An original version posted on 7/23/2009 as "Message Board Posting: Perception, Language, Memory" @ AMMMO
I think the ripe topic for this is the Chicago Bulls message boards online.
At least for me.
Even if I detest the Chicago Bulls management at this very moment (see Ben Gordon post below), I'm quite addicted to at least following their progress, and after 8 years of recreational posting, I've come to the conclusion that I can't quite get the Bulls nor the message board communities out of my system.
Everything I've learned about arguing and everyday reasoning way back to my SAT test-taking days to my first days studying linguistic anthro, I've learned from recreational message board posting. I figured that much after picking verbal arguments in AOL chatrooms and later sports message boards. As an enthused student of AP US history in 11th grade I aimed to pick apart Republican/Conservative message board responses by referring to moments in history analagous to current conditions. It was a spitting image reflection of what my teacher did to white Republican kids during class, manifested and reinacted in the message board space, race-less, status-less, where I felt comfortable.
I used to go out there thinking that if I could show the facts and nothing but facts, that people would automatically click and "get it." They would understand my point of view and perhaps change their minds.
But I dare say that that has almost never been the case. It takes much more than facts to move anyone. I think it takes almost a religious conversion, meaning a conversion that involves a shift of the body, mind, and soul. In psychological terms, that means moving an entire schema of relations. There are no power tactics available other than cyber-bullying or some kind of fixed groupthink within a message board community.
From my experience, no one really ever admits that they're wrong. And if they do admit a mistake, it's probably because they made an explicit prediction (i.e. predicted 50 wins, player X to suck), and/or they can distance their current thoughts from past transgressions, that is, they can explain away how they were wrong before, but not likely to be this time around.
On Perception and Memory of these Message Boarders:
I was and still continue to be amazed at how fans can watch one basketball game and yet still make different observations.
These aren't flash-in-the-pan comments made, but there is a long-standing community of posters. While there is a steady stream of newcomers, there's also posters who I've come to "know." They will occasionally make reference to their jobs, occasionally talk about their personal experiences, share photos of their newborn children, and even share how they've lost their jobs, or ask for prayers.
So I feel like I've grown emotionally with this online "community", even though I only "know" them through what I've read, but have managed to do so consistently for about 8 years.
But there was and remains a lot of fighting between fans. Fans of the SAME team, usually about the transactions made.
My favorite player, Ben Gordon, was the topic of plenty of message board fighting within the Chicago Bulls message board community, and will probably continue to be a center of controversy now that he's not with the Bulls anymore and moved to a division rival.
I was amazed that no matter how many memorable moments I brought up, no matter how many wins I thought he brought us because of his momentum-swinging style, the same cadre of posters would continue to criticize him. There were very different degrees and reasons for dislike, but for sake of my cognitive sanity, I will simply label them the "haters." Not because I really believed these guys "hated" him as a person, but simply didn't like him on the team.
The same old criticisms by people I perceived as "haters" would be front and center: "he's selfish, he's playing for a contract and not for the team, he doesn't play defense, it won't matter much if we lose him."
I was always curious of what episodic memories anchored their perceptions of his playing ability. Based on what some haters" wrote in the official appreciation thread for him, they could only talk about general semanticized memories about him. The general semanticized memories were memories of habits they weren't fond of:
They cited only general habits ala
"gets posted up by bigger guards"
"dribbling the ball of his foot"
"shooting over 3 defenders"
In the discussion of habits, they could only abstract their memories about him. "Abstracting" means that you forget a few moments and extract the relevant moments to fit with an abstract and general statement. For example, if you have it burned into your cortex that he's "selfish", and make the statement "Ben Gordon is selfish", you'll predispose yourself to remembering only when he was selfish, and filter out any moments when he was "not selfish."
From these general statements, I suspected that these posters seemed to listen more to commentary, hearsay, and analysis about him from reporters and talk radio rather than actually watching the game for themselves. I suspect they remember more verbal commentaries and merely parroted their bullshit on the message boards. As was shown by Jonathan Schooler, verbal memories have been shown to interfere with the expression of episodic memories.
Other than the very last game he played as a Chicago Bull, which was Game 7 against the Boston Celtics in a very memorable series, I was particularly struck by the inability to cite specific moments compared to his advocates and supporters.
So the interesting finding was that advocates and supporters present more episodic memories, while haters present more semanticized abstract memories. The haters seem to have more memory of general descriptions and characteristics as opposed to concrete occurrences.
Episodic memories are rooted in concrete occurrences, while the semanticized abstract memories are mental shortcuts.
Showing posts with label Race and Cyberspace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Race and Cyberspace. Show all posts
Seeing Hints of Racism on Message Boards in Characterizations of USA Basketball
An original version posted on 8/20/2004 as "Racist Agenda Towards USA Basketball" @throwascrewinit.blogspot.com
It's always interesting to see how racist people really are when people from different countries come together. But that's to be expected.
What isn't really expected is when your own country is racist towards you.
One act of racism is committed when one or more individuals think that there is something inherently wrong with a group of people based on physical characteristics, namely color of skin.
Whether intentional or not, message boarders People seem to be (whether intentional or not) blaming the urban culture of hip-hop, dominated by minority races in these Team USA basketball losses. And since the USA team is composed of all black people, some people see it fitting to associate them with hip-hop. Most people do. I mean, when one thinks of hip-hop, one will most likely think of a black person's face.
People bashing Team USA start out blaming things strongly associated with hip-hop like street basketball, the And 1 Tour (sometimes even mockingly using hip-hop terms). They imply that these aspects associated with hip-hop are what is causing the US team to be selfish and lose. They claim that these players are being selfish as a result of liking hip-hop/urban.
For example, they'll say things like "it's all about And 1 basketball with these guys. They don't know anything about team basketball or fundamentals."
Yeah, I completely missed the off-the-backboard 360 dunk by Tim Duncan followed by the Emeka Okafor off BOTH Carlos Arroyo's and Carlos Boozer's head dribble all with 4 fingers while keeping his middle finger up at the US flag in the loss to Puerto Rico.
Oh wrong game?
I guess I was watching the game where Allen Iverson was actually passing the ball. The rest of the team thought that was such a great idea that they decided to do just the exact same. The team was playing defense. They may have these reputations as selfish players (which is an issue in itself), but that's not what they have shown in the games.
In other words, I've observed the exact opposite of what they have been accused of doing by message board posters.
Racist ? Check with a big fat red, white, and blue mark !
People seemed to immediately placed labels on the team based namely on Allen Iverson. They have romanticized FIBA style basketball. They call the whole team selfish, some have even said that they lacked pride.
I definitely saw that they lacked pride because they're all too black for us to see their hearts.
Team USA's just one example of how hip-hop and everything associated with it has become such a great goat for these mostly American message boarders to put all their own bad traits of Americana into and kick repeatedly.
I'm not sure that people actually watched the game. "Hip-hop" style of basketball doesn't really affect how they play the game. Hip-hop, blackness is not to blame because it had absolutely nothing to do with the team USA loss.
If there's anything to blame it's probably how the NBA Rules are structured.
Let's just all ignore the facts that this team was poorly conceived and sorely unadapted to the competition. Sure, they're top players, but all of them have the same skills and lack the same ones. It also doesn't help that none of them are great shooters.
How is that possible in basketball you ask ?
In the NBA game, these guys are taught to be aggressive and attack the hoop. What faciliates going to the hoop is that there is this 3 second rule in the NBA which prohibits players from staying in the painted area for more than 3 seconds. It was a rule conceived to add more action to the NBA game. International basketball has no such rule and so the strategy for these international teams has been to clog these lanes.
Another reason USA basketball has slipped is that these international teams don't select players from a big pool. There's a tryout process for them. The USA team basically threw together a team composed of young, inexperienced, good players. They're still the most talented team, but unlike the previous Dream Teams in 1992 and 1996, they're not good enough to plow through other teams on just talent alone. They actually need team chemistry. Not fundamentals.
More reactions of hidden racism here.
It's always interesting to see how racist people really are when people from different countries come together. But that's to be expected.
What isn't really expected is when your own country is racist towards you.
One act of racism is committed when one or more individuals think that there is something inherently wrong with a group of people based on physical characteristics, namely color of skin.
Whether intentional or not, message boarders People seem to be (whether intentional or not) blaming the urban culture of hip-hop, dominated by minority races in these Team USA basketball losses. And since the USA team is composed of all black people, some people see it fitting to associate them with hip-hop. Most people do. I mean, when one thinks of hip-hop, one will most likely think of a black person's face.
People bashing Team USA start out blaming things strongly associated with hip-hop like street basketball, the And 1 Tour (sometimes even mockingly using hip-hop terms). They imply that these aspects associated with hip-hop are what is causing the US team to be selfish and lose. They claim that these players are being selfish as a result of liking hip-hop/urban.
For example, they'll say things like "it's all about And 1 basketball with these guys. They don't know anything about team basketball or fundamentals."
Yeah, I completely missed the off-the-backboard 360 dunk by Tim Duncan followed by the Emeka Okafor off BOTH Carlos Arroyo's and Carlos Boozer's head dribble all with 4 fingers while keeping his middle finger up at the US flag in the loss to Puerto Rico.
Oh wrong game?
I guess I was watching the game where Allen Iverson was actually passing the ball. The rest of the team thought that was such a great idea that they decided to do just the exact same. The team was playing defense. They may have these reputations as selfish players (which is an issue in itself), but that's not what they have shown in the games.
In other words, I've observed the exact opposite of what they have been accused of doing by message board posters.
Racist ? Check with a big fat red, white, and blue mark !
People seemed to immediately placed labels on the team based namely on Allen Iverson. They have romanticized FIBA style basketball. They call the whole team selfish, some have even said that they lacked pride.
I definitely saw that they lacked pride because they're all too black for us to see their hearts.
Team USA's just one example of how hip-hop and everything associated with it has become such a great goat for these mostly American message boarders to put all their own bad traits of Americana into and kick repeatedly.
I'm not sure that people actually watched the game. "Hip-hop" style of basketball doesn't really affect how they play the game. Hip-hop, blackness is not to blame because it had absolutely nothing to do with the team USA loss.
If there's anything to blame it's probably how the NBA Rules are structured.
Let's just all ignore the facts that this team was poorly conceived and sorely unadapted to the competition. Sure, they're top players, but all of them have the same skills and lack the same ones. It also doesn't help that none of them are great shooters.
How is that possible in basketball you ask ?
In the NBA game, these guys are taught to be aggressive and attack the hoop. What faciliates going to the hoop is that there is this 3 second rule in the NBA which prohibits players from staying in the painted area for more than 3 seconds. It was a rule conceived to add more action to the NBA game. International basketball has no such rule and so the strategy for these international teams has been to clog these lanes.
Another reason USA basketball has slipped is that these international teams don't select players from a big pool. There's a tryout process for them. The USA team basically threw together a team composed of young, inexperienced, good players. They're still the most talented team, but unlike the previous Dream Teams in 1992 and 1996, they're not good enough to plow through other teams on just talent alone. They actually need team chemistry. Not fundamentals.
More reactions of hidden racism here.
The Racial Identity of Your Favorite Sports Protagonist Does Matter
An original version posted on 2/3/2008 as "Your Leader's Identity" @throwascrewinit.blogspot.com
In the American team sports that I follow both on TV and online be it the NBA, NCAA football, or the NFL, I see black, white, pacific Island, Spanish-speaking players and coaches emerging all the time. It’s nice because I definitely didn’t see much of that growing up, if at all.
Growing up and not seeing my culture, my people represented was the kind of thing that made me question why the hell I had to be Filipino.
Why did I have to be a culture that no one’s heard or talked about? Nowhere to be seen on ESPN. How the heck would I ever become famous or even get on a newspaper (where I wasn’t being described as a murder suspect or an FBI wish list) with a name like I had? Delas Armas anyone? Could they even fit that in the back of a jersey? We used to joke that the last name Delespiritusanto on the back of a jersey would have to come full circle.
However, At least nowadays in sports, I’m seeing little trinklets of multiculturalism. More folks from different races and ethnicities in sports representing.
While that counts as a few steps forward, I ask myself what power do these people of yellow, black, brown-skinned identities hold?
When observing fans of all sports on message boards, forums, comments after articles, I noticed one thing: people really really love the idea of the white guy as the head honcho, top dog, the leader. People will fight hard to have the white guy be the guy on top.
It’s why a white guy like Kirk Hinrich, the Chicago Bulls’ point guard automatically gets compared to players like Steve Nash, the NBA MVP and hall-of-famer John Stockton, despite not having any of their abilities AT ALL.
Those guys were actually known for passing the ball, and making good decisions with the ball.
From my own observation, Hinrich did/does little of the described activities above. Instead, Hinrich dribbles the basketball aimlessly around the court, and panics when time is running out. The man is nowhere near their class and basically has earned his prestige because he shares their pigmentation in a league where the pigmentation is generally much darker.
The guy is not even that good on this team. He’s had his starting spot on the team saved for him ever since he’s been a rookie — he’s the only guy in the Bulls backcourt who hasn’t had to fight for playing time despite his lack of actual impact.
Since he’s not really that talented, people make stupid unquantifiable, highly subjective statements: “he’s a 2-way player, he plays really great defense.” Even more outrageous is that this guy has had one of the worst fall-offs, yet he’s never involved in trade rumors or criticized nearly as much as his more impactful, higher-scoring, clutch counterpart Ben Gordon.
Ben Gordon is currently the team’s leading scorer, despite being relegated to the bench, receiving a lowball contract offer, and being ignored on offense by Hinrich. However, when compared to Hinrich, it’s his negative traits that are emphasized: he’s undersized and one-dimensional.
The naturalness of a white leader also applies to another sport I follow. The societal expectation that the best leaders would be white is probably why people at Bruinsnation couldn’t stomach the idea of a Norm Chow (Asian) and Dewayne Walker (black)-led team.
I think their distaste for those two as coaching candidates was not necessarily rooted in their race, but it seems that the fans at that site had a tendency to assume the worst with anyone outside of their fellow white folks.
Norm Chow, Chinaman, apparently had no "personality" to get the job done. They cited his lack of experience, intensely putting out the question why a 61-year old (Asian) guy (in a white and black league) hadn’t had a head coaching job. This ire drawn despite the years of coaching experience, coaching some of the most elite quarterbacks in college football history, and having won a national championship.
There "must" have been something wrong with Norm. There had to be.
Dewayne Walker was characterized by the Bruinsnation writers as a self-promoting Karl Dorrell-holdover. This despite being respected as the incumbent UCLA Bruin defensive coordinator.
Together, Norm Chow and Dewayne Walker as the leading coach candidates, earned the derisive name “Choker.”
I looked for nicknames attributed to other (white) coaching candidates.
Needless to say, no other coaching candidates (most of whom were even LESS qualified than these two) received such names.
There was “Slick Rick” for Rick Neuihesel, but that disappared once it was clear that Walker and Chow were being considered as coaching candidates.
Nothing personal against the new white guy at UCLA, Rick Neuheisel, I admit I like what Rick’s been able to do so far as far as the working-togetherness of his hired guns and recruiting, but the same people who were pulling strongly for him initially balked at the idea of him becoming coach.
The Bruinsnation people thought we had run a lackluster coaching search campaign.
It seems like they only really rallied around Rick Neuheisel NOT because he was a effusively qualified and overly strong candidate (he definitely brings that baggage of cheating with him) but only because he was NOT Norm Chow or Dewayne Walker. He was decidedly not the "timid, stoic, cold" white guy nor was he the "self-promoting" black dude who since he was black obviously was still attached to everything from the fired black coach.
In a twist of irony, when it was announced that Norm Chow and Dewayne Walker would be retained on staff, these same fans calling Chow and Walker, Choker were going apeshit over their hirings.
They were most happy when it happened because in their own words,”it was Rick Neuheisel’s choice” as if white people’s choices are the only good decisions made. It was Rick Neuheisel’s choice, so naturally, it had to be good and trustworthy.
I wonder what it would be like had it been the inverse in any way, with Neuheisel as a coordinator, and Chow and Walker as the guys running things.
When we jump back to professional basketball, with Kirk Hinrich/Ben Gordon, fans like to do much of the same. They will characterize and put the players of color as successful in one-dimensional, specialized roles, but not broad, leadership ones.
Leadership, colored people, never that. One dimensional scoring guard, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, as opposed to 2-dimensional player, quarterback, and head coach.
For years, people have talked about the issue of the leadership roles being assumed by people of color, but it’s probably been a “minor” issue or something just not talked about.
The paucity of black owners, black coaches, black quarterbacks in sports where the number of players who are black are high is not really a social justice issue, but I think it reflects some lessons about the way our society in the US of A works.
In general in this context, it’s become “natural” for white people to be “our” leaders. They need to be the decisionmakers because they’re usually defaulted and perceived as the ones with the experience, the education, etc, especially when running against a person of color.
What bothers me is that we as a society don’t question what exactly makes their decisions better or how they end up with all the experience and education in the first place.
We've relied on white leaders for so long that its weird and unexpected by the society to not have any. Without a white guy as leader, it’s unnatural and odd, or so my dad implies when discussing how weird it is to have a president by the name of Obama.
In the American team sports that I follow both on TV and online be it the NBA, NCAA football, or the NFL, I see black, white, pacific Island, Spanish-speaking players and coaches emerging all the time. It’s nice because I definitely didn’t see much of that growing up, if at all.
Growing up and not seeing my culture, my people represented was the kind of thing that made me question why the hell I had to be Filipino.
Why did I have to be a culture that no one’s heard or talked about? Nowhere to be seen on ESPN. How the heck would I ever become famous or even get on a newspaper (where I wasn’t being described as a murder suspect or an FBI wish list) with a name like I had? Delas Armas anyone? Could they even fit that in the back of a jersey? We used to joke that the last name Delespiritusanto on the back of a jersey would have to come full circle.
However, At least nowadays in sports, I’m seeing little trinklets of multiculturalism. More folks from different races and ethnicities in sports representing.
While that counts as a few steps forward, I ask myself what power do these people of yellow, black, brown-skinned identities hold?
When observing fans of all sports on message boards, forums, comments after articles, I noticed one thing: people really really love the idea of the white guy as the head honcho, top dog, the leader. People will fight hard to have the white guy be the guy on top.
It’s why a white guy like Kirk Hinrich, the Chicago Bulls’ point guard automatically gets compared to players like Steve Nash, the NBA MVP and hall-of-famer John Stockton, despite not having any of their abilities AT ALL.
Those guys were actually known for passing the ball, and making good decisions with the ball.
From my own observation, Hinrich did/does little of the described activities above. Instead, Hinrich dribbles the basketball aimlessly around the court, and panics when time is running out. The man is nowhere near their class and basically has earned his prestige because he shares their pigmentation in a league where the pigmentation is generally much darker.
The guy is not even that good on this team. He’s had his starting spot on the team saved for him ever since he’s been a rookie — he’s the only guy in the Bulls backcourt who hasn’t had to fight for playing time despite his lack of actual impact.
Since he’s not really that talented, people make stupid unquantifiable, highly subjective statements: “he’s a 2-way player, he plays really great defense.” Even more outrageous is that this guy has had one of the worst fall-offs, yet he’s never involved in trade rumors or criticized nearly as much as his more impactful, higher-scoring, clutch counterpart Ben Gordon.
Ben Gordon is currently the team’s leading scorer, despite being relegated to the bench, receiving a lowball contract offer, and being ignored on offense by Hinrich. However, when compared to Hinrich, it’s his negative traits that are emphasized: he’s undersized and one-dimensional.
The naturalness of a white leader also applies to another sport I follow. The societal expectation that the best leaders would be white is probably why people at Bruinsnation couldn’t stomach the idea of a Norm Chow (Asian) and Dewayne Walker (black)-led team.
I think their distaste for those two as coaching candidates was not necessarily rooted in their race, but it seems that the fans at that site had a tendency to assume the worst with anyone outside of their fellow white folks.
Norm Chow, Chinaman, apparently had no "personality" to get the job done. They cited his lack of experience, intensely putting out the question why a 61-year old (Asian) guy (in a white and black league) hadn’t had a head coaching job. This ire drawn despite the years of coaching experience, coaching some of the most elite quarterbacks in college football history, and having won a national championship.
There "must" have been something wrong with Norm. There had to be.
Dewayne Walker was characterized by the Bruinsnation writers as a self-promoting Karl Dorrell-holdover. This despite being respected as the incumbent UCLA Bruin defensive coordinator.
Together, Norm Chow and Dewayne Walker as the leading coach candidates, earned the derisive name “Choker.”
I looked for nicknames attributed to other (white) coaching candidates.
Needless to say, no other coaching candidates (most of whom were even LESS qualified than these two) received such names.
There was “Slick Rick” for Rick Neuihesel, but that disappared once it was clear that Walker and Chow were being considered as coaching candidates.
Nothing personal against the new white guy at UCLA, Rick Neuheisel, I admit I like what Rick’s been able to do so far as far as the working-togetherness of his hired guns and recruiting, but the same people who were pulling strongly for him initially balked at the idea of him becoming coach.
The Bruinsnation people thought we had run a lackluster coaching search campaign.
It seems like they only really rallied around Rick Neuheisel NOT because he was a effusively qualified and overly strong candidate (he definitely brings that baggage of cheating with him) but only because he was NOT Norm Chow or Dewayne Walker. He was decidedly not the "timid, stoic, cold" white guy nor was he the "self-promoting" black dude who since he was black obviously was still attached to everything from the fired black coach.
In a twist of irony, when it was announced that Norm Chow and Dewayne Walker would be retained on staff, these same fans calling Chow and Walker, Choker were going apeshit over their hirings.
They were most happy when it happened because in their own words,”it was Rick Neuheisel’s choice” as if white people’s choices are the only good decisions made. It was Rick Neuheisel’s choice, so naturally, it had to be good and trustworthy.
I wonder what it would be like had it been the inverse in any way, with Neuheisel as a coordinator, and Chow and Walker as the guys running things.
When we jump back to professional basketball, with Kirk Hinrich/Ben Gordon, fans like to do much of the same. They will characterize and put the players of color as successful in one-dimensional, specialized roles, but not broad, leadership ones.
Leadership, colored people, never that. One dimensional scoring guard, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, as opposed to 2-dimensional player, quarterback, and head coach.
For years, people have talked about the issue of the leadership roles being assumed by people of color, but it’s probably been a “minor” issue or something just not talked about.
The paucity of black owners, black coaches, black quarterbacks in sports where the number of players who are black are high is not really a social justice issue, but I think it reflects some lessons about the way our society in the US of A works.
In general in this context, it’s become “natural” for white people to be “our” leaders. They need to be the decisionmakers because they’re usually defaulted and perceived as the ones with the experience, the education, etc, especially when running against a person of color.
What bothers me is that we as a society don’t question what exactly makes their decisions better or how they end up with all the experience and education in the first place.
We've relied on white leaders for so long that its weird and unexpected by the society to not have any. Without a white guy as leader, it’s unnatural and odd, or so my dad implies when discussing how weird it is to have a president by the name of Obama.
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