Body + Sport – The Black 90s

O.J. Simpson

On October 3, 1995 Orenthal James Simpson (O.J.) was found “not guilty” of the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman after only four hours of deliberation. The response from the American people was split. Many white audiences stared in shock and disbelief while black audiences cheered and celebrated the verdict. What was a huge miscarriage of justice to white people felt like vindication and validation to black people. It proved that the LAPD was corrupt and racist towards Black people. But Simpson’s acquittal only benefitted Simpson and did nothing for relations between the Black community and the LAPD, a community Simpson had erased from his life in pursuit of fame, fortune, and celebrity.

Before Simpson stepped into the spotlight for the murders of Brown and Goldman, he was already a household name. Simpson first found fame as a college running back at the University of Southern California.[1] An NCAA record breaker and a Heisman Trophy winner, Simpson shined as the darling of USC football. He later went on to play professional football with the Buffalo Bills and the San Francisco 49ers, breaking records along the way. During his time in professional football, Simpson became the spokesman for Hertz, the rental car service, and Chevrolet which bolstered his rise to fame. Simpson retired from football in 1979 to pursue other career options.

Simpson’s time in the national spotlight came during the Civil Rights Movement. However, Simpson made sure to stay far from racial conflict. Simpson not only declined to take a stand, he claimed ignorance to the racial upheaval around him. In an interview, when a reporter asks Simpson about the 1968 Summer Olympics boycott, he had “no comment.”[2] Simpson endeavored to live his life colorless, erasing his blackness and just being allowed to live as a man. In Ezra Edelman’s documentary O.J.: Made in America, a friend comments that Simpson was “seduced by white society.” This erasure of color from Simpson’s life meant that he could be palatable to the white world he wanted to take part in. In a commercial for Hertz, Simpson was depicted running through the airport, surrounded by white people cheering him on.[2] Much of Simpson’s adult life mirrored this Hertz commercial. For many of the white people in Simpson’s life, he was one of the few black people they knew, and they were all rooting for him. Simpson had been completely immersed in the world of whiteness, leaving his blackness behind. So, how did Simpson come to symbolize the struggle of Black America during his murder trial?

Two years before the murders and Simpson’s trial captured national attention, the eyes of the world were rivetted on Los Angeles awaiting the verdict of the LAPD cops responsible for the Rodney King beating. King’s beating was caught on camera and the cry for justice could not be ignored. The abuse the LAPD heaped on the Black community had been documented and reported for decades and had gone unanswered. Many believed that though the King beating was unfortunate because it was recorded and shared with the world, there would finally be justice for a community terrorized by the LAPD. The resulting ‘not guilty’ verdict shocked and angered many. The Black community raged at the blatant miscarriage of justice and took to the streets spawning riots that would last four days. The violence was not a response to just the King verdict; it had been brewing for decades. The L.A. riot may have been cathartic, but it was not justice. The LAPD and racial inequality still won.

Though Simpson had abandoned the black community, for many represented the height of success for a black man. Simpson’s football prowess rocketed him to the wealth and power black men rarely see, especially a black man coming up from poverty and government housing. Simpson may have tried to erase his blackness, but for black people he was a role model and something to reach for. Even black people understood that Simpson’s acceptance by a white audience was responsible for his status. Simpson had made it despite being a black man in white America. When Simpson was arrested for the murders of Brown and Goldman, much of black America was ready to root for him.

With the “Dream Team” consisting of Johnny Cochran, Robert Shapiro, F. Lee Bailey and a few other high-powered attorneys at his side, the trial began in January 1995. Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden were the District Attorneys prosecuting the case and built a case on the evidence collected at the crime scene and Simpson’s estate. But it was not enough. The world watched as Cochran and the Dream Team presented a defense that alleged mishandling of evidence and mishandling of evidence by the prosecution’s star witness, Mark Fuhrman. A trial that should have been about the science quickly turned into one about race and the history injustice and racism by the LAPD against black people. Johnnie Cochran spent the next year reconstructing O.J.’s blackness and building him as a symbol of racial injustice. Even though Simpson had not concerned himself with being Black in America, Black people rallied around him when it appeared he was being railroaded by the LAPD. While race was not the only reason the prosecution lost its case, it was the most defining. In a poll by the L.A. Times, 65% of whites believed Simpson was guilty, but 77% of blacks believed he was innocent.[3] In an interview for Edelman’s documentary, juror Carrie Bess asserts that Simpson’s acquittal was payback for the Rodney King beating and acquittal, but another juror denies this instead saying the prosecution lost the case because it was weak. But maybe it was a bit of both.

–– A. Latson

[1]https://www.biography.com/people/oj-simpson-9484729

[2]Edelman, Ezra. O.J.: Made in America.

[3]Decker, Cathleen. “THE TIMES POLL: Most in County Disagree with Simpson Verdicts.” Los Angeles Times. 8 October 1995.

Georgetown Basketball: The Black Team of the 90’s

Barring the integration of the NCAA in the late 1940’s, the 1990’s marked one of the most transformative periods for college basketball. Never before had teams and individual players set so many trends, both on and off the court. The emergence and high utilization of the newly formed three point line, fast breaking teams regularly scoring well over 100 points, and high profile recruiting camps for high school prospects caused the game to be played in a more fluid way. Players were becoming more individually skilled and discovered at increasingly younger ages. From a fashion and cultural perspective, the prevalence of baggy t-shirts under jerseys, the Michigan “Fab 5” wearing black shoes and black socks, and the emergence of long shorts showed that college players were starting trends that carried over into the mainstream. During 90’s, there was one team that stood out the most. Georgetown University Men’s Basketball did not win any championships in the 90’s.[1] How could a team without any hardware make such an impact? Sporting a hard nosed, in-your-face-style of play, trendsetting, edgy players, and a giant of a coach, Georgetown came to define the transformative era that was 90’s college basketball.[2]

In the context of the African American experience in the 1990’s, it’s worth noting that Georgetown is not an HCBU. Given the majority white demographics of the school, the team was mostly African American in the 1990’s, and John Thompson Jr. is an African American coach. Upon arrival at Georgetown in the late 1970’s, Thompson endured racial slurs thrown at him by disgruntled alumni and was thought to be an ineffective coach due to the color of his skin.[3] Thompson worked hard to prove everyone wrong. The 1980’s brought a national championship and a 96% graduation rating of his players. Viewed by his players as more of a father figure than a basketball coach, his style was domineering and controlling. He limited player interactions with the media and kept close tabs on his team on road trips. This style wasn’t limited to his players. Coach Thompson was known to suspend himself for games if the team’s grade point average was not above the NCAA average.[4] This emphasis on player development and off-the-court accountability was counter to the emerging NCAA recruiting scandals of the late 1980’s and 1990’s. With recent announcement of an FBI an investigation into some of the top “blueblood” basketball programs for paying off players and other forms of corruption, this continues to plague the NCAA to this day.[5]

Georgetown’s snarling Hoya bulldog logo was trademarked by the University in the mid-1980’s, and Georgetown basketball started to emerge as one of the first brands in college sports. [6] By the early 1990’s Georgetown basketball apparel was regularly outselling power football conference brands.[7] Georgetown Starter jackets and jerseys became wildly popular across the United States. The team was especially resonant with black America. The team was all-black, had a black coach, and played in a majority black-ran city (with a black mayor).[8] Washington D.C. had been called “The Chocolate City” for some time, and what was previously a predominantly white team full of former parochial league players gave way to a majority-black team with some players who came from single-parent households, disadvantaged neighborhoods, and junior colleges.[9] Georgetown went from having a small and regional following to having the aura of a national professional sports team.[10]

The arrival of a recruit from Bethel High School in Hampton, Virginia marked Georgetown’s most successful period the 1990’s. Allen Iverson was fresh off of an overturned conviction stemming from a bowling alley brawl and made an immediate impact on the court. Iverson averaged over 20 points a game his freshman season and was named Big East Conference Rookie of the Year. The Georgetown uniforms during Iverson’s career at the school featured Kente cloth pattern on the side of the jersey and shorts. This symbol of African pride was a nod to the team’s roots. The Kente cloth originated in the Ashanti Kingdom and was adopted by other West African countries; the pattern was considered to be the cloth of kings.[11] To complement their jerseys, the team wore Air Jordan XII Concords; to this day they are among the most coveted Air Jordan sneaker. Fans loved their uniforms but most appreciated Iverson’s scrappy and tenacious play. An undersized player, he played both the point and shooting guard positions. His size did not matter—he possessed a 41 inch vertical leap and led the Big East in steals. His signature crossover dribble became legendary and young players across the country began to emulate the move.[12] Along with Iverson, people appreciated the tough play of Jerome “Junkyard Dog” Williams, Othella Harrington, and Jihadi White—hard-nosed forwards who did not back down from anyone. After two seasons at Georgetown, Iverson became the first Georgetown player under John Thompson Jr. to leave early for the NBA Draft.[13]

Iverson’s departure from Georgetown marked the start of the decline of Georgetown basketball in the 1990’s. Despite winning a regular season conference title the year after he left, the Hoyas lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament. As progressive as Coach Thompson had been to let his team celebrate their black roots and embrace their culture, Georgetown did not progress in terms of basketball. Teams were becoming more adept at three point shooting and were able to handle full court pressure. Being bigger and quicker than most teams was not as effective as it was in the past.[14] Coach Thompson subsequently retired in 1999, citing difficulties in his marriage. The school’s licensing revenues fell out of the top 50 in recent years.[15] The late 2000’s offered a glimmer of hope for a return to national prominence. Using a non-traditional, slowed down Princeton-style offense, Thompson’s son, John Thompson III, led the team to a Final Four in 2007. Thompson III found trouble duplicating that success and was ultimately removed from the head coaching job in 2017. The recent hire of Patrick Ewing, an NBA Hall of Famer and member of the 1984 National Championship team, has excited the fan base and hopes are high to get the team back to Thompson Jr.’s glory days. Basketball aside, it will be hard to top the impact that the 90’s Georgetown team made on a campus, city, and national level.—Jeff Brown

[1] They came close: an NIT runner-up in 1993, and a trip the Sweet Sixteen in 1994, and an Elite Eight in 1996. Thompson won his only championship at Georgetown in 1984. Georgetown also made a postseason tournament every year Thompson coached in the 1990’s.

[2] “Black History Month: Remember When the Georgetown Hoyas Wore Kente Cloth?” The Sports Fan Journal, February 16, 2016, http://www.thesportsfanjournal.com/sports/basketball/black-history-month-remember-georgetown-hoyas-wore-kente-cloth/. Coach John Thompson Jr. is listed at six feet, ten inches tall. Before he became a coach, he was an All American center at Providence College in the 1960’s. He also had a renowned temper and was known to lash out at his players and the media.

[3] Bruce Lowitt and Ira Rosenfeld, “John Thompson: A firm hand at the helm,” The Free Lance-Star, March 16, 1985, 11-12. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=uOJLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9osDAAAAIBAJ&pg=800,2451944&hl=en.

[4] Rosenfeld, “Thompson,” 11.

[5] Marc Tracy, “N.C.A.A. Coaches, Adidas Executive Face Charges; Pitino’s Program Implicated,” The New York Times, September 26, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/sports/ncaa-adidas-bribery.html.

[6]Mike Debonis, “The World’s Most Dangerous Basketball Team,” Slate, March 29, 2007. http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2007/03/the_worlds_most_dangerous_basketball_team.html.

[7] Debonis, “Dangerous.”

[8] Debonis, “Dangerous.” Marion Barry was the mayor from 1979-1991 and 1995-1999. Other successful African Americans like Kweisi Mfume and Elijah Cummings held admirable positions in the DMV area.

[9] Sports Fan Journal, “Black.”

[10] The inconsistency of the 1990’s Baltimore Bullets/Washington Wizards made the popularity of Georgetown basketball even greater.

[11] Sports Fan Journal, “Black.”

[12] Iverson used the crossover move on Michael Jordan in his rookie season to cement himself as one of the league’s most exciting and up-and-coming players.

[13] Paolo B. Santamaria, “Allen Iverson Reflects Georgetown Values,” The Hoya, September 16, 2016. http://www.thehoya.com/mens-basketball-allen-iverson-reflects-georgetown-values/.

[14] Iverson was certainly undersized at 6’0”, but Thompson was renowned for recruiting strong, 6’10” plus forwards (e.g. Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Morning, Dikembe Mutumbo).

[15] Debonis, “Dangerous.”

Venus and Serena Williams: From Compton to the Courts

With big smiles and several tiny braids adorned with colorful beads, the Williams sisters arrived on the tennis courts that never saw them coming. Legend (and a snippet from an E! True Hollywood Story) has it that their father Richard, who worked security before the sisters were born, once watched the winner of a women’s tennis match collect a check for more money than he’d ever made and prophesied his future daughters’ domination of the tennis world. He trained them on courts near their home in Compton, California – the same hood where those O.G.s of Gangsta Rap, Dr. Dre and Snoop, put both their raps and their macks down.

But, well, back to the lecture at hand.

Serena, Venus, and their five siblings were raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses in a part of Compton that didn’t make it to music videos: the wholly unglamorous one-story homes with picket fences surrounding small backyards. The Williams family led a fairly routine, “normal” life which included several hours of early morning tennis practice followed by home-school lessons. In a brazen move, while affluent parents sought expensive and exclusive lessons for their future tennis champions, Mr. Williams initially coached the girls himself after teaching himself the game via instructional videos. This tension between the carefully crafted game of prestige and the scrappy, can-do attitude of the Williamses played out in myriad ways, some nuanced and some blatant.

The Williams Sisters – Their Rise to Fame

Williams continued to coach the girls, only sending the girls to Brentwood coaches and tennis academies every now and then, and he boldly chose to keep his daughters out of the junior tennis circuits, where products of elite training schools competed for press and notoriety. The Williams Sisters’ sudden appearance on the courts seemed to shock the country club crowd that didn’t seem previously exposed to such… diversity.

They were viewed by some as disrespectful disturbers of the tennis circuit’s norms. Their powerful strength game visibly differed from the precision and speed game the beiger players had meticulously cultivated, and their absence from the prep schools and junior tournaments appeared to confirm their lack of “proper” training and etiquette.

Several platforms sustained efforts to subtly critique sisters’ background, family bond, dress/hair style, athletic strength. The intense media surveillance of them almost seemed determined to “keep an eye” on what was considered a threat. The media tried to downplay the sisters’ major achievements, their contributions to the black community, and their obvious inherent talent. But neither Venus nor Serena made an effort to hide signifiers of black culture and style, like braids, or their cultivation of outside interests, and the black community often voiced praise of the young women who had already broken barriers just by stepping onto those courts and appearing in the news articles which noted black talent, black excellence, and just overall black girl magic.

Even as they faced criticism from their peers for being aloof and daring to pursue educations, they quickly caught Corporate America’s attention and signed lucrative endorsement deals, one with Reebok for $12,000, 000 over five years.

The family continued on The Glow Up (that Concept Formerly Known as The American Dream): Venus was representing international brand, they bought a mansion in Florida with its own tennis courts, and the girls started to attend a noteworthy private school. The Williams were following the footsteps of Althea Gibson, who was the only African-American woman to win a Grand Slam title before Venus and Serena basically won the 90’s – they won their first Doubles title in 1998 and the U.S. Open Doubles title in 1999, the same year Serena defeated longtime champion Martina Hingis to win the U.S. Open Grand Slam. Their international tennis rankings skyrocketed; their investments of time and hard work were finally paying off, and they would eventually continue on to win the 00’s. But performing on a larger stage brought even more visible racist sentiments to the forefront.

Serena, in particular, was routinely attacked for qualities white culture has often attributed to black women. In the 1800s, Saartjie Baartman (“Hottentot Venus”), a South African woman, was brought to London in 1810 as a symbol of racial difference (and the supposed superiority of white beauty) and placed in a circus display alongside conjoined twins, dwarfs, and other alleged “deviants.”

“… Hottentot was assigned the role of a creature bridging human and animal realms” (Strother, 4).

According to their father, the Williams sisters were trained to be “warriors,” “attack dogs.” But the media and several tennis enthusiasts ridiculed and chastised them for their “beast-like” physical appearances, “lewd” athletic wear, and “angry” outbursts. They tended to characterize Serena and Venus using some of the most common stereotypes of black women: overly sexualized women (who chose to wear outfits they liked whether or not those clothes highlighted physical features that tennis viewers were not used to seeing) and angry black women (who dared to express basic human emotions like frustration without wearing a mask to protect the “delicate” sensibilities of an audience famous for its dignified silence and barely audible clapping).

During the 1997 U.S. Open Women’s Singles Semi-Final match between an unseeded Venus and an 11^th-seeded Irina Spirlea, both players bumped into each other as they customarily switched sides during a changeover. Williams said neither of them were looking where they were going; Spirlea said she expected Venus to move out of the way.

Venus Williams_Irina Spirlea US Open “Bump”

“She’s not going to turn … I’ve done it all the time, I turn. But she just walks. I wanted to see if she was going to turn. She didn’t.” – Irina Spirlea (This is the clean version of the quote. Make your best guess for which obscenity she used to describe Venus.)

Such inane controversies were veiled attempts to subdue the sisters who would routinely take long breaks from the game, only to come back stronger and more determined to embarrass those who underestimated them.

Venus and Serena continue to raise questions about what it means to be feminine, beautiful, strong, black, successful, wealthy, and sisters; despite their numerous successes, they also unfortunately still encounter racism, forcing them to boycott tournaments and defend themselves when they choose to finally fight back. Their eagerly and bitterly watched debut in the 90’s served as a harsh reminder that the black athleticism which white audiences celebrated on basketball courts and football fields did not translate to women’s sports, especially one which still requires its players to dress in all white for certain tournaments. But their exuberance in play and dignity in the face of charged attacks and elitist snubbing also won them many fans who finally saw themselves represented in uncharted territory.

— Radhika Nataraj

Works Cited

Alexander, Rachel. “Open Final Lands on Venus.” Washington Post, 6 Sept. 1997, p. B1.
Bass-Adams, Valerie N., Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards, Howard C. Stevenson. “That Not the Me I see on TV…! African American Youth Interpret Media Images of Black Females.” Women, Gender, and Families of Color, vol. 2, no. 1, 2014, pp. 79-100.
Douglas, Delia. “Venus, Serena, and the Inconspicuous Consumption of Blackness: A Commentary on Surveillance, Race Talk, and New Racism(s).” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 43, no. 2, 2012, pp. 127-45.
Hobson, Janell. “The ‘Batty’ Politic: Toward an Aesthetic of the Black Female Body.” Hypatia, vol. 18, no. 4, 2003, pp. 87-105.
Strother, Z.S. “Display of the body Hottentot.” Africans on Stage, Indiana UP, 1999, pp. 1-
Wright, Joshua. “Be Like Mike? The Black Athlete’s Dilemma.” Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men, vol. 4, no. 2, 2016, pp. 1-19.

Tiger Woods Wins The 1997 Masters

On April 13, 1997, 21-year-old Tiger Woods became the first person of African and Asian decent to win the golf Masters at Augusta National in Georgia. The win was a pivotal moment in history for African Americans. The race finally received well-deserved recognition in the sport. For years, African American golfers were overshadowed by other white competitors. Under the racist policy of America’s lynching, financial oppression, and other acts of hatred, Black men carried their golf game on. Some like Charlie Sifford and Lee Elder went on to stellar careers and became well known. But many others such as Teddy Rhodes, James Black, Bill Spiller, Nathaniel Starks, and Joe Roach never got that opportunity.

Not only did Tiger Woods win the Masters, but he also broke a record by scoring the lowest in the tournament’s history. Woods’s 72-hole score, an amazing 18-under-par 270, was the lowest in the tournament history and shattered a record of 271 shared by Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd. After the win, African Americans were extremely proud of the athlete and his success in the sport; however, the celebration by fellow professional golfers was short lived. Long time PGA tour golfer Fuzzy Zoeller was asked on his feelings about Woods having such a record breaking tournament. Zoeller acknowledged Woods’ stellar tournament, calling his play “pretty impressive,” but quickly retorted, “The little boy is driving it well is doing everything it takes to win…tell him to enjoy it, and to not serve fried chicken next year…or collard greens, or whatever they serve.” Zoeller was referring to the Masters dinner, held each year on the Wednesday before the tournament. The year’s previous winner gets to decide the menu. Playing on tired and hateful stereotypes to make a cheap joke landed Zoeller in hot water. Woods ultimately forgave Zoeller, but it was obvious that golf (and the Masters Tournament) had deep issues with race. Even until the 1980’s one of Augusta National’s founders insisted that the caddies were only to be African American. It took an African American winner to for that ugly past and its enduring legacy to be confronted. It’s still being confronted, too. Sergio Garcia made a similar “fried chicken” comment regarding Tiger in 2012 (Nixon).

On April 24, 1997, a post-Masters interview between Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfrey aired and caused many African Americans to see their golf champion in a different light. During the interview, Winfrey asked Woods, “What do you call yourself?” Tiger answered: “Growing up, I came up with this name: I’m a Cablinasian.” Tiger Woods continued by explaining his multi-racial background saying how he is a mix of half Asian (Chinese and Thai), one-quarter African American, one-eighth Native American and one-eighth Dutch.

tigerwoodsfamily — Woods with his mother and father

As stated previously, Tiger Woods’s claim of “Cablinasian” descent outraged many African Americans. Some even referred to him as a “sell-out.” Many would agree that the one-drop rule should be applied to Tiger’s situation, however, some have argued that Tiger Woods should not have to deny more than half his racial ethnicity to please black America. Woods was certainly aware of his ethnicity in 1997 and continued to be throughout his career and even today. He isn’t disowning Blackness by combining it with Asian and Caucasian. (Though it’s certainly worth an examination of the order of ethnicity in “Cablinasian”). An NAACP board member at the time, Julian Bond, countered the backlash of the Oprah Winfrey interview with saying, “As proud as I am of Tiger Woods, I realize I have to share him. He is part of a new reality. If people don’t feel comfortable with that, they are going to have to get comfortable with it”(Fletcher).

In light of the scandal that culminated in his divorce from his wife and a stint at a rehabilitation center, it’s worth reexamining Woods’ impact on golf. He hasn’t won a major since 2008, yet is considered one of the most popular golfers on the tour. His comments regarding race were met with angst from some white and black people, but has Woods’ enduring popularity and skill allowed him to transcend race? He certainly has the earnings to do so, earning hundreds of millions of dollars since his 1997 Masters win. He never has attempted to “cancel his blackness”; Woods could have let Sergio Garcia’s fried chicken comment slide, but instead, he addressed it by saying, “The comment that was made wasn’t silly,” and categorized it as “wrong, hurtful, and inappropriate” (Nixon). Woods never tried to downplay his blackness by fully addressing hate speech. If anything, Woods is trying to be more inclusive by representing the multiple ethnicity’s he identifies with. Perhaps that is why Woods continues to appeal to a diverse crowd of people.

—Jamari Devine, edited by Jeff Brown

http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/african-americans-and-golf-brief-history

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tiger-woods-wins-his-first-masters

Fletcher, Michael. “Tiger Woods Says He’s Not Just Black,” The Seattle Times. April 23, 1997. http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19970423&slug=2535313

Nixon, Khari, “TIGER WOODS NEVER SAID HE WASN’T BLACK,” Mass Appeal, May 31, 2017. https://massappeal.com/tiger-woods-never-said-wasnt-black/.

We Got Next: The 1997 WNBA Inaugural Season

The first 8 WNBA teams: he Charlotte Sting, Cleveland Rockers, Houston Comets and New York Liberty in the Eastern Conference; and the Los Angeles Sparks, Phoenix Mercury, Sacramento Monarchs and Utah Starzz

In 1996, the NBA Board of Governors gave official approval for the foundation of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA)¹. On t
he heels of the United States women’s basketball team sweeping the 1996 Olympic Games, the league adopted “We got next” as its official campaign slogan. For those who are unfamiliar, “We got next” is a phrase originating on streetball courts that translates to, “Hey, when you’re done, it’s our turn.” While there were critics of the slogan, even if it was not as empowering as hoped, it was fitting. After years of playing in the shadows of their male counterparts and having to travel overseas to pursue professional athletics careers, it was finally time for the best American female basketball players to take the court at home.

In the WNBA’s opening year, Sheryl Swoopes was the first player signed, Tina Thompson was the first ever draft pick, and Cynthia Cooper was the first league MVP. However, perhaps more important than these accolades, young black girls (like me) who dedicated their evenings and weekends to hooping had new possibilities, new role models. By all means, I still wanted to break ankles like Allen Iverson, but I could see myself in Tina Thompson; I could be Tina Thompson (I bought her basketball shoes in 7^th grade to prove it). Young boys had been able to dream of playing professional basketball for 50 years, and young girls could finally do the same.

Arguably the most widely recognized WNBA player, Lisa Leslie was among those who played in the 1997 opening season; she led the league in rebounds per game that year, and is the all-time leading rebounder.² Speaking on her influence, Michael Cooper, Leslie’s former coach, wrote, “After Lisa, young girls wanted to be centers. A lot of ladies didn’t want to play center at the time because they wanted to be guards like Sheryl Swoopes and Tina Thompson. Lisa was down in the trenches, and that’s not considered a glamorous game.”³ Standing at 6’5”, Leslie was a forced to be reckoned with. On July 30, 2002, she became the first of only five women to dunk in the history of the WNBA—all of whom are black.⁴ It would be four years before another WNBA player would accomplish the feat. Doing the seemingly impossible, Leslie embodied the WNBA’s new slogan “We got game.” She helped carve a space that she would eventually use to reach new heights—a space where young girls could dream of touching the rim. —Mara Johnson

http://www.wnba.com/about_us/historyof_wnba.html
http://www.wnba.com/stats/alltime-leaders/#?stattype=rebounds&sort=reb&permode=tot&dir=1
Cooper, Michael. “There’s Only One Lisa Leslie.” The Players’ Tribune. The Players’ Tribune, 10 Sept. 2015. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.
http://www.wnba.com/history_triple-doubles-dunks-and-20-20-games/

41 Shots…and Many Shots Later: The Police killing of Amadou Diallo and its Aftermath

On February 4, 1999, four NYPD officers gunned down Amadou Diallo, a 22-year-old Guinean immigrant, just outside his apartment complex in the Bronx. Diallo was shot at 41 times; 19 bullets struck him directly. The four officers-Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Kenneth Boss, and Edward McMellon–were charged with second-degree murder and acquitted.

The events surrounding Diallo’s death incited outrage in the community, for it raised already boiling concerns regarding police brutality, racial profiling, and the criminalization of black men. That night, the officers began to trail Diallo, who was then approaching his home, believing that he matched the description of an at-large rapist. After the police identified themselves, Diallo began to run towards his home, and reportedly withdrew his wallet from his jacket pocket. Then, the four officers, at Carroll’s signal, opened fire, supposedly mistaking Diallo’s wallet for a gun. Despite the officer’s fatal assumptions, Diallo was innocent and unarmed. He had no previous criminal record.

tumblr_nj9ckdiOJB1sicpmpo1_400

In many ways, the shooting of Amadou Diallo harks back to the brutal beating of Rodney King. A couple details of King and Diallo’s cases are strikingly and hauntingly similar. Like with King, the violation of Diallo’s person, and subsequent snatching of his life, resultedfrom unfair suspicion and racial bias. Also, both trials were moved to cities outside the one in which the crimes took place. In both cases, this was decided under the guise that saturated publicity proved unconducive to a fair trial. Both changes of venue were to more suburban, affluent areas (in Diallo’s case, Albany, NY, and in King’s, Simi Valley), areas from which the jury members were drawn. These details, among countless others, comprise a complex, tightly woven thread linking the majority cases of police brutality that both predate the 90s and extend into the 21st-century.

Diallo’s death also preludes many of the incidents of police brutality and racial profiling in minority communities today. It is eerily coincidental that this shooting took place at the end of the 90s and kick-started a series of conversations and policies addressing boiling concerns of police brutality, racial profiling, and the criminalization of black men. Many people, from constituents to politicians, urged law enforcement to examine police training policies that informed racial bias by their very design. At the time, outrage was expressed, notably from Diallo’s mom, Kadi Diallo, over depictions of her son via mainstream media. The sweet, peaceful family man and budding business owner, as family and friends alike knew him, had been reduced to an “African street peddler.” Similar methods of character assassination and distortion are evident in the cases of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown,and Tamir Rice–sadly, among many, many other unarmed black boys, men, women, and girls senselessly killed by police.

Amadou_Diallo_Funeralpic
With regards to policy, Diallo’s death, as well as an incident where Ol’ Dirty Bastard of Wu-Tang Clan was fired at by cops who supposedly mistook his phone for a gun, led to the disbandment of the Street Crime Unit in 2002. Unfortunately, police officers no longer need to be disguised to unnecessarily apprehend black women and men. And sadly, these same killings are occurring in 2015 at a seemingly exacerbated rate.

Diallo’s death resulted in an impressive outpouring of artistic tributes and responses. Dwayne Rodgers, an independent artist living in Brooklyn at the time, took the widely circulated photo of Diallo’s casket during the funeral procession. At the time, he was also working on a photo series addressing incidents of police brutality. Musically, from Wyclef Jean’s “Diallo” to Lauryn Hill’s “I Find it Hard to Say (Rebel) to Erykah Badu’s “A.D. 2000”, many artists expressed both intense rage and gut-wrenching grief over Diallo’s senseless death. With the prevalence of social media today, responses to police brutality come from every corner of the world. Musically, there are responses (e.g. Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright”), but many have also taken to the internet to purge their personal grief, sadness, and anger, and to rally around movements with goals of eradicating police brutality (e.g. Black Lives Matter). —Keith Freeman

Works Cited

[The title of the entry is a spin on the title of Beth Roy’s book, 41 Shots…and Counting: What Amadou Diallo’s Story Teaches Us About Policing, Race, and Justice.]

Naomi. “The Amadou Diallo Shooting.” Online video clip. YouTube. Youtube, 22 Apr. 2006. Web. 12 November 2015.

Susman, Tina. “Before Ferguson: Deaths of other black men at hands of police.” Los Angeles Times. 13 August 2014. Web. 12 November 2015.

The Allen Iverson Era

“I thought that once this day came, it would be basically a tragic day. I never imagined the day coming, but I knew it would come and I feel proud and happy to say that I am happy with my decision.” These particular words were spoken in the year of 2013 from a basketball legend by the name of Allen Iverson. With tears in his eyes and his children by his side, Iverson announced to the world that he had officially decided to retire from the game of basketball. The man that had once been able to fill thousands of seats with fans intrigued by his very unique playing style had now come to the realization that his NBA career was over. As millions of viewers tuned into ESPN to hear his retirement announcement, there were constant status updates on social media websites expressing their sadness to hear arguably one of the best NBA players from the 90s say his final goodbyes to his fans.

Drafted first overall pick by the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1996 NBA draft, the Hampton, Virginia native Allen Iverson would change the sport of basketball forever. Spending two years at Georgetown University as a student-athlete, the announcement of his name on draft night was a major deal. Dressed in a grey suit with his mother and friends in attendance, Allen Iverson had risen from the tough streets of Virginia where he was raised by only his mother. Before that night in 1996, the long road of obstacles presented before him had already begun. In 1993, while still in high school, Iverson and his friends at the time were involved in a fight with a group of white patrons at a bowling alley that led to Iverson eventually being charged with hitting a white woman with a chair. After spending four months in prison at the age of 17, Iverson was released and was granted clemency because a lack of evidence. This particular event not only followed Iverson throughout his NBA career, but it also sheds light on some of the racial tension that was brewing during the 90s.

By the time Allen Iverson had played his first NBA game in Philadelphia, he was already starting to become a fan favorite and attracting a lot of attention. His stardom only grew in the year of 1997 when he played against the Chicago Bulls. It is in this particular game that Iverson was able to use his well-known “crossover” move on the great Michael Jordan. Sending Jordan into a state of confusion, Iverson was able to give him a dose of his own medicine with his quick, but “smooth” moves and seemed to send a statement to Jordan that there was a new star in town. This is what many believed to be Iverson’s introduction to legendary status and many have argued that this was the beginning of the end for Michael Jordan. It was not long after his rise to fame that the media began their image attack on Iverson. From family issues to conversations surrounding racial discrimination, the media ran with the personal life of Iverson and ultimately served as an opponent off the court.

What went from his great abilities to play basketball in 1996 quickly transitioned into debates about his appearance and character outside of the game of basketball. Standing approximately 6 feet with designed cornrows and tattoos, Iverson definitely stood out from the rest of the NBA players. His appearance was able to challenge traditional standards and also allowed critics to paint him as a society-created stereotypical black man with sagging pants and rap music blasting through his headphones. Iverson would also walk onto the court with his hair in an afro and headband on while sporting longer basketball shorts. His ownership in his look was able to attract a brand new fan-base while at the same time pissing off white America and older generation African-Americans. Also his own shoe deal with Reebok allowed him to become an entrepreneur outside of basketball and influence a younger generation watching his every “move”.

With the popularity of Hip-Hop growing during the 90s, Allen Iverson was also able to have an influence in that particular arena as well. His released rap song entitled 40 Bars tackled the aspect of sex, drugs, and money. His is able to brag about his lavish lifestyle as a “baller” on this particular track and present a side of him that his fans has never seen before. The media was able to use this particular song created by Iverson in order to justify their judgements of him. From being called a cheater to a thug, the life of Iverson seemed to have transpire out of control. For a young man that had only ever dreamed of playing professional basketball and win a championship ring which he never did, the evils of fame created difficulties for his career. On one hand Allen Iverson just wanted to express himself through basketball and other creativities, but on the other he seemed to never escape the stereotypes placed on black males living America.

The basketball career of Allen Iverson is very unique and important to the black 90s as it relates to black images presented to the world. His lavish spending habits to his public disputes with his wife, often overshadowed the fact that he was actually able to make it to the NBA finals and be an all-star player for consecutive years. Iverson is often blamed for the Hip-Hop culture in the NBA and is said to be the reason the league enforced a strict dress code for NBA players because of Iverson’s rapper image. In the midst of negativity often associated with Iverson, he was one of the best athletes ever. Not many athletes have been able to change an entire sports league and give birth to a new generation of athletes. Iverson was able to take the number 3 which was his jersey number and forever have it mentioned with the great numbers affiliated with sports history. The love/hate relationship with the man that once argued that he did not need to “practice” can still be found today, two years removed from his official retirement announcement. —Andy Reid

Works Cited

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/9839119/allen-iverson-officially-retire-oct-30-sources