A Lesson on Kim
Kardashian and Lebron James
I’m sitting some Boutique Diary Sofa, feigning interest in
some Kim Kardashian television show adequately enough to not offend the
sensibilities of this chic-o-stick complexed cutie sitting beside me.
I’m eagerly awaiting the end of this show while mentally
forecasting positions suitable for smashing on such a funny shaped couch, when
a pop-up on the television screen appears.
It read, “Kim Kardashian’s net worth is 65 million dollars.”
The next pop-up read, “She made 28 mil in 2014.”
How in the world can Kim Kardashian, whose only readily
discernible talent is leveraging her exotic looks and impressive hind-parts for
athlete/entertainer and diva consumption, earn 33% more money than what THE
MIAMI HEAT paid LEBRON JAMES in 2014?
One phrase, Free-Market Capitalism!
Kim K, like Lebron is a physical abnormality. Like Lebron,
Kim has legions of adoring fans. Unlike Lebron, Kim can charge the apex of what
the market demands for her…. services?
See, when Kim’s shows rate well or when her photos “Break
the Internet” she simply ups her fees and quotes and her industry cuts the
check. When Lebron wins two NBA championships and four MVP awards BY THE AGE OF
28, the powers that be in his industry cry broke and lament that his salary is
unsustainable.
And remarkably, fans agree!
Simply Playing a Game
with God Given Talent
To a lot of sports fan, and by that I mostly mean white
people, Lebron a just playing a game with the gifts bestowed to him by God.
Nevermind him being one of the greatest outliers in sports history; nevermind
the endless hours in the gym and film room perfecting his craft; nevermind the
forfeiture of any semblance of privacy, to sports fans, Lebron’s occupation
amounts to the activities of eight year-old boys and girls displayed in the
average family’s driveway- aided by the blessings of the almighty.
When NBA players and their billionaire owners come to a
financial impasse, fans think, “I’d kill to make eight figures to play a game!”
What they are really saying is, “Be happy you get paid to play basketball
nigger!”
Awe shit, I just played the race card! But did I? Question,
what distinguishes the roughly 500 active NBA players from Fortune 500 CEOs?
They are both outliers to the highest order yet sports fans are overwhelming
proponents of a NBA salary cap while American voters regularly support
politicians who’d die before placing regulations around corporate compensation
and bonus structures.
The logical retort to my argument is Fortune 500 CEOs drive
commerce while NBA players wear tank-tops at work and don tats. Really? When Michael
Jordan was drafted, the average NBA franchise valuation was 22 million dollars.
When Jordan retired in 2003 the average NBA franchise valuation was 294 million
dollars!
During the Lebron era, according to Forbes.com, the average
NBA valuation jumped from 369 million before the 2011 LOCK-OUT to 1.1 BILLION
and in just FOUR short years. If increasing your industry’s value by 298% in
four years isn’t economic stimulus then I’m done.
Meanwhile, during the same span (2011-2015) the average NBA
salary DECREASED from 5.15 million in 2011 to 3.9 million in 2015! Let me reiterate, in a four year span
where NBA franchise valuations grew by 298%, the average NBA player salary
decreased by 24.2%
Yet according to a Business Insider poll, 76% of fans (mostly
white folks) believe NBA players are overpaid.
Why, in a world where start-up CEOs are rock stars, can’t
the dominant culture recognize the economic value of NBA athletes? I say white
folks because I frequent sports message boards and comment sections on the daily,
if not hourly, and the vastly superior amount of negative refrain regarding
athlete salaries come from Caucasian fans. I don’t have the time to survey the
responses of commenters but I’d bet the figure from white commenters white
negative views of NBA player salaries is higher than 76%.
But why? Why in a country where free-market capitalism
principals are the cornerstone of our daily existence do fans, mostly white, so
fervently express disdain for NBA salaries?
Wages of Whiteness
In an examination of working-class racism in the formative
years of the United States, David R. Roediger described an environment largely
omitted in the history of U.S. of labor conditions but wholly applicable today.
Back in the colonial days of the New World, prior to fully implemented chattel
slavery, European and African servants worked hand-in-hand bondage. There were
revolts and general unrest among the European and African servants.
Vastly, outnumbered, the colonial proprietors gambled that
they could appeal to the white skin of the European servants in an effort to
quell the labor uprisings. They painted the African servant as a beast and a
heathen and the white servant as simply as a man down on his luck. Without the
right to vote, nor own land, colonial aristocracy was able to sale to European
servants the fallacy that their white skin amounted solidarity with the aristocracy
and thus made them superior to their African peers.
The same thing occurs every time athletes and their leagues
come to a financial impasse. The owners cry broke and the fans side with them.
As a labor force, pro-athletes have more in common with fans than what fans
have in common with billionaire sports franchise owners.
Sports franchise owners, fueled by the American legacy of
white privilege, have created a make-believe bridge of commonality with the
white sports fan. The white fan rationalizes a false sense of solidarity
through skin color. They think, “That’s my American Dream.” When they, through
similarity in skin color, side with franchise owners, sports fans are
expressing a displaced fantasy where they put the athletes in their place.
But when the fantasy ends, athletes are poorer and ticket but
merchandise prices are higher.
The owners are the only beneficiaries.
No comments:
Post a Comment