The Paris Riots, Terrell Owens, The NBA Dress Code - What's the Connection? Part One

At first glance, the Paris Riots, where 1,300 more cars have been burned on this Saturday alone (and 3,500 total), the suspension of Eagles Wide Receiver Terrell Owens, and the establishment of The NBA Dress Code would seem to have no connection what so ever. But I contend that they are tied together and what relates them should be of alarm to the sports industry.

Some of you will already answer "race" and you're mosly right. But it's more bleak than that. All of these events are the result of a kind of global class war, where the monied white class has either intentionally or institutionally discriminated against the lower classes of color. In the case of Paris, the counter to this has been on going riots by young people, most of color, but many not -- the rampaging shows no signs of reducing in intensity. Indeed, it may be spreading in reaction to the World's attention as expressed via the media.

The young are expressing frustration caused by the white French establishment, which is at times open hostility toward immigrants from Africa and Muslims as well -- in other words the white French have treated blacks inappropriately, and the result has been compared to the social scars revealed by the Katrina Hurricane disaster here in America. It was only a matter of time before the young revolted.

It reminds me, in a way, of the "May Riots" of 1968, where French student youth were protesting what they perceived as oppressive and pro-war French government policy. Where the May Riots were not by people of color, the current riots are, but I think more young Whites will participate over time, and as a way of connecting with the youth of color.

Why?

Remember that Hip Hop Culture has successfully bound together all young people both black, Asian, Latino, White, and so on around the World. This, even though Hip Hop is an African American creation. Remember that the vast majority of consumers of Hip Hop music are not black -- they're white. This phenomenon has meshed the colors together and formed a new social style that has impacted everything from commercials to clothing styles. Hip Hop is an expression of what is really now a global urban culture, thus the same problems experienced in America are also seen in --- France.

This is why the NBA's attempts to curb the advance of Hip Hop Culture with the implementation of the "NBA Dress Code" are totally hilarious and an unintelligent business practice. If it's true that NBA stars wearing the latest Hip Hop clothing styles help "move product" then the NBA's Commissioner David Stern has just taken billions of dollars out of the pocket of his own organization. Those who agree with the dress code seem to want to identify with a kind of upper class view of society that seems to say "Hip Hop is bad and expresses prison culture." Those who advance this view are myopic at best and racist at worst.

Again, Hip Hop is an expression of lower and middle class urban life -- the good, the bad, and the ugly. To the extent that unpleasantries like the prison experience are expressed in music, it's only because those undesirable aspects of life are a large part of the inner city experience. Logically, if we as a society agree that we don't want such "undesirable aspects of life" to be seen, then we should act to reduce their occurence. In other words, our worldwide urban policies have contributed to the development of these places in the city where jobs are scarce and crime is high.

In France, the unemployment rate of the immigrants of color has been reported to be as high as 25 percent. This problem was also true in New Orleans, a city with a majority black population. In London, the organizers of that cities Olympic Bid openly touted that the initiative would reviatalize a poor minority neighborhood -- the website read as if they were reviving the "Negro Removal" objective that was behind some American attempts at urban renewal in the 1960s.

Meanwhile, Hip Hop has creatively taken these social pathologies and spun them into a billion dollar money-making machine. While this fact is undoubtedly not lost on the NBA, they have not fashioned a way to deal with it, because -- I contend -- the collective ability of the NBA to form and use a creative solution is effectively blocked by their own prejudice. As long as that prejudice -- expressed in the Dress Code and in the attempt to limit playing in the NBA to athletes with college educations -- exists, the league will not only fail to make money from the evolving urban culture of which it's a part, it will alienate the very young people it should be trying to court -- excuse the pun.

This is where the money is -- and it's not in the white male audience the NBA thinks it's responsible to. The NBA's illogic can be exposed by asking this question: why are so many retailers trying to capture the attention of the key 18 to 30 year old demographic, and yet, the NBA -- which is essentially a retailer -- seems to be working to draw an older and more conservative demographic that's not shown a desire to buy the latest products and drive cultural change? The NBA can learn from Apple Computer and the iPod. But it needs to open it's eyes and eliminate its prejudice -- and stop trying to control it's players, many of which are black.

It's this silly attempt at control which is driving Terrell Owens crazy. I think "T.O." is a creation of NFL organizations that work more to control what a person does, than monetizing the behavior of that person. (See "T.O. is Good For The NFL") In Owens case, he is an exceptional talent who's almost consistently misused in offensive game plans, yet has the ability to take over a game. To understand Owens, you must know that he comes from a deep South, mostly black background and with his talent, was catapulted into a mostly white culture where blacks are still treated more often than not as second class citizens. He's told to go here, go there, and do this or that. Yet his amazing ability on the field -- and his desire to express himself -- are his only tools to demonstrate the frustration of being "shackled."

The whole constellation of events behind his suspension are silly to me. The man was basically upset that his 100th touchdown catch was not acknoweldged by the Eagles. The situation exploded from there. Also, the Eagles are not winning, and their game plan against Denver was just north of terrible. I am not going to technical details here, but I must take an aside an express my own displeasure with what's becoming a stereotyped style of NFL offense that is not flexible and all too predicatable. The Eagles certainly fall into this problem -- the Colts don't as their system is adjustable.

At any rate, Terrell Owens is popular and his popularity will only increase as he's perceived as anti-establishment at the perfect time where anti-establishment ideas are growing amoung are youth.

The sports establishment is at a critical juncture: it can resist this tide of cultural change fuled by youth anger and expressed in Hip Hop and continue to lose money and fail to captialize on business opportunities (as is the case with the NBA), or it can work to monetize this tide, and at the same time fashion a plan to improve the civic environments from within, thus reducing the pain and suffering of the lower middle classes and insuring a broad base of fan support that will last through this century.