinforce racism.

Perhaps this is too many suppositions on my part. Maybe I’m assuming too much about the ability of a black Republican to run for president or about what is asked of candidates on both sides in terms of their abortion stances or about the degree to which Obama might differ in private opinion from the party position. I’ll concede that I am working a bit from supposition, but I’ll also argue that I have not made any assertions here that I think are particularly egregious and that the suppositions that I have made do appear to have significant basis in reality. I’ll also argue that they do point to a broader point about racism that needs to be a much fuller part of the discussion of issues of race in the United States. That point is that racism is a system of advantages and disadvantages, opportunities and lacks of opportunities, rights and denials of rights. Racism is not just explicit exclusion on the basis of racial identity. It’s a much deeper structure in which differences in status and opportunity that were established long ago continue to be reinforced and perpetuated. It’s deeply embedded into the everyday lives and activities that constitute United States society. And I believe we need to be much more willing to be cognizant of how deeply everyday things that may on the surface seem to have little to do with race do involve perpetuation of racial inequities at deeper, more complex levels. Obama’s public position on abortion is at least in part a product of the complexities of American politics. Idealistic pronouncements of the character and honor of an individual based on her or his position on abortion fail to recognize the significance of the political system in affecting those positions. In the process, they fail in adequately attending to the complex political realities of the ways that racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, and other forms of discrimination work and in acknowledging how structures of society that are based in these forms of discrimination must be managed and negotiated as individuals seek opportunities.

As someone who is a self-described moderate on abortion, I believe those critical of the position of Obama and the Democratic party on abortion should continue to vocalize these criticisms. I would even say that what I have argued here does not suggest that they should not protest in favor of what they believe is right. I would, though, ask these folks to consider the many different kinds of ramifications of their protests and the statements that they have made about Obama and others in their protests. Indeed, while I do not agree with Obama on everything, one of the things that I very much like about him is the interest in opening up dialogue on various issues that he appears to promote. I believe that Obama’s commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame showed this quality once again—a quality that seems to put him in stark contrast on so many levels from his predecessor, whose administration seemed time and again to paint folks who disagreed as dishonorable, unpatriotic, and many other similar terms, rather than as compatriots in dialogue with honest and important differences of opinion with which they should engage.

In the end, I believe that both sides have a point about abortion. This is an issue of life and how we define what is a life worth protecting. At the same, though, this is very much an issue of women’s rights and individual civil liberties. The problem, as Obama himself suggested in his commencement speech, is that so often the rhetoric of both sides seems unwilling to engage the other side in meaningful dialogue, unwilling to accept that the other side has an important point to address, and unwilling to work with the other side in addressing this issue. In the end, I also believe that looking at abortion from a myopic view that does not recognize the complexities that inform positions of individuals and politicians when it comes to this issue is entirely inadequate and inappropriate. This is exactly why I do not like the way in which abortion is used as the sole means of judging a candidate’s acceptability. To the many conservative Catholics out there who vote for Republicans simply on the issue of abortion and who have even at times called for excommunication of politicians who are pro-choice, I would ask how they even vote at all. After all, the Catholic Church has come out in opposition to the Iraq War, the death penalty, and any number of other things that Republicans support—many of which also involve issues of “life.” You, my conservative companions, must have some sort of complex way of justifying all of those things in order to vote on the one issue of abortion alone. Would you like me to demonize your views on abortion and other issues or would you rather I try to understand them? If you picked the first option, then how can you ever hope to change anyone’s views or at least have people listen to you with consideration for your views? That would be seem to be the antithesis of what is being advocated in that scenario. If you picked the second option, then how can you in good conscience not extend that same kind of treatment to the very politicians whom you demonize for their positions on abortion, as if they, too, don’t have to negotiate the same tricky, complex world of contemporary American thought and politics that you have to negotiate in order to come to your own positions?

More Props to Gregg Doyel

With the Kentucky Derby fast approaching, I want to reiterate my sentiments about horse racing (which I expressed a year ago). Honestly, though, I don't think I could have put it better than Gregg Doyel did today.

Flaming Lip Service to Democracy

While leafing through my university's student newspaper this morning, I came across this story from the Associated Press about Oklahoma's adoption of the song "Do You Realize?" by the Flaming Lips as the official state rock song. The gist of the story is that the song earned the most votes in an online contest, but then enough Oklahoma legislators voted against making it the official state rock song to keep it from being declared as such. Reasons cited included being upset about use of foul language by band members and being offended by bandmember Michael Ivins once wearing a red tee-shirt with a yellow hammer-and-sickle symbol (a symbol that denotes the Communist Party) on it.

I was especially struck by the statement by Republican Representative Corey Holland, who said, "The great thing about this country is he has the right to make whatever statement he wants to make. I have the right to be offended by that.” The problem here is exactly the problem with so many politicians, especially on the conservative side, who offer us rhetorical constructions of equality without recognizing the relations of power that are involved in the things that they are discussing. Here, Holland suggests that he and Ivins are on equal terms in public discourse--that Ivins' right to express himself with the tee-shirt and Holland's right to be offended by it are on equal footing. On the one hand, in a situation free of hierarchies of power, I might agree with Holland. These are both legitimate forms of expression and personal opinion. However, this situation is not free of hierarchies of power. Namely, as a state representative, Holland had the power to vote against adoption of the Flaming Lips' song as the state rock song and, thus, join those who kept the song from being declared the state song. In the process, Holland and others like him could assert their right to be offended over the right of the Flaming Lips to express themselves, which is exactly how censorship and marginalization develop and proceed. In this instance, Holland has a certain form of power that makes his statement, at best, misleading, and, more likely, dishonest.

This is indicative of a larger problem that exists with much discussion of rights, opportunities, and equality in the United States. In the name of these kinds of idealistic, oversimplified maxims about equality of rights and opportunities, our public discourse so often neglects the power relations that make things unequal and that privilege some perspectives over others. Until we become much more willing to talk about these issues of power and be self-reflexive in our discussion of these issues, I'm afraid we'll keep spinning our wheels, not really addressing issues and not really pursuing a better democracy. And I'll keep reading stories like this and feeling incensed at the state of public discourse in the United States like I was this morning.

Fortunately, this story has what, from my perspective at least, is a happy ending: The governor of Oklahoma signed an executive order declaring the song the official rock song of the state. This is, of course, a solution that does not divorce itself from the issues of power that I have been discussing, as in this case the governor asserted his power over that of the legislature. The difference between me and Holland--a difference that I think makes a world of difference--is that I'll acknowledge that that issue of power is involved and that, even while I am glad for the governor's decision, I acknowledge that the process by which the song was adopted remains a reflection of a system that continues to need work if it is to approximate a fuller democracy.

Remembering Bea Arthur

As I’m sure many of you know already, Bea Arthur passed away at the age of 86 on Friday, April 25. She’s most known for her leading roles in Maude and The Golden Girls, but there are two clips that stand out to me in remembering Arthur. First is her contribution to Comedy Central’s roast of Pamela Anderson in 2005, which can be seen here. In this clip, Arthur has me laughing silly. I think it demonstrates just how good Arthur was at comedic performance. Second is her skit on the Star Wars Holiday Special back in 1978, which can be seen here. The entire venture of that holiday special reeks with goofiness. Arthur’s performance, including her bit alongside Harvey Korman, who passed away last year, fits right in.

I think the acting world has lost a great one.

Happy Earth Day with Kenny Loggins

So, Happy Earth Day, everyone! To commemorate it, I'm wearing my I Love Recycling shirt and I've been listening to my favorite "green" song all day: Kenny Loggins' "Conviction of the Heart." Here's a YouTube video that someone made that uses the original, along with pictures to celebrate Earth Day. Additionally, here, one of my favorites--Richard Marx--teams up with Loggins live to perform the song. Finally, here is a video in which someone has set scenes from The Lord of the Rings films to the song--a fitting combination given the anti-Industrialist themes of the series.

Fair and Foul in Remembering Integration

Today marks the 62nd anniversary of the date on which Jackie Robinson played his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers, thereby breaking the race barrier in major league baseball that had existed since the 1880s. Over the years since the event occurred, particularly after the first decade or so after it happened, the integration of Major League Baseball in 1947 has tended to be celebrated by Major League Baseball and many others as a unquestionably progressive act. That kind of portrayal of the integration of major league baseball as a unilaterally progressive event stems from a number of sources and types of arguments. While I do not think that Jules Tygiel means to make so broad a claim, his argument in Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy that the integration of major league baseball significantly affected the Civil Rights Movement certainly helps fuel that kind of celebration. Meanwhile, such broad claims are offered by the likes of David Horowitz, who has used the integration of major league baseball as an excuse to argue that a free market system always does the right thing in the end.

The problem with Horowitz’s view and with the celebration of integration as so unilaterally progressive is that the way that major league baseball integrated is not without significant elements of exclusion and marginalization. While this critique is part of my own work, both in my dissertation a few years ago and as part of my argument in a forthcoming article in Journal of Communication Studies, my arguments owe debt for their framing to other works in which various elements of the critique can be found, including, among other places, in passing in Harry Edwards’ The Revolt of the Black Athlete and more fully in William C. Rhoden’s Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete and in Brad Snyder’s Beyond the Shadow of the Senators: The Untold Story of the Homestead Grays and the Integration of Baseball. As one part of the critique goes, the integration of major league baseball consolidated control of professional baseball into white hands. At the time that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, the Negro Leagues, which offered black ballplayers the opportunity to play, also offered black men and women very viable business opportunities in the forms of the professional baseball teams that they owned and ran. Within fifteen years of the integration of major league baseball, the Negro Leagues were defunct and, to this day, major league baseball remains largely a white-owned enterprise, with one Latino owner (Arte Moreno/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim), one team owned by an American subsidiary of a Japanese company (Nintendo of America/Seattle Mariners), and no African American owners. In other words, while integration did allow for black ballplayers to play major league baseball, it did so at the expense of black ownership and management of teams. It could have been done differently. For instance, Major League Baseball could have invited some of the Negro League teams to join the National League and the American League as new teams. After all, within that same fifteen years after integration that saw the evaporation of the Negro Leagues, both the National League and the American League added new teams as Major League Baseball expanded. By expanding in a way to include black ownership, integration could have been done on at least a little more equitable of a basis. In this manner, integration of the major leagues echoed other types of integration. The same kind of consolidation under white control occurred within media organizations, like newspapers. It also happened in education after the famous Brown v. Board of Education case overturned segregation. The result? In the newspapers industry, while a few black journalists got jobs, many black reporters, editors and managers were now without work and owners of black newspapers saw their businesses go under. In education, black students now went to school with white students, but integration took place in white schools, leaving black schools to close and black teachers, administrators, and staff members jobless, despite years of experience and educational background. To this day, these inequities remain far from being overcome. The same holds for Major League Baseball.

So, while there certainly may be positives associated with the 1947 integration of Major League Baseball, it is not the unilaterally progressive event that it tends to be characterized as having been. Rather, it was a step toward a particular path toward democracy—a step in one direction among a number of choices for direction and a step that needs to be followed by other steps that work toward further progress. For years, Major League Baseball has used April 15 to pat itself on the back, celebrating the event of integration and suggesting how this shows the usefulness and importance of Major League Baseball to United States society. Today, though, as I looked at how the 1947 integration was being characterized on Major League Baseball’s official website, I was happy to see what I think is improvement along these lines. The attention was focused much more on the person of Robinson and the struggle that he endured as the one who integrated the major leagues. This included recognition of various programs that have been developed to work toward equality and progress involving issues of race. Perhaps Major League Baseball is listening to some of the voices who have been offering critiques of how integration has been remembered. I’d like to hope so and it is nice to see what appears to be a more progressive take on the ways to remember integration. Still, it does continue to be situated in a form of paternalism, as giving scholarships and developing programs continue a kind of noblesse oblige tradition, whereby those in power offer some opportunities to the less-empowered—i.e., “give back to the community”—yet do so in ways that reinforce their own standing as the empowered, that attempt not to disrupt the status quo too much and, thus, that don’t really do a lot in terms of altering the deeper structural inequities of society. Major League Baseball is taking up the “there’s-still-a-long-way-to-go” kind of message, yet it must recognize that its own structures do continue to be part of the problem. While certainly just a step and not a cure-all, I think that making significant moves to ensure African American ownership of at least a couple of teams in the near future would be a step in the right direction along those lines. The likes of Horowitz would cry “foul” at this as the kind of affirmative action type of policy that he and other conservatives rail against, associating it with concepts like “reverse racism” and suggesting that it is “special treatment” of minorities that takes us away from really treating people as equals. I’d argue that it’s only “fair” to compensate for the special treatment that white-owned teams received in 1947 when the major leagues integrated, as well as the special treatment in 1961, 1962, 1969, 1977, 1993, and 1998, when white owners received newly created expansion teams.