Language in sports

Language that revolves around blacks is something that has bothered me for some time now. People with power have crafted language that dehumanizes blacks, thus generating feelings of inferiority. These feelings have seeped into all facets of black life. Sports are no exception, and this community makes it “normal” to describe athletes with different rhetoric based on their race. When watching a basketball game, the black athletes are described as being animated, aggressive, or a natural born talent while their white counterparts are intelligent, hard workers, and deserve everything they receive. 

This, however, was brought into the open when Lebron James, arguably one of the best basketball players of all time, and his business partners were described as a posse. Phil Jackson answered a question in an interview about Lebron and how he felt about him leaving the Miami Heat. Jackson’s response was "You are on the plane, you are with this team. You can’t hold up the whole team because you and your mom and your posse want to spend an extra night in Cleveland." This posse that Pat Riley discussed consisted of four of LeBron's close high school friends with whom he started an agency. When Phil Jackson got an interview after orchestrating a one billion dollar deal with Nike, and the public associated him as someone who only out to get women and cars; for this, he has every reason to feel infuriated and angry. Lebron was able to do something for blacks that most people in his position do not do. He was able to give people a chance, and for some they had never had this opportunity. To the public who witnessed them take advantage of this opportunity to better themselves, and then trivialize their accomplishments and call them a posse this way of thinking is not only hypocritical but hateful. In today's time you do not hear as much outright racial attacks for the most part, but what you do here is backhanded remarks that have double meanings that are aimed at discrediting, marginalizing, and attacking blacks and other marginalized groups.