Let me start by saying this: I absolutely CRINGE when someone equates ANYTHING with the horror that was slavery in the United States.
Having your family being sold separately and not being able to see them again. Being branded like chattel after being sold to a “master” (or in this case, an “owner”). Being dehumanized by being considered 3/5 (!!) of a human being. Not being educated because doing so was against the law. Working for free from sunrise to sunset in mostly brutal conditions.
And that’s before the whippings you’d take for the slightest of missteps taken during your time of servitude to said “owner”, usually administered by poor white dudes, who works for said owners, known as “overseers”.
So unless ANY of y’all have actually experienced those horrors, kindly educate yourselves on the matter and drink a nice tall glass of “shut the fuck up” before making those nonsensical comparisons.
Now, back to this rant…
I understand what NBA commissioner Adam Silver is doing when he said that team owners will no longer will be called “owners”, rather “CEOs” instead. This is a scary social climate we are living in right now (mostly thanks to a certain orange muthatrucka currently occupying the Oval Office), and Silver is being socially sensitive to his workforce that happens to be over 75% black. I get it.
I just wonder if Silver has gone too far with it.
Let’s think critically for a moment.
Does the term “owner” have the same perceived negative connotation in Major League Baseball, the NHL, NASCAR, and Major League Soccer? Of course not, and we all know why — most of the workforce in all those leagues are white.
If players in those leagues do not see themselves as chattel for their owners, NBA players should have nothing to worry about. Besides, NBA players are among the highest paid in this country — with GUARANTEED contracts — and have so much power in their league.
Hell, how should we consider Michael Jordan, a black dude who owns the Charlotte Hornets? Is he a “sellout” for wanting to be called an owner of a major sports franchise? Of course not, especially given what he’s been doing behind the scenes for the disenfranchised and the hiring of POCs in his organization.
Tell ya what, if I had billions of dollars and bought the Cincinnati Bengals (local squad), guess what I want my title to be?
Team OWNER. And if any of y’all don’t like that, I’d tell you to kiss my beige-turned-brown ass.
Categories: NBA
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