Penn State Sanctioned Life Without Parole

We have heard from the NCAA, Penn State university officials, the criminal justice system,  sports journalists, political pundits, and twitter commentary.   Rare voices in this tragedy are current or former students, faculty, or staff of the Penn State University community.  With the exception of the protests that occurred after Joe Paterno was fired, the Penn State community has remained virtually silent on the heinous acts that occurred on their campus.  For this reason, I fully support the NCAA imposing harsh sanctions on the football program.  Whether or not the NCAA is appropriately situated in this tragedy is the least of my concerns.  Ultimately, I am in support of any institution that has the power to speak on behalf of those violated imposing sanctions.  Joe Paterno, university officials, or even the justice system certainly did not, so why would we trust them to do so now.      

The most pressing argument against the sanctions is mostly due to the perceived hypocrisy of the NCAA claiming jurisdiction on the moral and cultural issues of its member institution.  One could argue that the NCAA’s commercialized culture of college sports is a direct contradiction to the expectation that its member institutions place academics over profits.  In my opinion, the sanctions were directly in line with how the NCAA governs; money over the best interest of the student-athletes.  We are glad that the student-athletes have an opportunity to transfer without penalty, however make no mistake about it; many of these players will be left to live through the aftermath of the sanctions imposed.  Transferring programs is not an easy task, and many of the less touted players will probably be forced to remain at Penn State and endure this punishment.  The NCAA being the wrong person to impose the sanctions should have no correlation to whether or not the football program deserved these sanctions to be placed on them.  If not the NCAA, who?  The more important question is what mechanisms are being put in place to help the student-athletes cope with the reality of their new intercollegiate athletic experience.  Falling from grace is not an easy burden to bear!    

       

When we talk about the culture of sports, the word that first comes to my mind is "Loyalty". My alma mater even has a fight song that bears this title.  The problem with the culture of loyalty in sports is similar to "When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong". The institution of sports has no loyalty to its athletes or fans but socializes its audiences and players to be loyal to sports. The fact is the capitalistic nature of sports is a serious barrier for sporting institutions. A coach’s primary responsibility becomes winning because he wants to keep his job so that he can feed his family. It's survival of the “winningest”.  The evidence that this culture persists in the wake of the NCAA sanctions is the concern that Paterno is not the only person punished by wins being vacated; the athletes who played in those games are affected also.  My concern is not with the general sense of loyalty in sporting institutions, as it is more disconcerting that this loyalty often leads to college cover-ups.  In these situations, no one wins.   

Changing "The Game"

In the middle of this year’s season of “The Game”, a former college and current indoor football quarterback tweeted “I love The Game. This show is the closest I’ve seen to how it really is in sports”.  Since I am not a former football player, I cannot dispute his claim about “The Game”.  My concern about his tweet is that, if the BET television series “The Game” is an accurate representation of life situations that occur in the world of sports, or at least football, I have much more to worry about than the academic success of Black male athletes. 

I have been a strong supporter of The Game since its first show aired over 6 years ago.  I was excited to see a show that finally depicts the experiences of Black athletes.  My expectations were low, in terms of whether or not the depiction would be “accurate” but high with hopes that it would offer a positive representation of Black male athletes and their families.  I could speak at length about the many theoretical challenges I have had with the show over these six years, but I chose to focus this blog on Season 5.   

I believe that this series is at a crossroads or has already hit a dead end.  Season 5 ends  with an exit of the main characters Derwin Davis (Pooch Hall) and Melanie Davis (Tia Mowry), a happy ending for Jason Pitts (Coby Bell) and Tasha Mack (Wendy Raquel Robinson), and a heart broken Malik Wright (Hosea Chanchez).  This season has been most compelling for me because of the hype surrounding the start of the season and directorial choices that were made upon its return.  Most notably, the show previously aired on the WB but was cancelled after Season 4.  After a public outcry over the shows cancellation, BET made the decision to air reruns and the 5th season.  However, due to the change, the show took a two year hiatus before re-airing.  The season premiere was heavily publicized and resulted in the show registering millions of viewers, possibly the highest rated show of the BET network.  Despite the enthusiasm of its return, many of the people who know I am a fan of the show told me that they were immediately turned off and did not plan to continue watching.   This included my mother who could not understand how her socially conscious daughter could be in support of a show that in its season opener showed a white woman chastising a black woman for being jealous of her whiteness.  Unfortunately, my attempt to explain my past support of the show even sounded weak to me after watching the first episode of the season.  However, I was determined to believe that the direction of the show would all be understood, if I just gave it a chance.     

Please bear with me as I speak at length about Melanie and Derwin.  They are (were) the main characters of the show but will not be returning for the 6^th season.  I feel as though this warrants a lengthy commentary.

When Tia Mowry tweeted that she would not be returning for Season 6 of The Game, I did not immediately accept it until Pooch Hall followed with a tweet that he also would not be returning.  For fans of the game, Derwin and Melanie’s relationship was the cornerstone of our support.  True to most relationships, their life choices always created the perfect dramatic (sometimes overly dramatic) story keeping viewers in constant question of whether or not they would ever “get it right” or “have a happy ending”.  If there was one thing you could count on with Melanie and Derwin, it was that something bad was going to happen at the end of each season but their love would always prevail by the beginning of the next.  Often, I was personally annoyed, by a constant representation of this black woman who “chose” a football wife lifestyle by dropping out of medical school to travel to San Diego with her then boyfriend, eventual husband but never seemed satisfied in the choice she had made.  Ironically, not only would the director stay true to her story line but would be the eventual reason or explanation for their season ending departure.  As a successful black female, I was always concerned about this depiction of another black woman who could not be satisfied with the success of her man and choosing her personal goals over her family.  Because I have never done an empirical study on whether or not this consistent message is a fact, of not just Black women but often professional women in general, I cannot dispute the claims.  My personal opinion is that a women’s life choices are far more complicated than those depicted on the show and more often than not a women will figure out a way to not only make her dreams come true but support her man along the way.  Why?  Because we are superwomen and have the audacity to believe that you really can have it all.  Though seemingly destructive, the most positive message these characters sent was that true love conquers all.  It took Derwin 5 seasons to agree with Melaine’s claim that her previous sacrifices warranted a consideration to put her needs first, for once.  Hopefully, this will be how people remember their relationship most.  That love is about negotiations and compromises!   

One of the most challenging things to support this season was the significant shifts in blatantly racist and sexist dialogue.  While season after season, Kelly (Brittany Daniel) and Tasha (Wendy Robinson) would trade black girl vs. white girl comments, never before were they as demeaning to black women as this season.  I would like to believe that this overemphasis was to draw more attention to the Tasha Mack, successful but insecure story line.  Overall, I would like to challenge the writers to be more creative in sending this message.  Many of the comments were unnecessary, offensive, and perpetuated the “angry/bitter black women” narrative.  I am neither angry nor bitter and neither are any of the Black women I know.  The self-esteem and relationship issues that Black women have is a very serious issue.  They should be addressed in a more comprehensive and less stereotypical manner.      

           

The most surprising shift to most was the introduction of the character, Chardonnay Jenkins (Brandy Norwood).  It was not a surprise that the show would add a character that could compliment the popular “ghettoized” Tasha Mack personality, but that she would not be paired with Tasha Mack at all.  In fact, she was written into the script to become the new love interest of Jason Pitts (Coby Bell), who for 4 seasons was not only married to a white women but consistently argued against ever dating a black women, specifically for all the reasons Chardonnay was an odd love connection for him.  Interestingly, the writers chose to bring the two together by a “drunken” Mexican marriage as if the only way a black man can learn to see past his stereotypical ideas about black women is by accident.  In the end, not only does Chardonnay totally alter Jason’s perception of black people, she helps him to accept his own blackness.  More significantly, the financial constraints he put on his white wife which caused their eventual divorce, would be the thing that would develop a partnership between he and his new black wife.  The reason this is not so difficult for me to accept however, is because Coby Bell has been happily married to his real life black wife for years in which they have four children together.  We could of course go into a lengthy discussion of the inaccurate perception that Black athletes only marry white women, but we can save that for another blog.      

           Last but certainly not least is the infamous Malik Wright.  Season after season we watched his constant battle with trying to love a black woman only to be hurt/betrayed by their love which results in promoting his promiscuous and alcohol additive behavior.  I could dispute this storyline choice, but I will simply save that for hopefully more seasons that are sure to expound upon his reputation and the narrative that when black men really do want a black women they always hurt them in the end.  My short term analysis is that black women are not the cause of the destructive demise of many black men!  I am confident that more than not black men who truly love black women would say that "she holds him down"!   

     

            Why does this matter to the sport sociologist in me?  Because any representation of the black athlete is important to a movement that offers an alternative perspective from the traditional demonization of the black male athlete.  It is rare that we get an opportunity to see what life is like off the field, so when we do, we hope there is an even balance between critism and empowerment.  The popularity of The Game offers a space for humanizing the black athlete, and I hope in seasons to come the writers can present a less stereotypical representation.  However, if an athlete can say that this show is" the closest to what sport is really like", I guess I have to accept maybe they are not myths at all.   

I would really like to know what you would add to my comments.  Please share your thoughts in the comments section.