The Whites-Only Basketball League

Cidu Bill on Jan 22nd 2010

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(Click the ball for more information)

This amuses me for some reason; but I suspect there’ll be a follow-up in a few days revealing that this was all a hoax.

Filed in Bill Bickel, basketball, race | 25 responses so far

25 Responses to “The Whites-Only Basketball League”

  1. Kate C Jan 22nd 2010 at 01:08 am 1

    The fact that the guy behind it is a former wrestling promoter makes me think it’s all a publicity stunt.

  2. Thomas Jan 22nd 2010 at 01:12 am 2

    Heh, reminds me of suggestions in Ireland. Since hurling -and to a lesser extent football- is horrifically sectarian (jokes are often made of players being sent off for the foul of “being protestant”), it has been seriously suggested that a protestant league should be set up, which is of course ridiculous.

    Actually, didn’t you have a “negro league” in america some time back?

  3. bAT L. Jan 22nd 2010 at 02:11 am 3

    We did have a “negro league” in America, but that was during a time when people of darker skin were very heavily oppressed. The negro league was actually for baseball, but it is the same principle at work here. At the time, it was actually considered quite the boon to people of color, who otherwise were just plain not allowed to play professionally. Eventually, they integrated teams, but this took many years of unrest.

    In modern times, there are still racist people out there, we regrettably find. This is not the norm, however, and for the most part, color of skin or a person’s heritage does not play a part at all in any officially sanctioned jobs or events. At least, not that I know of, but I do sometimes hear the stories.

    Somewhat timely, actually, that this came so close to (Reverend-Doctor) Martin Luther King (Jr.) Day.

  4. mkilby Jan 22nd 2010 at 03:22 am 4

    The idiots who came up with this idea have forgotten that even if they can launch their racist league (despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of any potential US audience will find the idea distasteful), there is still the problem of recruiting people who can actually play the game. Admittedly, the NBA has a large number of black players, but it also has (and will continue to attract) the best caucasian players from all over the world. This means that the “honky” league will never be able to compete on a sporting level. Even hard-core racists are not going to pay to see second-rate basketball.

  5. chuckers Jan 22nd 2010 at 04:58 am 5

    “White Men Can’t Jump”

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105812/

  6. Powers Jan 22nd 2010 at 06:58 am 6

    mkilby — how do you explain minor basketball leagues, then?

    I don’t care for basketball, and one reason is because it’s gotten so far away from its fundamentals. Traveling and double-dribbling have become jokes in the modern NBA. I don’t know if excluding non-Caucasians is a good solution to that problem or not, but at least one of this guy’s goals is laudable.

  7. Nicole Jan 22nd 2010 at 07:35 am 7

    I don’t know … may people will watch it in the same way they watch a train wreck or Glen Beck.

  8. Mitch4 Jan 22nd 2010 at 07:36 am 8

    Y’know what actually IDU? The layout of that “This Week” site, with semirandom link-outs dropped in between paragraphs of their story.

  9. Blinky The Wonder Wombat Jan 22nd 2010 at 08:26 am 9

    The World Basketball League limited the height of its players to under 6′-5″ based on the premise that smaller players had to be more fundamentally sound. The fact that the league folded after a few years is probably a testament to the fact the fans want to see showmanship and not fundamental basketball.

  10. mkilby Jan 22nd 2010 at 08:46 am 10

    @ Powers (6) - I wasn’t aware of that a minor league existed for basketball (I thought the NBA simply misused colleges and high schools for this purpose), but if so, then it’s just one more reason that a “racist” league would not be able to survive. It’s one thing to start any new league (perhaps with variant, even stricter rules on play), but in a competition for publicity and viewers, it seems silly to both alienate the public, and to eliminate a large portion of potential players. They might as well incorporate a 6-foot height limit. AAA baseball teams are a case in point: most would have a very tough time surviving without support from their “parent” MLB clubs, so there’s no way they could afford to exclude talent with such a capricious “principle”.

    @ Nicole (7) - You make a good point. Indeed, the continued existance of professional wrestling is a profound refutation of any argument that depends upon the intelligence or good taste of viewers.

  11. Czhorat Jan 22nd 2010 at 08:48 am 11

    I am assuming that this is a joke, but what I find most disturbing is the number of comments on the linked article that seek to support this as a good idea. It’s a sad fact that bigotry is alive and well in this country.

    Powers, I agree that professional basketball has become nearly unrecognizable, but the reinforcing the stereotype that African-American athletes are “athletic” and play “street ball” and caucasian athletes are “cerebral” and play “fundamentals” is just perpetuating stereotypes. I actually think the NBA made a positive step when they removed the “illegal defence” rule and allowed zones; this at least stops the old “isolation play” which had NBA games from devolving into one-on-one or, at best, two-on-two.

  12. Czhorat Jan 22nd 2010 at 08:49 am 12

    To Nicole (7) : “A train wreck or Glenn Beck” rhymes and even scans nicely, but isn’t it redundant?

  13. Lihtox Jan 22nd 2010 at 10:14 am 13

    The wrestling connection here makes me think that pro basketball has drifted somewhat towards the pro-wrestling model: not fixed (hopefully), but more about flash than substance. There are still people who are interested in “fundamentalist basketball” :), just as there are people who enjoy watching actual wrestling, but the numbers are perhaps too small to support a modern-day national sports league.

  14. Mark M Jan 22nd 2010 at 11:37 am 14

    Wasn’t it a wrestling promoter who introduced a new football league a few years back (XFL I think?)? As far as this proposed league, yes, it is racist, as is the United Negro College Fund, Miss Black America, etc. that hardly anyones talks about.

  15. The Bad Seed Jan 22nd 2010 at 11:43 am 15

    The visuals I get from this story would make an awesome SNL sketch. And I picture the all-star team getting their butts handed to them by the JV team from an inner-city elementary school (all players 3 ft tall or under).

  16. John Small Berries Jan 22nd 2010 at 11:49 am 16

    Wasn’t it a wrestling promoter who introduced a new football league a few years back (XFL I think?)?

    Yes, Vince McMahon. I actually liked XFL better than NFL, because they kept the game moving, instead of stopping after every damn play. It made football almost as exciting as hockey.

  17. chene Jan 22nd 2010 at 12:19 pm 17

    One of the arguments used to generate interest in women’s basketball is that it’s more fundamentally sound than men’s basketball.

    But I thought there already was a Caucasian basketball team in the NBA - the Indiana Pacers

  18. paperboy Jan 22nd 2010 at 01:56 pm 18

    Powers#6, I’m with you. I’m hardly a sports-fan, but the few times I’ve watched a game I was disgusted at the lack of basketball skills. Most of those guys can’t throw the ball through the basket unless they get a couple inches away, thus the “dunk” was born.

  19. czhorat Jan 22nd 2010 at 02:40 pm 19

    Mark m, to imply an equivalency between programs aimed at assisting those who have historically oppressed minorities and attempts to exclude those minorities in favor of the majority is disinge at best. At worst, it is pretending that those who haver historically been in power and, to a very large extent, still are are the ones in need of protection as cover for your own racial biases

  20. Bearman Jan 22nd 2010 at 03:51 pm 20

    John Small…the problem with the XFL is the same problem that the WWE’s competition today. Production Value. The reason WWE is on top is because of the production value. The reason the NFL is on top is because of production value. The XFL didn’t even visually look as good as a college game.

  21. Mark M Jan 22nd 2010 at 06:24 pm 21

    Czhorat, I’m not really sure what you’re saying. At worst, I’m implying that whites are in need of protection? How do you tell the majority to treat the minority as equals when the minority engages in activities that exclude the majority?

  22. Joshua Jan 23rd 2010 at 01:15 am 22

    This has got to be a publicity stunt/joke/hoax/political commentary stunt or something like that. The fact that the league purports to be planning to discriminate against non-whites and foreign-born players would basically put it in violation of the Civil Rights Act from day one. At the very least they can expect the Justice Department or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to sue them.

  23. Lihtox Jan 24th 2010 at 01:08 am 23

    @Mark M: Colorblindness is a goal, but we ain’t there yet, and black-only organizations are just one way to counterbalance all the little petty (and the big not-so-petty) grievances put upon black people because they are minorities in this country (and historically disadvantaged ones, to boot). It is disingenuous to equate a majority’s view of race with a minority’s view of race.

    Actually, the fact that this is a whites-only basketball league is only mildly disturbing to me, just because of the way it brings to mind whites-only country clubs (which wouldn’t've been so bad if there weren’t so many deals and business relationships formed within those country clubs). No, the bloody awful racism here is the flat-out statement that black people don’t/can’t care about the fundamentals of the game, or that that’s all that white people care about. Don’t blame today’s NBA on black people, blame it on the fans who LIKE flash over fundamentals. The NBA could easily tell the refs to strictly enforce the rules and encourage a more disciplined style of play, but that doesn’t make money. You want to start a league with stricter rules or what have you? Fine; nothing wrong with that. But imagining that this can be accomplished simply by limiting yourself to a single race is insulting to black people, immigrants, AND white people.

  24. David A. Rooney Jan 24th 2010 at 11:36 am 24

    Don’t worry too much, folks. If this is real, the free market will flush it down the toilet pretty quick - can you imagine any company/corporation willing to sponsor this crap? Who would they ask - Clorox? “Get your sheets as white as our teams!”

  25. Czhorat Jan 25th 2010 at 06:24 am 25

    Thank you Lihtox. I should probably let this thread die, but a few more thougths in answer to Mark M:

    To draw an equivalency between deliberate preferential treatment for whites and preferable treatment for minorities is to ignore the legacy of racism in this country. As sad as it is, racism is still here and it has deep roots. When people are asked to form opinions of people based only on photographs they assign positive characteristics to white faces more often then to black or darker skinned faces. This is even true of African American test subjects. Studies have shown that resumes with “African American” sounding names are less likely to get job interviews. THere was a recent NY TImes article about how African American lawyers try to hide their racial identity in resumes, not listing membership in African-AMerican student associations or naming prediminantly black schools where they studied. 107 out of 110 Supreme Court Justices have been white. 99 of 100 US Senators are white.

    In other words, there already is an arena in which whites get preferential treatment; it’s the whole country. To pretend otherwise and say that there’s not a place to help those in the “out” group try to catch up is, at best, willful blindness to reality.

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