“stereotypes”

Like a lot of people, when VH1′s basketball wives ended on Sunday night I was prepared to make the transition in to LisaRay McCoy and Stacy Dash’s new show “Single Ladies.” I definitely did not have my hopes up–although McCoy and Dash are two of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, neither can act very well. McCoy’s acting is particularly painful and always has been. That fact makes it even funnier that the show was designed around her.

Unfortunately, 90 seconds into the show, the acting and premise made me so comfortable, I didn’t last another 90 seconds much less two hours.

If you want to know the exact time I turned away and never came back to the show, it was when Dash is yelling at some guy “IF YOU LIKED IT YOU SHOULD HAVE PUT A RING ON IT.”

That line told me all that I needed to know about the show’s lack of appeal to my own sensibilities.  Carrie from Sex and the City would have NEVER said that!  And this is coming from, again, someone who had just finished watching (and enjoying) Basketball Wives. And, whose favorite character is the villain Evelyn Lozada.

Judging from the “Single Ladies” trailer, the tweets on my twitter timeline, and the 2 minutes I suffered through, I don’t think I missed much by turning away. I would guess that the show tries to be some amalgamation of things black women want to see themselves as (attractive and living well) with some fantasy (hot sex and controversy) mixed in. But this approach may have missed the boat.

From the Post:

The women seem to be operating from a false sense of empowerment, a soulfulness that unfortunately reads as soullessness. The men all talk like that gran­dilo­­quently suave Old Spice spokesman who rides his stallion shirtless. “Single Ladies” dares the more sheltered among us to ask: “Are there people who really look and talk like this?”

When I read that quote I immediately thought of Beyonce’s music and Tyrese’s twitter timeline. Anyway, the Post pulls no punches and says the show is embarrassingly bad.

Since I didn’t watch the show, I can’t review it, but you’re welcome to do so in comments.

The real reason I wrote this post is to share something that was told to me a while back.

On the issue of blacks supporting television shows even when they’re bad in order to keep shows with with predominately black casts on the air or help them get greenlit in the future. I talked to some folks in the television industry and they pointed out to me how blacks supporting shows doesn’t keep those shows on the air.

For example, “The Game” had solid ratings when it was cancelled as have other black shows that have appeared on network television. In many cases, networks use black audiences to build an audience and get us watching other shows and the like. So while blacks think they are playing the “ratings” game,  many times they are simply being played.

Thoughts?

Americans sure know how to get riled up. Every week we find some new, mundane thing to get upset about. This week it was Pittsburgh Steelers Running Back Rashard Mendenhall’s tweets about the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Mendenhall tweeted his concern about celebrating death and alluded to his disbelief that planes alone took down the World Trade Center on 9/11. He later clarified his tweets with this blog post. As a professional speechwriter and media coach, I wouldn’t have advised him to clarify in long form, in particular, after looking at his tweets which were pretty benign. However, his clarification was thoughtful and pretty touching even if you disagree.

Unfortunately, a very bored sports media got hold of the story and with the help of the mainstream media they proceeded to squeeze every drop of relevancy they could out of it—which is quite a feat since there wasn’t much to begin with. First of all, Mendenhall is not an elected official nor is he a pundit or other expert whose opinions influence domestic or international thought or policy. Secondly, in the scheme of “popular” National Football League players, Mendenhall is far from top tier.

The media’s, and subsequently the public’s, reaction to Mendenhall’s tweets is an embarrassing display of how “outrage-driven” today’s media is as well as how aggressively it seeks search engine optimization. Web content managers know that the NFL is in the midst of the a lockout, twitter is a popular social media network, and Osama Bin Laden was the most searched term of the week. NFL + Twitter + Osama Bin Laden = high search engine results for articles on Mendenhall’s tweets.

ESPN took things a step further and held a special “twitter edition” of “Outside the Lines” in which they discussed athletes on twitter. No surprise that there was nary a mention of the network’s incessant promotion of the story for the sake of clicks and ratings. The media sold this story under the umbrella of “yet another athlete says something really stupid.” But the reality is that Mendenhall’s tweets were not stupid, they simply reflected an unpopular opinion.

Actually, I’d correct that and say his opinion was unwanted more than it was unpopular. And reactions were based on the media’s narrative and not what Mendenhall actually tweeted. A perfect storm for a public full of lazy headline readers. The general consensus seemed to be “Why would he tweet his opinion when he knew the media would run with it and people would get upset?”  I always find positions like that to be odd, because it treats the media and the pubic (and the individual making the statement) as though they are not in control of their own emotions and reactions. It also lets the media off the hook for its blatant issue-baiting.

There was absolutely no reason for such a strong and negative reaction to one non-political man’s opinion. It’s almost as if people were outraged because they believed they were SUPPOSED to be. In searching most of the commentary on this—whether tweets or article comments, people mainly seemed to understand why “other” hypothetical people were upset but weren’t actually upset themselves.

Apparently, we’ve come to a point in the media cycle where we’re angry at people for the potential their comments have to offend rather than because their comments were actually offensive.  If that doesn’t tell you how far the media has fallen into the gutter, nothing will.

I have to point out that over the years many in the African American community have lamented the fact that black athletes aren’t politically active. The argument is that we need them to be given the fact that they hold such a large amount of the community’s wealth. The reaction to Mendenhall is a very good example of why many athletes choose to quietly support charities for children rather than taking a bigger risk and vocally attaching themselves to adult issues which tend to be more controversial.

Now that Mendenhall has been fired from his deal with Champion, which, in its statement made NO reference to what exactly Mendenhall said that prompted the firing, you can see that expressing any opinion can be detrimental to players’ livelihoods. And with football players having such short careers, they can’t risk that kind of financial harm just to exercise their first amendment right.

I believe that any one in the public eye should use care with their words; however, the fact is that in the current media environment it is very hard to tell what the media will take and turn into a story at any given time.  I keep hearing people say Mendenhall should have practiced better PR, but even public relations professionals are toughing out the new sillier media landscape when it comes to gauging the reaction of the media and public to any given item.

Plus a slow news day can produce any number of asinine stories that on a heavier day wouldn’t be a blip on the radar. And now that sports media has become just as 24/7 as the rest of the media, athletes are subject to much of the same “trolling” for comments by the journalists that other celebrities have long submitted to. Yes, sports reporters are TROLLS now, and although I’m sure some reporters love it, If sports journalism is reporting on Brett Favre’s penis and who tweeted what I’ll pass indefinitely.

Freedom of speech will always be accompanied by consequences, and Mendenhall must face that fact just like any other public figure.  However, we have to acknowledge that there is a concerted effort on the part of the media to create controversy where there is none. The only surefire way for public figures to avoid such a backlash at one point or another is to never become successful in the first place.

I’d like to believe that at some point the public will develop outrage fatigue and stop allowing the media to drum up faux controversy, but it doesn’t look like that will be happening any time soon.

Warning: This is not a nice post. These are my unfiltered thoughts about someone I truly cannot stand exhibiting behavior that I genuinely detest. Read at your own risk.

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In Chris Rock’s comedy special “Bigger and Blacker” he talks about the complicated relationship black Americans have with the United States. He said, “If you’re black, America’s like the Uncle who paid your way through college…but molested you.”

I would say that black people share a similar relationship with comedian Bill Cosby. Cosby, a man who’s as known for his contributions to the black college fund as he is for making millions of people laugh for most of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, has repeatedly gone on unintelligible and often racist rants about black people that finally stretched my admiration of him until it snapped.

I have absolutely no tolerance for people, especially older ones, who promote stereotypes and use anecdotal evidence over facts under the guise of “helping people.” They’re just like all those guys who write blog posts about how women are too fat, but they say they don’t care about how we look, they’re just worried about our health.

10 Years of Ignoring Bill Cosby’s Entire Existence Comes to A Screeching Halt

For the past 10 years, I’ve ignored Bill Cosby as much as possible. He’s on Charlie Rose? I won’t watch that night. Someone’s tweeting about him? I’ll mute them. He’s speaking at commencement when I graduate from Temple. Fine, I’ll focus on my big day.

But yesterday my streak was unceremoniously broken!

According to various twitter timelines, Cosby spoke at the National Action Network Keepers of the Dream Banquet. I refer to such events as BPOs–Bougie Pontification Opportunities. Apparently, he used his speech, again, to touch on one of his favorite subjects–Welfare Queens. I saw a tweet that quoted Cosby as saying something to the effect of  ”you got mothers who are having more babies just to get an extra $270 a month.”  I flew into a rage.

To be clear, I wasn’t at the banquet. I didn’t hear, nor do I need to hear, the complete content of Cosby’s speech. Why? Because the fact that Cosby thinks that in midst of recession, with 14 million people unemployed, many of whom are black and haven’t worked since the recession began, that welfare abuse is worth mentioning PERIOD shows you the degree of delusion he operates under. That alone is enough to make me write him off forever.

Not that I hadn’t already written him off.

Cause I had.

In 2005, a woman (who worked at me and Cosby’s alma mater Temple University) accused him of rape. Cosby settled the case when 10 other women retained legal counsel and promised to testify against him in court. Of course, that wasn’t the first time Cosby was accused of sexually assaulting a woman. Fortunately for Cosby, he receives the benefit of the doubt, a luxury he does not provide poor African American women when he’s out on the speaking trail.

For someone who has been allegedly falsely accused of being a rapist, Cosby sure has little sympathy for black men who may find themselves in precarious positions for whatever reason. And absolutely no empathy for the the 18% of black women, many of whom are poor and powerless, who will experience rape in their lifetime. It’s that lack of empathy that makes him so utterly and completely repulsive.

Cosby’s Often Hypocritical Amen Crowd

I’m also frustrated by the level of education and access to information afforded to him that deliberately rebuffs in order to continue to seek praise by what I call the “Amen” crowd.

The “Amen Crowd” doesn’t need facts, figures, or evidence to agree with something. All you have to do is repeat tired trite stereotypes about black people–preferably ones developed and established by the late fear monger and alzheimer sufferer Ronald Reagan–and stand there while they hoot and holler and co-sign. Quite frankly, it’s embarrassing. But it explains why black people have been unable to repair the damage done to the image of blacks by those like Cosby who take behavior exhibited by few and strut across the media attributing that behavior to the many.

You may be familiar with the White version of the Amen crowd. They had the worse week ever this week when they found out Glenn Beck would be off the air soon.

The “Amen” condition results in an irresistible urge to applaud when some generalizing self-righteous deliberately uninformed geriatric creeper like Cosby condemns certain behaviors such as receiving government assistance, having multiple children with multiple fathers, or overspending on jewelry, cars and rims. Ameners get to denigrate others’ choices while they conveniently forget about the pell grant they got in college, the secret abortion they had when they got pregnant by their last boyfriend before they got married and got pregnant a second time, and the house they’re living in that they can’t really afford and might have to enter into short sale.

But hey, as long as it’s a jumbo house loan with an adjustable rate and not a gold chain, no harm no foul! I’m amazed at how some people believe that as long as they aren’t using Food Stamps they’re not a part of America’s social problems.

Intellectual Laziness and Complete Lack of Effort

At first I wanted to write this post because I get so angry when the media covers empty words as though something profound has been communicated, and I assume that whatever is written about Cosby’s vapid statements at this latest BPO will be treated with a seriousness they do not warrant. But when I thought about Cosby’s implication that there is a problem in the black community with general laziness and lack of effort, I found that I couldn’t disagree.

Intellectual laziness and a lack of effort toward challenging common beliefs is a problem across America with all races and both genders. It’s the reason the government may be headed toward a shut down. It’s the reason that stereotypes, half truths, and whole untruths are allowed to fester and spread. And it’s also the reason that organizations continue to ask Cosby to speak to anything unrelated to entertainment that requires a thoughtful response.

This post serves only to communicate why I **strongly dislike Cosby. If you want facts about why his statements are so offensive, there’s a whole google out there for the intellectually curious. I encourage you to indulge. A great many people have broken down the error of Cosby’s ways better than I could especially since I have a heavy distaste for debating concepts I believe are excruciatingly obvious.

**my dad told me to always say you “strongly dislike” someone instead of saying you”hate” them. To respect my dad I used his preferred terminology but I’m pretty sure my feelings for Cosby are consistent with that of hate.

**This post has been updated to include ESPN’s response at the end.

ESPN is planning to tap into the women’s sports market with its new ESPN Woman’s “online brand” (which I’m pretty sure is fancy way of saying ‘web site’) But this effort, as it is envisioned, will fail miserably for one simple reason—all women sports fans are not the same.

When I first heard about ESPNW I had visions in my head of various muscular male athletes with their shirts off, links to girl-versions of sports paraphernalia, and an emphasis on female writers and on-air personalities. Unfortunately, ESPN has no such thing in mind. Their plan appears to be to have a web site dedicated to women’s sports that specifically caters to the female fans of those sports.

But who watches women’s sports?

The NY Times cited research from various league offices that when it comes to watching men’s sports “women make up 44 percent of football fans, 45 percent of baseball fans and 36 percent of professional men’s basketball fans, according to research conducted by the sports leagues. During the 2009 season, an average of 4.2 million women watched the N.F.L. on ESPN, according to the network.”

The fact that I couldn’t find numbers for how many women (or men) who watch women’s sports is quite telling (if someone has those numbers, please send!).  You’d have to assume the amount of women who watch women’s sports with any regularity is much, much smaller than the amount that watches male sports. Overall, women make up a quarter of ESPN’s viewership—but that doesn’t mean all of those women are committed to the main brand.

With ESPNW, ESPN is targeting a niche within a niche. For this reason, I think ESPNW will—if it stays around at all—end up being a sort of fitness and health centered version of popular women’s online magazine Jezebel all but abandoning the sports angle altogether. In this scenario, they’re more likely attract the Self/Shape magazine trying-to-lose-those-last-10-pounds-and-simultaneously-improve-my-body-image audience rather than the avid female women’s sports fan they claim to be targeting.

To be successful without caving into stereotypical women’s magazine topics, they’d have to be focused on making ESPNW appealing to men as well. I guess ESPN has officially given up on any plan to make women’s sports more appealing to men either by increasing its coverage of the games or focusing a little more on female athlete human interest stories or some other tactic. I think this is sad–with some creativity ESPN could easily incorporate more women’s sports stories and woman-friendly angles for male sports into their programming that would appeal to women without segregating the content or alienating men.

I do hope ESPN realizes there’s a difference between content that appeals to women sports fans and content that draws in women athletes and content that appeals to female fans of women’s sports. Though all 3 groups may have overlapping membership, they are three different demographics. To lump them all together makes me think that ESPN doesn’t really understand how difficult it would be to create brand loyalty with all of them successfully.

** From Keri Potts at ESPN:

espnW will serve former and current female athletes as well as female sports fans – as in NFL, NBA, college and women’s sports. It is not a site or singular product for only women’s sports fans, but rather, women sports fans. The NYT writer did a great job explaining both sides, but we said women sports fans, not “women’s sports fans.” espnW’s .com presence will provide coverage of all their favorite sports and teams while offering advice and information unique to female athletes, especially women who just graduated college and are moving on from collegiate athletics.

I definitely want to thank ESPN for reaching out to me and providing a response. Great way to get your message out.

It’s true that I am a perennial party pooper, a consistent contrarian, a rainer on parades, if you will. There’s no reason for me to stop now.

Let me start by saying I’ve never seen Rick Sanchez’s show. In fact, I’d never heard of him until he was fired. I don’t watch much TV and I sure don’t watch cable news. What I’ve heard thus far is that Sanchez is a moron and his show is dumb.

But clearly he wasn’t fired for that reason. He was fired because…because…umm…well…what happened was he…

Right.

I read Sanchez statements and I interpreted them thusly: I am a Latino man and I believe I have suffered institutionalized racism at the hands of white liberals–many of whom are Jewish people. Jewish people are powerful within the entertainment industry and Jon Stewart is one of those people. I think that Stewart and some other people of his ilk look down on me.

I have to assume that CNN and others assumed Sanchez said something he didn’t. I could guess what that something was (insert anti-semetic implications here) but what does it matter? The fact is Sanchez didn’t say anything wrong and his firing sends a confusing message.

Not only can you be fired and ridiculed for what you say, you can be fired and ridiculed for what we think you might have possibly been alluding to vaguely in your comments. For the record, THAT’S BULLSHIT.

Jon Stewart’s childish mocking of someone who was fired for something they didn’t say rubs me the wrong way. Minorities struggle with institutionalized racism on a daily basis, and Sanchez’s comments, however impolitic or unwelcome, were a valid representation of what many routinely face. Hearing Stewart and many in the liberal contingent act as though Sanchez committed a grave offense while ignoring the fact that he clearly relayed a painful past and present experience shows two things: 1.  How off limits discussions about racial bias are–even from people who have their own platform from which to speak and 2. How completely out of touch some white people are with how minorities navigate this world.

Interesting that even after achieving the one thing that most journalists want—his own television show–Sanchez was still filled with enough resentment (certainly driven in part by Stewart’s mocking) that he mentioned racial inequity on air in a personal sense, something that almost never happens.  And now we know why it almost never happens.

Stewart gets to mock Sanchez’s “meltdown” while ignoring the crux of his point. Privilege anyone? This is the very thing that Sanchez was talking about. It’s difficult to know that no matter how much you accomplish there are certain people who will never respect you simply because you’re (insert disadvantage here), and then, after disrespecting you they can take you down, and then kick you while you’re down. Stewart may not see himself as one of those people, he may not think that his disdain for Sanchez is racially motivated–and perhaps it’s not. But that doesn’t make Sanchez’s experiences any less valid or Stewart’s na na na boo boo’ing any more appealing.

I’ve said it many times before, but Christopher Hitchens is one of my favorite thinkers and has heavily influenced my own work. I enjoyed reading his thoughts on the Sanchez situation in Slate magazine and agreed with his characterization of Sanchez’s comments as “uncontroversial.” Hitchens also suggests that Stewart lead a charge for Sanchez to be reinstated, and I think that would be the mature thing to do.

But Stewart doesn’t seem to be interested in approaching this subject maturely. And yeah, it kinda pisses me off.

Even if you’re not a sports fan you probably heard this week about the NFL’s New York Jets (and coaches, apparently) being sexually suggestive and rude to the lady sports reporter pictured to the left, Ms. Ines Sainz.

According to reports, things got rowdy with coaches intentionally throwing passes to help players bump into her. And once she entered the locker room, the story goes that Nose Tackle Kris Jenkins essentially said it’s the Jets lockeroom and they can catcall if they want to.

Lots of the conversation surrounding this story has been on whether or not Sainz was dressed appropriately and whether or not her dress justified the Jets’ crass behavior.

Let me help you.

No she wasn’t dressed appropriately and no that doesn’t justify their awful and grossly unprofessional behavior.

But here’s the greater question that comes up any time there is a minority person whose rights may have been violated: Is this the person you want to make an example of how unfair things are? I mean, looking at that picture is this the woman we want to say “Hey, look at how hard woman reporters have it?”

Not because she’s done anything wrong, but for the same reason Rosa Parks was chosen to be the face of the civil rights movement. Sadly, some arguments just go over better when they have the “right face.” I think it’s called “PR strategy.” Saying this woman is a victim of sexism isn’t gonna go over well with the menfolk or many womenfolk.

Here’s a gem on Sainz from USA Today.

TV Azteca promotes Sainz both as a journalist and as a model. The network’s website includes photo collections of Sainz and has an article in its “Bad Girls” section headlined, “Inez Sainz, the perfect woman.” The article describes her as intelligent and having a good sense of humor, and is accompanied by a photo of her in a bikini.

She has covered the NFL before, including several Super Bowls. At a media event before the Super Bowl in 2009, she measured the bicep of Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Steve Breaston. The year before, she asked Patriots quarterback Tom Brady what it would take for New England to beat the Jets. The Pats actually were playing the Giants.

Professional athletes and coaches constantly come into contact with women who have some serious assets. Sainz is probably not the most beautiful or most well endowed woman those players and coaches had seen that day, and certainly not that week or month.

I find it hard to believe they were genuinely THAT ethralled with her looks. And obviously, this type of behavior isn’t happening on a daily basis. I think they saw her clothing, knew her history, and took her about as seriously as she appears to take her job.

Basically, they bullied her because they perceived her as powerless and meaningless and underserving of respect. Certainly their perception and the way they dealt with it is rooted in sexism and machismo and immaturity. If a reporter is dressed unprofessionally, she should be reported as a distraction concern–not harassed.

My question: Is it sexist and unfeminist and blaming the victim to say the Jets are morons but Jesus Christ dress more professionally and learn football? Can we ask her to dress professionally while simultaneously to the Jets being fined and learning the error of their ways? Or, is the only sensitive and evolved way to approach to say “The Jets are morons,” </sentence> since her clothing and professionalism shouldn’t be related to the players’ treatment of her?

Boy, if ever there was a time to use the phrase “Women like you make it hard for women like me…”

So what do y’all think? Am I guilty of blaming the victim?

So…I retweeted a post by Slate Magazine, my favorite site for “explanatory” posts, about how black people use twitter. I began reading the article and didn’t notice the accompanying picture which is a bird wearing a baseball cap while presumably making a drug deal er..I mean..sending a text message on his cell phone. Shout out to Lyneka and TKOed for pointing out the photo. I think I’m offended but then again I’m not sure. What say you?

In terms of the post, there was one thing that I thought was interesting, and that is, apparently, black people on twitter have circles that are more interconnected than whites. I think most black people have figured that out already, but it’s nice to have the science to back it up.

Beyond that, the article essentially said that a certain subgroup of black people not representative of the entire population of black people start hashtagging phrases that often lead to lots of questionable tweets. The hashtagged phrases begin to “trend” due to the interconnectedness of accounts.

I’ve long stopped complaining about stupid trending topics on twitter and from the looks of it, they’re not going to stop anytime soon.

Update: One creative blogger has put some different spins on the black twitter bird. I think it’s hilarious. And many tweeters have already changed their profile pictures to one of the birds. My personal favorite: The twitter bird with chrome rims.

Update: The commenters totally showed me up on this post (as you all do regularly lol). I’ll highlight the most thorough breakdown with what was wrong with the Slate article. The lovely @Lyneka wrote this: