ed. note: for the purpose of artistic integrity, this posting has not been edited for content, ie. four-letter words. so just chill on the subject and read on, there are many a good point below... peace, chance
i'm sick of hearing about how ron artest is the worst human being on the
face of the planet. we shouldn't hold celebrities to a higher standard than
we hold the rest of us. this was a bar fight. if a big and already angry
man gets a beer spilled on him, somebody is going to get their ass kicked,
and it probably won't be the guy who dumped it. don't get me wrong, i don't
condone anything that happened, but alberto gonzalez being atty. gen. is
much worse. as white house legal counsel in bush's last term, alberto
crafted the guantanimo policy, wrote the memo on (what i and most call)
tourture use in interrogation, pulled us out of the world court, and keeps
the dick cheaney energy policy meetings a secret. and don't get me started
on condi. but none of this matters, because ron artest is a thug. he has a
rap album. RAP!!! we are doing a disservice to our children if we don't
spend all our energy villifying him, then let fans repeatedly call him a
stupid nigger while he's trying to WALK AWAY FROM A FIGHT. espn has been
trashing artest for years, selling his image of an angry black man you love
to hate to white, suburban america, who just happens to be the people who
buy courtside tickets and yell "you dumb monkey fuck" at artest.
artest obviously has mental problems. anyone could see this coming, but
nobody did anything to stop it because he still played the game well. i am
willing to bet that at some point in his life (probably high school) he was
on meds, and didn't play as well, so he went off them. we could have helped
him become a better man, but all we wanted was a basketball player, so we
didn't. what nobody talks about is how the monster of american sport (which
mirrors society, i feel) created the man that did this. at very young ages
these athletes are tagged as special and everything changes for them, and
their mostly given what they want, and an easier road is laid out for them.
but as soon as you can't play the game anymore, they don't need you and
you're left without life skills because you never had to learn them. we
have never given a shit about ron artest the person, only artest the player,
and artest the person is who did this. he knows he has to watch himself on
the court. one of the many intriguing points is that he walked away from
the on court fight. he was calm. and then...i have more than once heard
the analogy that he was like a wild animal out of his cage. he was also
treated like a caged wild animal up until that point. we have never seen
artest as a human, or wanted to. but what happened with the fan was (in his
eyes) a personal, man to man conflict. not in ours. he's a devil, a thug,
an overpaid asshole. i view what jermaine and stephen did as worse, they
just wanted to kick some ass, artest can at least argue he was defending
himself.
and i don't want to hear about how he can promote his rap album anymore.
first of all, it's not his album. second of all, it's not rap. its an all
female trio, allure (remember them?), and it is very much r&b. but it sure
makes artest sound like a monster to say "ron artest asked for time off to
promote his rap album," which implies that he's a murderer/drug
dealer/pimp/nigger. you can argue that point, but it undoubtedly puts that
seed of thought in the older upper crust white america. remember that
artest once applied for a part-time job at a circut city during the regular
season. most nba players view the regular season as the pre-season, and the
playoffs as the real season. all artest did is walk into his coach's office
and say so. he also said, hey, if you need me to play i'll play, and i'll
play hard. his teamates said it got blown out of proportion. his coach
suspended him for two games for even verbalizing what is on many players
minds. most will just fake an injury, artest didn't. his coach was the
coach of the pistons until last year, and was successful, but was fired
because he couldn't get along with his players. is it a coincidence that
detroit won the title in their first year without him?
but really all this boils down to is money, greed and jealousy. in talking
with people, the all will say that for millions a year i could not go
berserk and kick a fans ass. i know i couldn't listen to the dehumanizing
shit that comes every night and not take some of it personally, and once you
take it personally, you're one step away from doing what artest did. but
the scary part is "for millions a year..." we say "if i was in those shoes
i wouldn't be so dumb." but none of us knows how we would behave if we were
a black man making millions of dollars coming from queensbridge being
equally revered and hated for your actions on the hardwood while having your
actual self pushed to the side without care by the socitey that so worships
or hates what they think is "you." and we all envy his money, because we
think we deserve it more. "why should that jackass get paid six mill a
year?." this is where spree comes into this. i don't know why we expect
athletes not to be greedy, our society is. aside from outside businesses,
this is his last chance to get paid. he will, and we would, try to get as
much as he can. we live in a free market society, supply and demand set
price. athletes get what they're worth; because they can get it, they are
economically worth it. in spree's words "it's my job to get as much money
as i can, it's their job to give me as little as they can, it's just
negotiation." if we weren't jelous of athletes money and stature, we
wouldn't care about this so much.
this is america, and the ills we bitch about in professional sports get
played out so much worse for so much gain for some and so much loss for many
in the real world around us. a brawl in a basketball arena affects so few
people relative to things such as forgien & economic policies of governemt,
education systems, enviromental issues, and on and on and on. we already
have had this brawl broken down to us better than 9-11 ever will be, and
i'm scared because our society has demanded this. in an open market, we get
what we buy, and we care more about this fight. we don't care how we
enabled ron artest to get here, we would have done better if we were in his
shoes. we don't care that spree does what every corporation and most
individuals do (playing "the game" for as much benifit as possible), he
should just be happy with what he has now and continue doing what he was
donig before. if we want these things to change in sports, they need to be
removed from our society. but we don't care to remove them from our
society, or notice them for that matter. so i'm sure we'll overanalyze and
bitch about stupid greedy millionare athletes while the fact that the man
''resposibe'' for bush's lies in the state of the union adress is taking
over as national security advisor goes unnoticed.
rusty shackleford
