We All Have Questions

This is a very important question that I think warranted discussion. However, first some news: FreeDarko's Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History now has a cover! Also, please be reading my Playoff Talking Points. Now, me and Eric Freeman look into Steve Nash and the sin of omission, or projection, or that which cannot be named.

Bethlehem Shoals: In the interest of full disclosure and total, awkward honesty, this email exchange is an attempt to recreate a phone conversation from the afternoon of Thursday, April 22, 2010. I telephoned Eric Freeman, outraged that Steve Nash—generally seen as one of the more politically active, or at least aware, Phoenix Suns—wasn't speaking out against the anti-brown person malarky being considered by the state of Arizona. Actually, I was outraged that no one was crying for him to speak out. Remember when LeBron James not taking a stand against Darfur made national news? Now, a player with a reputation for activism had nothing to say about a serious issue in his own state.

Eric Freeman: Maybe Nash just isn't as big or controversial an activist as we thought. If you look at his charitable contributions, they all involve your standard fare: green initiatives (the charity so uncontroversial that both NBC and the NBA devote an entire week to it), children's funds (which is essentially apolitical now), etc. Those are all worthwhile causes, of course, but not on the same level as a birtherist bill in his state of employment. I think he gets this attention as an activist simply because he looks like one: floppy hair, white, wears vaguely trendy clothing. He's easier to sell as a politically involved player because it requires less convincing on the part of the league -- they can trot him out there without much explanation. He's a useful presence for the causes the league wants to promote.

BS: Okay, after remembering the web research I did yesterday, I have to agree. Although he was against the war before it was considered okay, which has to count for something. I'm tempted to say that Amar'e, with his ongoing work in Sierra Leone, might be doing more—though then we get into the difference between service, activism, and how much either one is ever strictly "political". This still hasn't answered my question, though: If Nash has this identity projected onto him, and it contributes to his popularity (or at least his image), why doesn't it come into play here? It's almost like he gets the benefit of being viewed this way without being held accountable. Whereas when LeBron James and Kobe go to China, they're expected to become political. Nash gets a pass here . . . because he already is?



For the record, Steve Nash spoke out against Darfur in the spring of 2007; Ira Newble's petition was around the same time. Kobe and LeBron lent their names to the cause in spring 2008, then were mum during the Olympics. Not to editorialize, but Nash is the most popular athlete in Arizona. If ever there were a time when his voice really mattered like no other, and thus would really be taking a stand, this is it. But again, is that what athletes are obliged to do?

EF: The difference here, I think, is that speaking out would be a direct response to many of his fans. Granted, I'm sure a large number of Mavs fans were pro-war in 2003, but that's a broader argument not specific to the state in which he played. This issue is about Arizona, and he's the most popular basketball figure in the state. It'd be a break not just with a popular political position, but the legislature of the state he represents around the rest of the country.

BS: So athletes are expected to use their influence for good . . . except when it hits too close to home and could potentially alienate some of their fans? I'm not sure how that's so different from my argument that we shouldn't expect LeBron to be responsible for a chain of international affairs that leads from Oregon to Darfur. Not because he's incapable of it, but because at some point, there are limits to responsibility. Except here, the limit would be. . . when it really involves a serious confrontation with the people who look up to you? It's almost like Steve Nash has done enough to be given this pass (which to some degree, makes sense to me), but other athletes who don't do anything can have expectations thrown at them willy-nilly.

EF: But how often are athletes asked to take controversial stands? Even in the case of LeBron and Darfur, there wasn't significant uproar about his decision not to take a stand -- it's not as if liberal activists would turn down his involvement in any number of less controversial issues. It's almost as if the public wants action, but not necessarily anything that could undermine their status as basketball players. It sounds great to have another Muhammad Ali, but what if political circumstances hadn't allowed him to return to boxing? Is that a tradeoff we're willing to risk?

BS: It was too a big story. I think the first one—his refusal to sign Ira Newble's petition—may have been bigger than the Olympics silence. To be fair, the latter was a gag order imposed by Colangelo, so that would have required a higher order of un-American defiance. But that first time around, it was in the Wall Street Journal and stuff. Brought up the whole "no better than Jordan" conversation. He eventually did end up addressing it, along with Kobe and several others, and there was no fallout. Not during the Olympics, or in China afterward, but again, maybe those fall under the "asking too much" rubric. LeBron is really obligated to defy the Chinese government while he's on a publicity tour there?

Maybe it's a question of good politics, in the most cynical sense. There's idealism, and then there's realism. We should always assume that athletes are hampered by some degree of realism. The question is, in Nash's case, can we push that so far that he's totally let off the hook? You're right, he would be directly challenging his fans. Not just staking out a position in some vague geo-political system of affairs. That would be like LeBron protesting Darfur during the Olympics—it would go right up against what American told him to do. He would be defining America for himself. That's what Nash would be doing in this case.

Except, and maybe this is key, dude's Canadian. Oooops!

It Was So Familiar Then

First of all, if you haven't been reading the comments section of my "post" on the Darfur/China/Olympics situation, you simply must. T., our man in China and one of the site's longest-tenured community readers, is absolutely killing it with perspective from inside that country, right now.

One thing he raised that stuck with me: No country likes being criticized by foreigners, especially not a budding superpower that's defensive about its place on the world stage. My whole argument hinged on both the complexity (read: elusiveness) of China's hand in the genocide, as well as how little it had to do with the NBA players expected to speak out against it. I guess in a perfect world they would've anyway, but we would've been holding them to a ridiculously high standard. One that, were there not a moral absolute like mass slaughters somewhere in the equation, might be viewed as meddling.

Just writing that makes me feel like a heartless relativist, but there's also a streak of pragmatism to it. Yes, in the eyes of idealism, pragmatism always seems like a form of resignation or compromise. Especially when Jerry Colangelo could be the mastermind behind it. And yet there's also a back-handed etiquette at play there, one that defers to others in a better position, or with a greater responsibility, to speak.

All of which brings me to T.'s point that, if anyone's in an ideal position to speak out, it's Yao. It's not ideal in that China still controls much of him, and his purse strings. He would do so at great risk. But "ideal" doesn't mean convenient, it means "perfect." And isn't the point of speaking out to do so with some leverage, to create a critical mass of tension and unavoidability?



I know that America is a beacon of freedom for all the rest of the world, and it's on our athletes to spread that particular gospel. That's another form of idealism, one that makes for good narrative but almost always collides awkwardly with the real world. If we were going to be honest with ourselves about who should be talking about Darfur, we have to not only admit that Yao's closer to the issue. He may not be among the persecuted, but at least his relationship with China is based on more than a web of international commerce. We also need to recognize that, while condemning genocide is easy and universal, Team USA has zero idea how to go about discussing the issue in terms that might make sense to the Chinese people—which, as guests of China, they would for all intents and purposes be doing.

Of course, all of us feel strange insistng Yao do such and such, precisely because it would be painful for him, while our Olympians would just find themselves in awkard situation after awkward situation. And that's exactly how meaningful change should feel, since it involves more than just semi-informed twenty-somethings saying that raping and burning is wrong. Yes, LeBron said he would, Kobe did a PSA, and Tracy McGrady and Ira Newble have made Darfur into the rare international issue that draws the interest of the NBA community. They are the most famous athletes in the Games, and by far the wealthiest. That and their basketball crusade has been from the beginning bound up in national pride, which brings with it all sorts of well-meaning, deeply-felt, and possibly empty platitudes—that bad kind of idealism again.

Or, on some level, did we all not look at these Redeem Teamers as the sons of Jesse Owens, John Carlos, and Tommie Smith? There's that superficial, perhaps sentimental, identification, as well as the persistent hope that the NBA—because its denizens are for the most part black, visible on the field, and play a game that has long been interpreted in terms of race—would develop a political consciousness. And hey, it just so happens that the people suffering in Darfur are dark-skinned—though calling for some kind of solution there seems like basic human decency, and Sudan about as far from anywhere in the USA as you could imagine.

And, as much as I hate to say it, there's the fantasy that that the bad-ass black dude will take a stand, with a presence that a big 'ol Asian could only dream of mustering. They are strong, and outlaws, and rebels, and Other, and always in the struggle, and should do the work that real power brokers are afraid to. Oh, and do so with style. Maybe that's racist, maybe it's laudatory, maybe some of both. Let's leave it at this: I'm not comfortable making Team USA the locus of Olympic activism if doing so is just an extension of domestic baggage.

We'll Always Have Smoke

Sorry it's taken me all day to get to the USA Basketball political clam-up. Ziller's post has the clip, and some relevant links. I'm not making excuses for anyone here, just reminding people what it's taken to prompt Olympic activism in the past. Sure, there's money, and shadows, and pressure, but in these times, it's awfully easy to back down, slink away, or leave others wondering why they'd expected anything more in the first place.

1936:







1968:







2008:



















Honestly, I'm just not that surprised that this fell by the wayside. There's a big difference between a "genocide is bad" PSA and this:



I come not to excuse Team USA, or damn them. Merely to ask, what the fuck did you expect? For them to go above and beyond past precedent? For something that's only barely related to them? Regardless of whether not today's superstars can be bought or sold, Darfur is exactly the kind of thing that actual politicians and people of influence hedge on all the time. Whether or not the world's biggest NBA market is at stake.