Jemele Hill, ESPN, March 20, 2008
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| Jemele Hill. |
If you’ve ever seen photos of LeBron James away from the basketball court, it’s obvious he takes great pride in his appearance.
In fact, he’s widely considered one of the best-dressed guys in the NBA—perhaps even in all of sports. LeBron’s mentor is Jay-Z, the rapper-turned-mogul who dropped throwbacks for Armani suits years ago.
{snip}
LeBron’s image clearly means a lot to him, maybe even as much as pursuing a championship. And that’s why I can’t understand why he would allow Vogue to feature him with supermodel Gisele Bundchen in such a distasteful manner.
In case you haven’t seen the cover, LeBron has Gisele in one hand and a basketball in the other. LeBron is dressed in basketball gear, with his muscles flexing, tattoos showing and bared teeth. Gisele, on the other hand, is wearing a gorgeous slim-fitting dress, and smiling.
{snip} Vogue’s quest to highlight the differences between superstar athletes and supermodels only successfully reinforces the animalistic stereotypes frequently associated with black athletes.
A black athlete being reduced to a savage is, sadly, nothing new. But this cover gave you the double-bonus of having LeBron and Gisele strike poses that others in the blogosphere have noted draw a striking resemblance to the racially charged image of King Kong enveloping his very fair-skinned lady love interest.
{snip}
Too often, black athletes are presented as angry, overly aggressive and overly sexual. Or sometimes, they’re just plain emasculated.
The examples of this are endless. The 2002 Sports Illustrated cover that featured Charles Barkley chained like a slave. Ricky Williams wearing a wedding dress on an ESPN The Magazine cover in 1999. And while it didn’t appear in a magazine, the Terrell Owens-Nicolette Sheridan intimate-encounter tease for “Monday Night Football” gave viewers a sexualized image of a black man.
In fact, the shirtless black male athlete cover is pretty much a staple, reinforcing the idea that black athletes were blessed with physical characteristics, not mental ones.
{snip}
Having studied the images of black athletes for years, Hoberman [John Hoberman, a University of Texas professor and author of the controversial book “Darwin’s Athletes: How Sports Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race.”] contends that the images of black athletes presented today are no better than the ones offered centuries ago. And if it matters to you, Hoberman is white.
“One of the 19th-century themes was the savage versus the civilized,” Hoberman said. “The practice of stripping black males above the waist and displaying him is as American as apple pie.”
But we don’t even have to dip back to the 19th century to see how images of black athletes have affected how we think and thus how we view sports. In 1994, Jack Nicklaus said there weren’t more African-Americans in golf because “blacks have different muscles that react in different ways.”
And that backward thinking isn’t limited to whites, either. Former ESPN NFL analyst Michael Irvin channeled his inner Jimmy the Greek when attempting to explain Tony Romo’s abilities. Irvin surmised that Romo was good because his “great, great, great, great grandma pulled one of them studs up outta the barn [and said], ‘Come here for a second.’”
{snip}
Vogue deserves criticism, but more blame should go to LeBron and other black athletes, who need to exercise stricter control of their images. If LeBron is brave enough to wear a Yankees cap at an Indians playoff game, picking up a history book and educating himself shouldn’t cause a strain.
{snip}
Left: LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen on the cover of Vogue. |
Original article
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Jemele Hill
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(Posted on March 25, 2008)
Comments
Giselle is a typical money-hungry White female slut. I see them all the time in Las Vegas. God help us?!
Posted by Howard in Las Vegas at 7:02 PM on March 25
I watched the remake of the movie King Kong a couple of years ago and I swear, they portrayed ‘King Kong’ as a symbol of the black man in America.
Posted by at 7:48 PM on March 25
Die hard veteran Cleveland Cavs’ fan, my ninety-one year old mother made this observation a few months ago, “LaBron is ugly.” In Cleveland you can’t get away from the adoration of this black kid. TV, newspapers, billboards, bus and cab signs all telling the white people how privileged they are to be living in the Age of LaBron.
The ubiquitous ad campaign has a picture of James with his hands stretched out as though he’s on the cross, and the caption says, “You Are Witness”. It is depressing to see white juveniles, as old as sixty, making fools of themselves by worshiping a black guy whose claim to fame is that he can jump higher than and run faster than other black guys. Some body has to tell these young white men what a self destructive act it is to down grad their superiority in the mating game by puffing up these blacks athletes.
No one has ever lost any money betting on how dumb a stunt a black athlete will pull.* As a group the black athlete is an unattractive, dumb, over emotional creature situated somewhere on the evolutionary scale between man and the missing link. The Cleveland PD reported that James and the photographer put their heads together and agreed this was the best photo. What does Je-me-le Hill expect? To have a cover of James looking like Gary Grant? I think she feels the way all black women must feel, “Why another white woman?”
The idea of the cover was to sell black man inter-racial sex. You never see displays of a white man poise to defile a black flower. With the constant talk of how good looking black women are, the Vogue people still paired up the black man with a non-black woman. In saner times men would take aside the magazine owner and photographer and “taught them a lesson in good manners”.
* Acknowledgment to HL Mencken
Posted by P Noctura at 8:12 PM on March 25
The Vogue editors had to have had the King Kong poster in mind when they commissioned that cover. Makes you wonder…
Posted by at 8:25 PM on March 25
I like listening to Ms.Hill on ESPN First Take. However, this article is biased toward black “sensitivities.” I first saw this cover in line at the grocery store and I didn’t even notice about Lebron James looking like King Kong. My first reaction was to be upset that this beautiful white woman was paired off with a non-white man. This wasn’t nearly as shameful as the Terrel Owens
commercial, but sad just the same.
Posted by Hector at 8:42 PM on March 25
..perhaps James motivation for dress’ is only motivated by his desire to bed down a ‘classier’ type of groupee?…maybe oneday we will read about his multiple children in multiple towns..
Posted by toonces in indianapolis. at 8:44 PM on March 25
Imagine the same photo but with a stunning black female model… no controversy, no publicity, no real interest. Obviously the magazine editors knew what they were doing.
Posted by WaitNow at 8:54 PM on March 25
Maybe it is the white models who need to think of their image.
Note the subtitle on the magazine below the image. They were apparently making a photo op for white (mostly) models to be paired up with black (mostly) atheletes in yet another effort at sensationalism. I don’t need to discuss the impressions it makes on the impressionable and the expectations it prompts.
Posted by Whiteplight at 9:32 PM on March 25
Dear Howard in las vegas…I totally agree with you…she is nothing but a white slut ….and a whore for money!!!
Posted by lydia at 9:40 PM on March 25
I am so sick of this push constantly of pairing White women with Black men! Our children are brainwashed enough! It is for one purpose only, miscegnation. Get rid of the White race by any means possible. How White women have succumbed to this obvious scam is beyond belief. We need to speak out and condemn it at every opportunity! To hell with being called a racist!. Rather be called a racist than to be a part of the decline of our race.
Posted by at 10:37 PM on March 25
For what it’s worth, I never thought much of basketball. To me it’s a pretty inane, simplistic game: You run down the court one way and shoot the ball, then you run down other way and shoot the ball again.
So I can see why blacks love it. One the positive side, however, it did serve as the catalyst for the pinnacle of black achievement.
Blacks can now point with swollen pride to their tripartite achievements in America and contributions to the world’s body of knowledge — Jazz, peanut butter, and the slam dunk.
Posted by White, Jewish, and Proud at 10:46 PM on March 25
Lebron is a talented athlete, but this is simply silly. He should not be taking pride in anything that he is not. And I imagine that he would not be attracted to the woman in the photo with him.
If he were, no wonder. She’s beautiful, but I assume he is not attracted to that type of woman. No point in making a stink about it.
All too frequently, white men get riled up about blacks being with “their” women. But whites have a birthrate of 1.88. So white men have work to do, right? Why not focus on that than focus on foolish photos of black athletes with sluts?
Posted by White at 11:20 PM on March 25
LeBron James is what he is. Blacks create their own image based on what they really are. The intelligent ones, and there are intelligent ones, exercise control over their depictions based on the exigencies of sales. Michael Jordan was smart enough to know that, “both democrats and republicans buy tennis shoes”. Alan Iverson is not. Arthur Ashe was always a gentleman. Kirby Puckett controlled his image carefully, until he lost control of his weight and behavior. PacMan Jones will eventually end up shot or in jail.
Professor Hoberman is a pseudo intellectual marxist leech. The notion that the image of the modern black athlete is the same as that of centuries ago is ludicrous on its face. As with all others of his ilk, he twists reality until it conforms to his marxist ideology. Corporate America markets the image that people want. And for blacks that image is conspicuous wealth, fame, and sex. In that respect, they are not really that different from their white trash counterparts.
There are, believe it or not AmRen readers, black entrepreneurs, scientists, and others not involved in entertainment and athletics, worthy of admiration. But they’ll never get it from the black community.
Posted by Flamethrower at 11:43 PM on March 25
Could someone explain to me why white people continue to support the NBA?
Paying a group of surly, tatooed, shaven head black men millions a dollars a year to play a childrens’ game?
Posted by Dennis at 9:49 AM on March 26
Marilyn Monroe tried to warn us, just before she died she said, and I quote, “Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.”
Posted by A. Windaus at 10:09 AM on March 26
If they wanted a superstar athlete, why didn’t they have two time MVP winner, Steve Nash? Do you think that his being white had anything to do with it?
Posted by flyingtiger at 12:59 PM on March 26
“Could someone explain to me why white people continue to support the NBA?”
Beats the hell out of me. I found a used ticket stub on the CTA train yesterday to a Chicago Bulls vs. Indiana Pacers March 22 game.
It was $140. Section 114, Row 6, Seat 3.
White folks piss away money to just to look at Black NBA players run around for an hour?
Crazy.
Posted by at 2:57 PM on March 26
You’re right, Jemele Hill. The awful truth of sports is it has revealed black-white racial genetic differences, that people are seeing through your PC lies, and they can connect the dots from there to find black-white IQ differences as well. The NBA, the NFL, and everything else is a poison pill which proves forever that blacks have a lower IQ than whites, but at least they can run fast and jump high.
Posted by Diamed at 5:48 PM on March 26
WHY do White men and women support any of these games with blacks in them? Don’t need blacks whatsoever in our society or our games. I used to watch baseball, football and basketball BEFORE blacks were deliberately brought into the games. You know, when America used to be AMERICA. Twas a lot better back then, than it is now with all their stupid antics and their criminal behaviors on and off the field….Will not go where Blacks and other “minorities” go. NEVER have a good time or a safe time wherever they congregate. It’s like going into an insane asylum.
Posted by at 6:02 PM on March 26
Could someone explain to me why white people continue to support the NBA?
Paying a group of surly, tatooed, shaven head black men millions a dollars a year to play a childrens’ game?
Its probably all staged anyway like WWF
Posted by at 8:16 PM on March 26
Does anyone know if this magazine has a “letters to the editor” section? If so, I think we should all send letters expressing our outrage at this photo cover. I find it hard to believe they couldn’t find a white athlete to pose with a white woman. They are obviously promoting race mixing. And by the way, has anybody heard that old joke,”how do you stop five black guys from raping a white woman? Throw them a basketball.”
Posted by at 11:21 PM on March 26
I just can’t understand why so many White people watch sports like the NBA and make multi-millionaires out of these vulgar, tattooed, ignorant, in your face blacks. They don’t care one iota about the White fans that enrich them. I wouldn’t waste one penny of my money on them. I don’t get it at all.
Posted by at 7:45 AM on March 27
There is no way that the magazine could have put a black athlete on the cover without insulting someone.
If James wears an expensive suit, the complaint would be he is a sellout, or is acting too white.
If James wears a “clown” suit, edumacated blacks would say that this is a negative racial stereotype.
If he does the thing he is paid millions for, people say that the image is negative because it is about brawn, not brains.
The same kind of reasoning that ensures blacks on TV are always brilliant surgeons, managers and engineers with nary a black perp in sight.
Posted by ODDL at 11:48 AM on March 27
“In fact, the shirtless black male athlete cover is pretty much a staple, reinforcing the idea that black athletes were blessed with physical characteristics, not mental ones.”
These “stereotypes” are simple facts. Blacks in America have their athletic abilities thanks to Whites, who selectively breeded them to make them more effective at their intended purposes. Blacks DON’T have “mental characteristics” that are equal to Whites. They’re so successful at athletics because that’s what their breeding has afforded them. Their natural abilities have now afforded them opportunities to become superstars, make millions and appear on magazine covers with supermodels.
Lebron James should thank White people for breeding his ancestors so effectively.
George Manuelian
San Jose, CA
Posted by George Manuelian at 2:36 PM on March 27
The picture is horrible to see. (Gisele, money’s not that important.)It’s inappropriate on plenty of levels. Take your pick. Vogue was trying to strike up any controversy.
Now I would consider myself more racist than not, but I wouldn’t say that this photo is ‘racist’, as the media brings into question. Any oppossites-black/white, yes/no, good/bad, if my girl can’t play tennis as good as yours….’racist’! It’s overdone. ‘Racism’, by definition, is the practice of racial discrimination, segregation.
This just affirms that our words (esp. in certaian circles) are becoming meaningless-constitution/law interpretations, lax definitions in word applications, changing for appeassement because of overly sensitive responses to the true definition, etc. If one claims that he does not comply with a meaning or a certain description does not apply to him, is no one ever wrong? If everything is ‘taken out of context’, where is the starting point or what do we look to? Will there ever be any structure? ………Chaos ensues.
Posted by at 9:00 PM on March 27
“These “stereotypes” are simple facts. Blacks in America have their athletic abilities thanks to Whites, who selectively breeded them to make them more effective at their intended purposes.”
They did not selectively breed blacks. This is a total myth that has somehow gained credibility over the years.
Read castefootball.net to know more
Posted by Danny at 8:56 AM on March 29
Wow, the comments on here certainly prove that racism is alive and well in good old America. No insults allowed, say the “commenting guidelines.” This 60-year-old white woman would just like to say that a bunch of you folks just proved everything that many blacks believe about whites’ “true feelings” when expressed under the cover of anonymity.
Posted by Vicky Lee at 4:51 PM on April 7
