Reply With Quote
Haha, this reminds me of the Chappelle monologue. "you might not be a , but you're wearing a 's uniform!"
Apparently there are a lot of 85 year old women that buy luxury boxes at NBA games. Should league officials just tell them to quit being old fuddy-duddies or to off? Of course they won't, because they want their money.
Haha, this reminds me of the Chappelle monologue. "you might not be a , but you're wearing a 's uniform!"
In this case, given the social (mis)perceptions it reinforces, I believe the answer is Absolutely.Apparently there are a lot of 85 year old women that buy luxury boxes at NBA games. Should league officials just tell them to quit being old fuddy-duddies or to off?
First off, saying corporations think they're drug-using thugs because of the way they dress is a different question than saying YOU think they're drug-using thugs because of the way they dress.
Second, I would like to ask the corporations why they don't seem to be concerned about how MLB and NFL players dress?
Why is it different? A stereotype is a stereotype, corporations aren't run by machines, they are usually run by (to perpetuate another stereotypeFirst off, saying corporations think they're drug-using thugs because of the way they dress is a different question than saying YOU think they're drug-using thugs because of the way they dress.) old white conservative men who don't get it....the same ones that didn't "get" hippies.
So the NBA and some of its sponsors are responding to the stereotype that they believe middle-aged, middle-class white folk have for young black men.
It appears that way to me.
Speaking as one of the group (middle-aged, middle-class white folk), that is even more reason to discard the dress code as bull . People (all people) need to get over their misconceptions, prejudices, and discriminatory treatment of groups...and start evaluating (and assigning adjectives) to INDIVIDUALS, and then based only on personal, face-to-face interactive experience.
Do you people think that this thread could be read by someone that works for the NBA's public relationships or some other department like that? I've been visiting several basketball forums and this is probably the thread with the most answers and analysis. I know it's the small market Spurs, but I believe someone from the NBA must be lurking around checking fans reactions, not that Stern gives a damn about it.
LOL Rush Limbaugh mentioned Duncan said "it's a load of crap" hhaa..
Clothes and a cap are signature attire for the KKK too, is that okay, after all it just talking about baggy clothes and a cap...?
That's the problem, you can't differentiate and that's what the NBA is trying to get away from.originally posted by spurminator: Is Iverson dressed like a thug, or do some thugs dress like Allen Iverson?
I also think the look Steve Nash is known to portray is tacky and unprofessional... also happens to be banned under the new rule as well.
I stand firm that it is the essence of the clothes that are the subject of the dress code, not the essense of those who wear them.
why can't we all just get along.....once the season starts no one is gonna care what timmy or manu are wearing......EXCEPT ON THEIR FINGGGGAASS BABY!!!!!!
Of course you can differentiate.That's the problem, you can't differentiate
Thugs commit crimes. Non-thugs don't.
And your KKK analogy makes no sense whatsoever. It's not their clothes that make them bad.
Earlier in this thread someone claimed that the NFL has a dress code (they don't) and that you never here Michael Vick complain about it.
He's even complaining about the NBA code...
Falcons quarterback criticizes NBA dress code
October 20, 2005
FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. (AP) -- While it doesn't apply to him, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick criticized the NBA's new dress code Thursday.
``It's a crazy situation,'' Vick said. ``I don't know why people with power would make them dress the way that they want them to dress. Those guys are professionals, but at the same time we are all grown (men).''
When the NBA season kicks off next month, players will be required to wear business-casual attire when involved in team or league business. They can't wear visible chains, pendants or medallions over their clothes.
``I don't think anyone should tell you how to dress, but that is the code and that is what they want and that is what the players have to abide by,'' Vick said. ``I totally disagree with it, but the people make the rules.''
[QUOTE]Not by the clothing you can't and that's why the dress code is being implemented. Besides you emulate those you idolize, who is emulating whom is beside the point because they're all lumped together by their own choice of wanting to dress alike. (don't play dumb, you get the point)
[QUOTE]So you're admitting that O'Neal, Artest and Jackson are thugs? And if so then there's a problem that needs attention and that's why the dress code is being implemented, to at least show an external separation.
Clothes can and do speak volumes about the person and anyone wearing KKK attire is rightly branded as an idiotic racist. If you don't want the association, don't wear the clothes.spurminator: And your KKK analogy makes no sense whatsoever. It's not their clothes that make them bad
You stated that it's only "clothes and a hat" as if the apparel doesn't amount to anything and the parallel was that apparel can make one heck of a difference! You go out and put on the KKK garb and I don't care how nice of a person you are you are still gonna be branded an idiot, if for no other reason than you're stupid enough to be wearing the stuff. Agree?
You see that is part of the problem, some basketball players may not want to be associated with being a businessman, or professional, it would ruin their street cred.
Just wanted to add that the coach of the 49'rs wanted to were a suit on the sidelines in honor of his father, and the NFL denied that request.
Last edited by Despot; 10-22-2005 at 12:04 AM.
Riiiiiiiight. Sure you do.
Then you want a dress code for baseball, too?
Too much control. Too many rules. Too much time on the hands of a bunch of businessmen. What's next, a Yankees style code for hair, and facial hair.
washingtonpost.com
Opinions on the NBA's Dress Code Are Far From Uniform
By Mike Wise
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 23, 2005; A01
At one of Belgrade's finest restaurants last year, Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James and many of their youthful U.S. Olympic basketball teammates attended a dinner in their honor. The guests included members of the Serbian national team, all of whom wore matching sport coats.
Iverson and some of his fellow National Basketball Association professionals arrived wearing an assortment of sweat suits, oversize jeans, shimmering diamond earrings and platinum chains, according to NBA officials who were at the dinner.
Larry Brown, the Hall of Fame coach of the U.S. team, was appalled and embarrassed. He later remarked to one official that he had thought about sending some of the worst-dressed players back to the team hotel.
Word of the fashion faux pas eventually made its way to the office of NBA Commissioner David Stern in New York, where concern was already on the rise about how some players were dressing and, more broadly, how the game's appeal was slipping. The NBA had tried mightily to fuse its product with hip-hop culture, viewing its young players and their street fashion sense as a way to connect with a new generation of fans in the post-Michael Jordan era. But that wasn't happening. Indeed, Stern and some of his closest advisers concluded, they might be driving fans away from the sport.
With the new season set to begin Nov. 1, Stern announced a dress code earlier this month that requires players to wear "business casual" attire whenever they are engaged in team or league business. It specifically bans shorts, T-shirts, jerseys, sneakers, flip-flops, headgear such as 'do-rags, and chains, pendants and medallions worn outside clothing.
Stern's image-overhaul decision sparked a contentious debate over fashion and race and called attention to a generational chasm between modern professional athletes, many of whom are black, and their mostly white paying customers.
Recent public opinion polls, as well as some of the NBA's own focus groups, ranked basketball players as the least popular athletes among the major professional sports leagues, according to NBA officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Television ratings for June's NBA Finals plunged 29 percent from the year before.
Asked during a conference call with reporters whether the dress code was aimed at appeasing the NBA's corporate sponsors, Stern replied: "We don't think that looking professional is a corporate decision. Our teams have done it for years, and there was a strong sense that we should do a uniform minimum code across the league, and that's what we did."
Many players who feel their individualism is under siege don't see the issue the same way, and are vowing that they will not allow themselves to be commodified by the league.
"They're targeting my generation -- the hip-hop generation," Iverson said in a television interview. He added, "You can put a murderer in a suit and he's still a murderer." Iverson, along with Denver's Marcus Camby, asked if the NBA would provide players with a clothing stipend to conform to the dress code.
"It's definitely an attack on the hip-hop influence of the NBA," said Elliott Wilson, the editor-in-chief of the hip-hop lifestyle magazine XXL. "It sort of allows the men in charge to think that they have reclaimed the NBA's value system -- and they now have a league that reflects their taste and what they believe in."
The problem is that the relationship between the NBA and hip-hop cuts both ways. The designer sneakers and oversize jerseys and shorts that are now the mainstays of hip-hop fashion appeared first on the basketball court, worn by a generation of players intent on stamping the game with a distinctive new style. For players such as Iverson, who like many stars has a successful clothing line that melds basketball and hip-hop, the dress-code edict could cost money in missed marketing opportunities.
"The style of the players, whether on the court or off, is so intertwined with the style of the streets," said Joseph Anthony, the chief executive of Vital Marketing, an urban youth marketing company. "It's an odd decision for a league that's main draw is the individuality of its players to attempt to create anonymity among its ranks."
e Lee, the filmmaker and lifelong fan of the New York Knicks, sees how some could cry hypocrisy -- especially the way the league in recent years marketed players such as Iverson as the next big thing and co-opted hip-hop music in many of its arenas. Moreover, hip-hop stars Jay-Z, Usher and Nelly and are part-owners of NBA franchises.
But "I think David Stern was right on this issue," Lee said in a telephone interview. "What are all those kids wearing the night they're drafted and they shake David Stern's hand? Suits. In corporate America, you have dress codes. Let's be honest: Image is everything. And they're trying to change the image of the league. Between the fight in Detroit last year and other perceptions, they've realized they have a public relations issue. They've set out to change it."
Charles Barkley, the former all-star player and now an analyst for Turner Sports Television, acknowledged there are racial subtexts connected to the new dress code. He also said that's why he's in favor of it.
"Young black kids dress like NBA players," Barkley told the Los Angeles Times. "Unfortunately, they don't get paid like NBA players. So when they go out in the real world, what they wear is held against them. . . .
"If a well-dressed white kid and a black kid wearing a 'do-rag and throwback jersey came to me in a job interview, I'd hire the white kid. That's reality."
The dress code is the most visible component of a broader effort by the league and the National Basketball Players Association to improve the relationship between players and fans. The matter was discussed during collective bargaining this summer, and the players agreed to two more mandated community appearances per season and a directive to sign autographs for fans after leaving the court during warmups.
Stern also announced a new NBA Cares initiative under which the league, its owners and its players would raise and donate $100 million to charities over the next five years. The plan envisions players taking part in coat drives, turkey giveaways and serving food at soup kitchens in November and December.
Stern is viewed as the most proactive and punitive commissioner in U.S. professional sports. His decisions to suspend Latrell Sprewell for an entire season for choking his coach, P.J. Carlesimo, in December 1997, and to suspend Ron Artest of the Indiana Pacers for the rest of the season last year for inciting November's melee between fans and players at the Palace of Auburn Hills in suburban Detroit, were lauded by peers and fans.
But his support of his players also is well do ented. Five years ago, Stern publicly admonished an editor of the NBA-sponsored Hoop magazine for airbrushing several of Iverson's tattoos for a cover shoot. The commissioner is fond of criticizing what he says is the media's obsession with covering the negative aspects of the NBA.
The NBA is not unique among professional sports in its concern with its image, though each sport manages the issue in a different way. The National Football League stresses conformity; players can be penalized for removing their helmets on the field and fined for wearing the wrong shade of socks on game day. Some say Major League Baseball's more decentralized structure was partly responsible for allowing the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs by players to spread, but the league has been tackling the problem more aggressively under the threat of congressional sanctions.
NASCAR has moved from a niche, Southern-based sport into the cultural mainstream with a carefully crafted public relations strategy in which it wrapped itself -- and its cars and drivers -- in corporate endorsements.
Stern's possible concern that the NBA's image problems could alienate corporate sponsors and affect future network television contracts may have outweighed his desire for his players to be respected as individuals and accepted by mainstream culture, league officials said. "If you speak to 100 people on the street and most of them think our players are the worst of the lot in pro sports, there's a problem," one official said. "We know the vast majority of our players are good guys."
Mark Cuban, the loquacious owner of the Dallas Mavericks who is fond of wearing Mavericks T-shirts at his team's games, does not understand the fuss over players' appearance. "Some in the NBA want things to work purely in a way they are comfortable with rather than understanding players, communicating with them and understanding how the players can bring added value by dressing to fit the customer, rather than dressing to fit senior management," Cuban said in an e-mail.
"If NBA TV ratings were higher, this never would have come up."
Staff writer Michael Lee contributed to this report.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Last edited by boutons; 10-22-2005 at 11:01 PM.
Re ed...
Stern: Dress code debate is 'live, unscripted drama'
By Chris Sheridan
ESPN Insider
Archive
Racial resentment comes with the territory for the old white man who took quite a bit of flak last week for telling young black men how to dress.
Uncle Dave was overstepping his bounds, some argued. Dictatorial David was showing how out of touch he was with hip-hop culture and the youthful fashion sense.
Allen Iverson called the NBA's new dress code "fake." Jason Richardson and Stephen Jackson thought it was racist. Paul Pierce argued that NBA players are not businessmen, but entertainers, while Tim Duncan opined it was "a load of crap" and "basically re ed."
With the regular season still two weeks from starting, NBA commissioner David Stern's edict managed to transcend the barrier separating from much deeper racial and cultural issues.
This is not the first time that phenomenon has occurred, nor will it be the last. But if you think it bothers Stern, you're wrong.
"We've gotten more ink on the dress policy than the preseason," Stern told ESPN.com. "But that shouldn't surprise us. Magic Johnson, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Latrell Sprewell, Allen [Iverson's] rap record. It's the NBA, we're an accelerator, and actually, that's OK. We're live, unscripted drama. We're a soap opera, on the court and off the court."
In our world, there are still considerable numbers of people who tend to see too many things in black and white, borderline extremists with no mental capacity to shade things a little gray. Folks from every corner of the spectrum found something to say about Dave's dictum on what can and can't be worn, and when, by the athletes employed by The House That Stern Built.
The rule covers all players -- black, white, mixed-race, Asian, European, South American, Caribbean, Canadian and Cuban (but not Mark) -- but a few players and commentators took it as a swipe at the younger black Americans who dominate the NBA's player population of about 450.
Stern, the overseer of a $3 billion-a-year business, said the rule was based on something simple, not sinister.
"We pressed the buttons as soft as we possibly could," Stern said, explaining he felt that with his league getting increasingly younger and the money getting increasingly better, a generation of NBA players had somehow become less aware than their predecessors as to how they were expected to conduct themselves and present themselves to the public.
Coming off a year in which the Pacers-Pistons brawl at The Palace was the defining moment of the regular season, Stern has made the dress code one of several new initiatives aimed at making his players more presentable to a public that will latch on to an issue once on year, on average, and turn it into a broader debate concerning the NBA and society at large.
"If anything, you can hold us responsible for not doing this sooner rather than doing it [at all]," Stern said in an hour-long interview in a conference room next to his office at the league's headquarters in Manhattan. "But for the vast majority of NBA players, it is not an issue.
"The notion is that if you're a professional, with it are certain protocols. One of them is the way you dress when you're on business.
"Our players are off a lot, certainly in the offseason, and when they're not playing or traveling. This doesn't affect that, and they can feel free to express themselves the same way that corporate America expresses itself, putting on shorts and sandals and a ratty old T-shirt and doing what you do."
Pacers president Larry Bird said he fielded more comments from fans about the clothes one of his injured players was wearing during games than he did from fans who simply wanted to discuss the merits of that player's game. The offensive outfit that provoked so much negative feedback was a T-shirt and shorts. Try wearing that to your job next time they have a Casual Friday.
"Young black kids dress like NBA players," Charles Barkley said on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." "Unfortunately, they don't get paid like NBA players. So when they go out in the real world, what they wear is held against them.
"If a well-dressed white kid and a black kid wearing a do-rag and throwback jersey came to me in a job interview, I'd hire the white kid," Barkley said. "That's reality."
Without being defensive, Stern defended himself in discussing the racial and cultural ramifications of the dress code, noting with a chuckle that the story did seem to have tremendous "legs" (journalism slang for staying power).
It seemed to be an epic public relations miscue early last week when Stern's announcement of a $100 million community outreach initiative was buried beneath news and commentary regarding the dress code. But to the commissioner, always spinning positive, the dress code brouhaha actually enabled a few mentions of the NBA Cares program when it otherwise would have been ignored by a mainstream media which routinely ignores the league's outreach initiatives.
"Certainly it makes for spectacular copy. ...
"The majority of [players say], 'What's the big deal? That's the way I dress already, and that sounds fair enough. We're all in this together.'
"But it's such a delicious issue that it will get a lot of ink."
Stern even shrugged off the use of the word "racist," saying he took no offense. With half a lifetime of experience in the league office behind him, he's seen enough topics touch off race-related debates. This is just another in a long line of them.
"Well, things involve race. Whenever you have a league in which some significant percentage is black, then things involve race. That's just the way it's going to be. When you have a league like the WNBA that has all women in it, you're going to end up with gender issues. That's just dependent on the composition of the league. But there's a difference between involving race and having actions interpreted as racist."
Was he surprised by the way racism had been thrown into this debate?
"No, because it was thrown into the issue of raising the entry age. That was an issue that was absolutely, positively about basketball, to have better players, older and more experienced, to have better business by being able to look at players a year later."
But during the debate over whether the age limit should be raised by a year to prevent high school players from jumping directly to the pros, Stern himself had made social policy part of the debate. He had said he didn't want young people, including pre-teens and 13- and 14-year-olds in urban America, to think becoming a professional basketball player was a viable post-high school employment option. To him, there were a few too many impressionable youngsters thinking they had the skills to be the next LeBron James.
Now Stern says: "The one thing I never wanted to do was to be viewed as telling a young person what was good for them."
As long as the NBA is a mostly black league based in a predominantly white country, issues involving race will continue to arise. Some of the debate in the days after The Palace brawl was skewed toward the ethnicity of the players throwing punches and the color of the fans on the receiving ends, and when the outrage crossed from palpable to preposterous it infuriated the commissioner.
"The brawl sort of [became] a flashpoint for a lot of feelings that are out there. With race, there's always an issue. And the brawl, unfairly, became the opportunity for the commentators to talk about all NBA players, although 450 of them were not involved in the brawl. 'These people.' 'These thugs.' 'These punks.' And that was a horrible sort of libel and slander of the NBA players. Images that ran were run in the context of a condemnation of all NBA players, and that really upset me. That became a critical flashpoint. And so we've got to dig out from under that," Stern said.
Repairing the league's image was discussed in collective bargaining talks, and the union agreed to have players sign more autographs, make appearances at season ticket-holder functions and explore ways to act more professionally, such as by adhering to the new dress code.
"We like to think that we [basketball people] are the ultimate egalitarians. You know, 'Shirts and skins and what have you got?' And that's been followed by our teams, who turn to whoever they think will help without regard to race. And we have a very effective business, which is based on exporting a league where the majority happens to be African-American. We feel pretty good about what we've been able to accomplish when all of those issues 25 years ago were hailed as likely to lead to our certain demise. So the fact that there's an outcry about cable, or a little bit of flutter about our dress code policy, that's the NBA. Welcome to our world."
Think about that the next time one of the NBA's hot-button issues crosses over into the mainstream debate. When was the last time there was a healthy racial discussion revolving around issues in the NFL or Major League Baseball? Having the NBA as a conduit for those types of discussions, and having a commissioner who's comfortable spurring those discussions, is a healthy thing for a country where the deteriorating level of discourse has helped fuel the polarization of the population.
The dress code is what it is, but it certainly doesn't make David Stern a racist. He's a man who recognizes race issues must occasionally be confronted. If that discussion has to take place through the forum he oversees, so be it.
"We're the NBA, we're the place -- and that's the good news about the NBA -- we're the place where if you want to engage the world in a single conversation, there's always a safe place to do it in sports. If you listen to the morning shows and you listen to the discussion, it's actually kind of a healthy discussion.
"It shows we have the capacity to engage."
Exactly. What if Jesse Jackson went out and bought a sheet and a pyramid cap. Would that make him a member of the KKK? I don't think so. It didn't make Pat Boone an acid rocker when he started dressing like one, either.
It should not be about the clothes. Period.
washingtonpost.com
The Case Against Do-Rags
By Jabari Asim
Monday, October 31, 2005; 11:39 AM
WASHINGTON -- I've always admired black athletes who use their celebrity and influence to speak out against injustice. Paul Robeson, Muhammad Ali, Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Arthur Ashe -- I count all these men among my heroes. That's why I was so heartened when Stephen Jackson of the Indiana Pacers announced his opposition to what he viewed as a fundamental unfairness. What was he opposing, I wondered. President Bush's ill-fated nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court? The fiasco in Iraq?
He wanted to talk about bling. And do-rags. And sagging pants. The NBA's new dress code forbids its athletes from wearing such items when representing the league. Jackson, Rasheed Wallace of the Detroit Pistons and Marcus Camby of the Denver Nuggets are among the players who have voiced objections to the new policy. Methinks they may be wearing their do-rags too tight.
Actually, I'm glad they spoke out because they have given me an opportunity to announce the formation of a new activist group: Dads Against Do-Rags. I've resented those ugly things for years, and I know I'm not alone. It's time we all came out and aired our feelings in the light of day.
Bling doesn't bother me, aside from occasionally hurting my eyes. I can admire the beauty of a bauble, especially on those rare instances when I can convince myself it has no connection to corruption in Sierra Leone, gunrunning or the hacked-off limbs of African children.
It's the do-rags that do me in. Bandannas I can tolerate. I'm talking about the nylon-polyester jobs that look like res ched discards from a hosiery factory. They serve no apparent purpose and look foolish instead of stylish.
Do-rag defenders cite its usefulness as a cover-up on bad-hair days. I've got an answer for that. It's called a brush.
Others have cited it as an emblem of individuality and rebellion against the status quo. Please. For me, it represents the opposite: slavery. It says, I have abandoned free will -- a sacred birthright for which my ancestors fought and died -- and joined the forces of mindless consumerism. Do-rag embracers are the logical descendants of those same folks who during the '70s and late '80s plunked down their ducats for "Curl Keepers" -- shower caps slickly repackaged and sold as hair-maintenance necessities.
You want to talk about rebellion? Then you may want to talk about Crispus Attucks, the oldest of old-school symbols of courageous uprising. Was he wearing a do-rag when he was killed by those trigger-happy Redcoats in 1770? No.
Maybe you'd rather discuss the late, great Rosa Parks, the ultimate modern symbol of principled individuality. Photos show that she was arrested and fingerprinted in 1955 while wearing a crisply tailored suit and minimal makeup. Dignity in abundance, but no do-rag in sight.
Shall we focus on the four young men who stepped into history by taking seats at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., in 1960? You guessed it: no do-rags.
I can't even look at photos of the 1963 showdown in Birmingham's Kelly Ingram Park without choking up. But even through my tears I can note the absence of do-rags. Perhaps then, you can understand why I associate rebellion with more abstract possessions, such as intelligence, integrity and for ude. I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembers when "handkerchief-head" was an insult connoting a complete absence of such qualities.
I realize that the calculated sloppiness of some NBA players is also an attempt to distinguish themselves from the previous generation of pro basketballers. That group includes men such as Magic Johnson and Isaiah Thomas, who emerged from the locker room dressed like presidents of major corporations. Clothes don't really make the man, yet it's probably no coincidence that today both of them do indeed run major corporations.
If the example of Johnson and Thomas seems too tame for the younger set, they might consider the bra-burning feminists and fiery draft resisters of yesteryear. They declared their independence by doffing the symbols of their repression. They -- and you, dear reader -- can join me and other members of D.A.D. in our quest to free our brothers from do-rag domination. You don't have to burn those rags, though. You can send them to me, care of this newspaper. In return, I'll send you a membership certificate and the following pledge:
I will not be a slave to fashion. I will not wear recycled pantyhose on my head. I will honor the best traditions of my forebears. I will be free!
© 2005 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive
There are currently 5 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 5 guests)
Posting Permissions
