Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Can You See Color in a White Ball?

A new professional basketball league is starting up: the All-American Basketball Alliance (AABA). What distinguishes it from the NBA, you might ask? Lack of Black people!
A new professional basketball league called the All-American Basketball Alliance (AABA) sent out a press release on Sunday saying that it intends to start its inaugural season in June, with teams in 12 U.S. cities. However, the AABA is different from other sports leagues because only players who are “natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league.”

But don't worry! He says he's not racist, which, as we all know, is a failproof way of determining that someone is not racist:
“There’s nothing hatred about what we’re doing,” he said. “I don’t hate anyone of color. But people of white, American-born citizens are in the minority now. Here’s a league for white players to play fundamental basketball, which they like.” [...]

He pointed out recent incidents in the NBA, including Gilbert Arenas’ indefinite suspension after bringing guns into the Washington Wizards locker room, as examples of fans’ dissatisfaction with the way current professional sports are run.

“Would you want to go to the game and worry about a player flipping you off or attacking you in the stands or grabbing their crotch?” he said. “That’s the culture today, and in a free country we should have the right to move ourselves in a better direction.”

Nope, not racist at all. He just is forming an "all-American" all-White group (you'd think that'd be a contradiction), to play "fundamental basketball" (as distinguished from its "street ball" variant), as a way for White people to express their superior, "better" culture.

Hat tip to a certain ex-blogger whose Facebook account makes me think he's having trouble staying out of the game.

UPDATE: Ta-Nehisi Coates thinks it's a hoax. The thought crossed my mind as well.

4 comments:

renantech said...
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Kevin Andre Elliott said...

Well, I wouldn't say "ex-blogger," more like "blogger on an extended hiatus."

I wonder if it's a hoax too, but even if it is, I find it in extremely poor form.

joe said...

In light of the claim he's not racist, the second I read that "fundamental basketball" comment I had a hard time believing this was anyone being serious.

PG said...

It depends on what you mean by a hoax. Is there ever actually going to be an "All-American Basketball Alliance"? No. But the guy who issued the press release, Don Lewis, is a sports promoter, not a political shit-stirrer (I'd believe this to be a total hoax if it were coming from a David Horowitz type trying to make a point about Black Student Associations or something). So I don't think this is a hoax in the sense of a joke or a prank.