German Newspaper: Dirk defeats ghetto basketball

[Silk Wilkes]

so i can't group three black guys into "degenerative hip hop culture" even if they perfectly fit into the description and I considered the culture itself degenerative? Only in US lol

I'm pretty sure if it was Birdman JR and Kmart, it wouldn't be racist because because one of them is white?

I'm pretty sure you'd put Birdman into Rock & Roll culture. You just don't get it. Unconscious racism is the worst.

[BubbaTee]

it has more to do with US basketball being showboat with all this and1 stuff and flashy dunks

don't read too much into it

Dirk defeated showboating!

[BubbaTee]

So i can't group three black guys into "degenerative hip hop culture" even if they perfectly fit into the description and I considered the culture itself degenerative? Only in US lol

I'm pretty sure if it was Birdman JR and Kmart, it wouldn't be racist because because one of them is white right?

In USA people talk about being tolerant etc, yet they live in separate districts based on race/nationality lol

No they don't.

They live in separate districts based on socio-economic status.

You think all of Kobe's neighbors in Newport Beach are black?

[Jase]

So you agree hip-hop and the word degenerative go together I assume? What a joke.

and if i do, it makes me racist?

How many times do I have to say ignorant? Racism comes from the grouping of LeBron, Bosh & Wade into the "degenerative hip hop culture". It's no coincidence that you would group 3 black players with hip hop now is it? I assume Heavy Metal music is played in Church though right?

Not only are you dead-wrong with a lot of the assumptions you've made of other poster's words, but you prove arrogance in that anyone who dares to disagree with you is either wrong, or racist. You couldn't be much more hostile.

James and Wade (though I'd definitely exclude Bosh in this discussion) have earned, or even worked for, their "hip hop" reputation. It has nothing to do with being black. Jason Williams had the same rep. Lo and behold, he was white. That said, players like Tim Duncan, Shane Battier, Ray Allen or Derek Fisher would never be labeled as "thugs," or affiliated with a "hip hop" association.

Why be pissed at Germany for having an interpretation of American hoopers that we promoted? And it has already been said a few times in this post, but America is MUCH less racially-tolerant than many other countries.

[doctorfunk]

it has more to do with US basketball being showboat with all this and1 stuff and flashy dunks

don't read too much into it

Dirk defeated showboating!

didn't say it makes any sense, I doubt even their sport-writers know anything about Mavs
title is stupid anyway, doesn't reflect my point of view

plus i love jet

No they don't.

They live in separate districts based on socio-economic status.

You think all of Kobe's neighbors in Newport Beach are black?

nope, but groups like mexicans blacks and whites don't mix as they do in Europe, not so many friendships/pair of different cultural background. I don't know if that's true for all states, that's what my family and friends living in Houston say.

[Silk Wilkes]

and if i do, it makes me racist?

How many times do I have to say ignorant? Racism comes from the grouping of LeBron, Bosh & Wade into the "degenerative hip hop culture". It's no coincidence that you would group 3 black players with hip hop now is it? I assume Heavy Metal music is played in Church though right?

Not only are you dead-wrong with a lot of the assumptions you've made of other poster's words, but you prove arrogance in that anyone who dares to disagree with you is either wrong, or racist. You couldn't be much more hostile.

James and Wade (though I'd definitely exclude Bosh in this discussion) have earned, or even worked for, their "hip hop" reputation. It has nothing to do with being black. Jason Williams had the same rep. Lo and behold, he was white. That said, players like Tim Duncan, Shane Battier, Ray Allen or Derek Fisher would never be labeled as "thugs," or affiliated with a "hip hop" association.

Why be pissed at Germany for having an interpretation of American hoopers that we promoted? And it has already been said a few times in this post, but America is MUCH less racially-tolerant than many other countries.

First, I'm not American. Second, I'm not black. Third, you need to understand that this is not just a one incident argument. It goes beyond Wade, James, Williams, etc. Why does the degenerate label fall onto hip-hop, which is black dominated, as opposed to an older much more established degenerate genre like Rock & Roll? Am I wrong about those posters? Maybe, but as Charles Barkley would say... I doubt it.

[tidho]

If degenrative hip-hop culture is defined as this...
1. Disrespectful
2. Self-entitled
3. Stupid
4. Arrogant
...then I don't see why the term degenerative wouldn't aply.

As for the charges of racism that's largely always going to be a matter of interpritation. In this case all of the above parameters fit the Heat (in my opinion) and my assesment has nothing to do with race.

Its behavior, not skin color.

[Silk Wilkes]

If degenrative hip-hop culture is defined as this...
1. Disrespectful
2. Self-entitled
3. Stupid
4. Arrogant
...then I don't see why the term degenerative wouldn't aply.

As for the charges of racism that's largely always going to be a matter of interpritation. In this case all of the above parameters fit the Heat (in my opinion) and my assesment has nothing to do with race.

Its behavior, not skin color.

Are those parameters the definition for Rock & Roll culture as well?

[magicman1978]

He said degenerative urban hip-hop culture - that doesn't necessarily mean he's implying the all of urban hip-hop culture is degenerative. He could be talking about an element within the urban hip-hop culture and not hip-hop culture as a whole.

There's multiple levels of racism. I think everyone is racist to a certain degree. I'm a mix of black, asian (thai/burmese/filipino), and white (european/american) and I still admit that I'm a bit racist if you go by the actual definition of the word. People can interpret just about anything as being racist if they want to going by that definition.

[BubbaTee]

it has more to do with US basketball being showboat with all this and1 stuff and flashy dunks

don't read too much into it

Dirk defeated showboating!

didn't say it makes any sense, I doubt even their sport-writers know anything about Mavs
title is stupid anyway, doesn't reflect my point of view

plus i love jet

I'm not saying you said the Heat were showboaters. It just shows how dumb the article in the OP is, regardless of what nationality the author is.

[Don Draper]

So much ignorance.

Hip-hop
Ghetto

You are right. Those words have no connection with race.

A connotation is a commonly understood, subjective cultural and/or emotional association that some word or phrase carries, in addition to the word or phrase's explicit or literal meaning.

The only thing worse than racism are the people who make excuses for it.

I thought we lived in 2011 North American society.

We live in a society of **** idiots. America will always have a race problem because of the 2 biggest idiots on both sides

1. The people who use race as a crutch (the Al Sharptons of the world)
2. The people who are too dense to see blantant racism even if it hits them in the face (a lot of the posters in this thread)

For people to read the article and pretend that it has nothing to do with race is a good indication of just how ignorant Americans are. We stick to an ideology and shape everything that happens around it, no matter how absurd we sound. We are just too pussified to call a spade a spade.

[Silk Wilkes]

Should he say degenerative rural hip-hop culture? What exactly is that? The word "urban" just adds fuel to the fire.

[Silk Wilkes]

We live in a society of **** idiots. America will always have a race problem because of the 2 biggest idiots on both sides

1. The people who use race as a crutch (the Al Sharptons of the world)
2. The people who are too dense to see blantant racism even if it hits them in the face (a lot of the posters in this thread)

For people to read the article and pretend that it has nothing to do with race is a good indication of just how ignorant Americans are. We stick to an ideology and shape everything that happens around it, no matter how absurd we sound. We are just too pussified to call a spade a spade.

QFT

[mk_23]

Well when Dallas got closer to the finals and closer and closer to the title, it finally attracted some media attention here too.

For the finals only a streaming and pay-tv sports-channel picked up the rights then, well but then the fans probably had ILP.

Either way now the Championship was big news here too and everybody and every show kind of had to show something about Dirk.

That newspaper is more or less conservative and from the same media outlet that has the biggest "tabloid", which is often heavily criticized here.

The article is clearly labeled "Meinung" -> so "Opinion" of the writer...

Then you can see how he cites Bill Reiter two times and it seems he was reading all of Reiter's blogs.

"And the world learned this: Dirk Nowitzki is a better basketball player than LeBron James." from

http://www.foxsportssouthwest.com/06/13 ... eedID=4519

The stuff about the white star is from Reiter too,


"There's Dirk Nowitzki and the very real fact that an emerging white star (yes, yes, think Larry Bird) is surely good for business (yes, in America such a thing sadly matters). On Thursday, Dirk (the man even has a catchy name) kept rewriting his own narrative as a loser with another fantastic night: 29 points (eight in the fourth quarter) in helping his team erase another late-game deficit."

http://www.foxsportssouthwest.com/06/10 ... eedID=4519

If you read Reiter's articles you can see the german guy got many of his sentences from there like this too about LeBron "He looked like the single greatest marketing machine the NBA has seen in at least a decade".

There is stuff about that the jumpshot is only taught in college teamplay but many upcoming stars skipped that part and didn't develop a jumpshot... while i don't know where he had all that other stuff from it's his opinion column.

Guess that happens when suddenly all kind of media guys that have no clue even about the NBA, have to get some articles out.

[droponov]

So i can't group three black guys into "degenerative hip hop culture" even if they perfectly fit into the description and I considered the culture itself degenerative? Only in US lol

I'm pretty sure if it was Birdman JR and Kmart, it wouldn't be racist because because one of them is white right?

In USA people talk about being tolerant etc, yet they live in separate districts based on race/nationality lol

No they don't.

They live in separate districts based on socio-economic status.

You think all of Kobe's neighbors in Newport Beach are black?

Control for socio-economic status and the tendency is still there. Go to any inner city and you have black packed together here, hispanic there, poor whites on another spot, etc.

I agree with him, Americans are way too obsessed with racial issues.

[wuppy]

Meine Fuhrer! Lebron James und Dwayne Wade has essen Herr Nowitzki shaise.

[Whiteman]

It is by no means a good article and there are factual and intellectual mistakes in it, but by no means the author is advertising racism, he is rather critizing it.

+1

The headline of the German article says "Kampf der Systeme" - Battle of styles/systems. "Ghetto basketball" in this context stands for individualistic rather than team basketball. It's a (misguided) attack on the NBA's superstar basketball.

The author further notes that in the '90's aspects of Ghetto subculture (clothing being the most obvious one) became visible in the NBA (as they did in all Western culture). The league responded by enforcing a dress code, afraid that middle- and upper class fans might become estranged.
This actually happened, right? The author isn't racist for pointing that out.

Embarassing article by Deadspin, trying to create a story (racism! outrage!) where there is none.

[LLcoleJ]

We live in a society of **** idiots. America will always have a race problem because of the 2 biggest idiots on both sides

1. The people who use race as a crutch (the Al Sharptons of the world)
2. The people who are too dense to see blantant racism even if it hits them in the face (a lot of the posters in this thread)

For people to read the article and pretend that it has nothing to do with race is a good indication of just how ignorant Americans are. We stick to an ideology and shape everything that happens around it, no matter how absurd we sound. We are just too pussified to call a spade a spade.

Good points and I agree with what you said. However, we also live in world of hypocrites.

If we were to talk about the hip-hop culture in a different context, we would hear the struggles of coming from the ghetto, the violence, the streets and these musicians talking about their struggle. In that context, it seems that this line of thinking is ok, and that's just real life.

Now, we fast forward to this article and the idea of talking about the ghetto like that is is blasphemy.

This world is f'up and filled with people who are ignorant of things that they view from the outside and don't actually live. That being said.
These types of articles are rampant in todays media so I don't see this one is 'special' you can see blatant racism from CNN -> AL Jezerra and everywhere in between. It's the world we live in.

[BubbaTee]

No they don't.

They live in separate districts based on socio-economic status.

You think all of Kobe's neighbors in Newport Beach are black?

nope, but groups like mexicans blacks and whites don't mix as they do in Europe, not so many friendships/pair of different cultural background. I don't know if that's true for all states, that's what my family and friends living in Houston say.

1st. I doubt Mexicans do much mixing of any sort in Europe.

2nd. People of all colors mix more in the US than they do in Europe, if for no other reason than the US simply has a lot more people of color, proportionally.

3rd. I'd put America's race relations, even with all its problems, up against Western Europe's any day. By Western Europe I mean non-former Soviet Bloc countries, with the exception of East Germany - I count Germany as part of Western Europe.
- Western Europe is still having race riots.
- Western Europe is banning headscarves and minarets.
- Western Europe has heads of state declaring "Multiculturalism has failed."
- Western Europe has recently seen an unsettling rise in xenophobia, and in some places even outright neo-Nazism.
- Western Europe routinely conducts mass deportations of non-white immigrants (in which I include Roma), even legal ones.

4th. America's racial problems are magnified because of the huge role race has played in American history, much bigger than the role it has played in European history. Dominant divides in European history have been stuff like religious intolerance and territory, for the US the dominant divide throughout its history has been racism. So American's are MUCH more sensitive to racial issues, real or perceived, than Euros.

For the same reason, Europe is much more wary countries invading each other than the US. Europe has seen the downside of invasions before, much more than the US has. Hence you have the less-than-optimistic response of Europe to the Iraq War. Hence also their apprehension at the "invasion" of Europe by black and Arabic African immigrants.

[droponov]

I read the article and I didn't notice anything racist about it. Race was part of theme, but where's the bigotry or the prejudice? The man actually laments that the race of the superstars has an impact on the tv audiences (allegedly). Where's the racism?

The fact of the matter is that there's a percentage of the american population that is always willing to start crying racism. "A german writer talks about race and uses the word ghetto? Must be a racist then. You don't see the racism? It's unconscious racism, the worst kind!1!".

Unconscious my ***, there's simply none to be seen - except in the minds of those who see racism in everything.

This is reminiscent of that paranoid racist accusing Dan Gilbert of racism because of the Comic Sans letter.