Hatewatch Tweets
Hatewatch is managed by the staff of the Intelligence Report, an investigative magazine published by the Alabama-based civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center.
Monochromatic Basketball: A League of Their Own
To many fans, the National Basketball Association (NBA) features exciting games played by gifted athletes. But most of the players are just so darned, well, black. Now an Atlanta sports entrepreneur named Don “Moose” Lewis has a potential antidote: an all-white professional basketball league.
Lewis hopes to start something called the All-American Basketball Alliance (AABA), with teams based in a dozen cities in the Southeast. Players would have to be natural-born U.S. citizens with two Caucasian parents. More than 80% of NBA players are black, by contrast. Even if NBA phenoms like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Dwayne Wade wanted and were contractually able to leave their respective teams for the AABA, they couldn’t make the grade. All are black.
White NBA superstars Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki — who have three Most Valuable Player awards between them — would be ineligible to compete in the proposed new league, too. Nash was born in South Africa, Nowitzki in Germany.
But it’s blacks, not foreign-born players, who Lewis really takes issue with, denying all the while that racism is the reason. He told the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle — whose hometown he hopes will host a team in his proposed league — that he’s looking to focus on fundamental basketball rather than the “street-ball” played by “people of color.” He mentioned the recent indefinite suspension of Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas after bringing handguns into the team’s locker room as an example of what causes fan disapproval of how current professional sports leagues are run.
“Would you want to go to the game and worry about a player flipping you off or attacking you in the stands or grabbing their crotch?” he said in the newspaper interview. “That’s the culture today, and in a free country we should have the right to move ourselves in a better direction.”
Lewis’ attempt at starting a white basketball league likely will be welcomed by Caste Football. That online entity was established “to see that white athletes are respected for their abilities, and that they receive the same opportunities to succeed as non-white athletes.” Caste Football’s website consists of news about white college and professional athletes and makes the astonishing claim that white players, “no matter how talented,” are directed into certain positions, resulting in few or no whites playing cornerback, tailback, wide receiver and safety in the NFL. Given the constant, intense pressure on college and NFL coaches to win, it’s hard to see why they would eschew talented white players who can help them do so and keep their jobs. The website offers no explanation.
For his part, Lewis’ background suggests that he might be motivated at least as much by profit as race in proposing his whites-only basketball league. He is an Atlanta businessman who has dabbled in other sports ventures, including professional wrestling and boxing. Nor is this his first stab at starting a professional basketball league. In 2001, he formed the American Basketball Alliance, which he hoped would have eight teams in the Southeast — but no racial hoops for players to jump through. In at least one way, Lewis promised an odd form equality for black and white players. He wanted both groups to wear retro 1970s-style uniforms, and said the league would “pay the white guys extra for [wearing] crew cuts, and the blacks guys extra for [wearing] afros.”
The league soon foundered, however, and in 2002 Lewis renamed it the Global Basketball Alliance, promising that fans would witness a “professional basketball event.” In a press release at the time, Lewis said, “Mix in the best of the Harlem Globetrotters, the XFL and its cheerleaders and professional wrestling — and you have the red hot GBA! The GBA offers beautiful and shapely cheerleaders for dad, handsome basketball players for mom, tee shirts and giveaways for the children, the hippest music for the young adults and exciting memories for all who attend.” That venture too was short-lived.
on January 20th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
I don’t really know if the guy is being racist; he may simply be race-baiting in order to get money. He seems more desperate for money than anything else. People will resort to anything as long as there’s a payoff.
As far as Caste Football goes…when I think of football, I think of a bunch of Texas millionaires owning teams and average-american republican guys drinking beer and watching the game every Sunday. I also think of a bunch of pretty-boy college athletes who got by in college based on that alone. And, all of the aforementioned people being WHITE. Call it what you want to, but I don’t see football as a “black sport”.
on January 20th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
What would they call the teams that would play in this league, anyway- the Kansas Klansmen? The Nashville Grand Wizards? The Los Angeles Police Department?
on January 20th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Won’t it be difficult to play the game in those long white robes and pointy hats?
on January 21st, 2010 at 1:11 am
“Players would have to be natural-born U.S. citizens with two Caucasian parents.”
So this means Chechens, Avars, Lezgis, Georgians, Ignushes, Balkars, and Kardins can play? Or perhaps only US-born descendants of such people? That would be a small league indeed.
“Would you want to go to the game and worry about a player flipping you off or attacking you in the stands or grabbing their crotch?” he said in the newspaper interview. “That’s the culture today, and in a free country we should have the right to move ourselves in a better direction.”
I’ve never heard about a fan being attacked in the stands who didn’t work very hard to earn it. Also, one is tempted to ask- is he going to ban those behaviors he is whining about? Or is he just assuming that all these behaviors will be non-existent in a league without black players?
on January 22nd, 2010 at 6:08 am
One of the most entertaining things about america is that idiots like this are free to prove how stupid they are in a public arena for all to see.
on January 22nd, 2010 at 7:09 am
White Boys Can’t Jump.
Sorry, couldn’t resist, but its okay since I’m a white boy)
Seriously, who would pay to see this? It’s a non-starter.
Two words for you Klan Nazi entrepreneurs: Demolition Derby.
Go with what you know.
on January 22nd, 2010 at 7:12 am
Alan said: “What would they call the teams that would play in this league, anyway- the Kansas Klansmen? The Nashville Grand Wizards? The Los Angeles Police Department?”
The “Suffolk County Commissioners”, the league’s new Long Island franchise.
on January 22nd, 2010 at 8:46 am
I absolutely hate these White Racist Thugs. Can’t they understand. WE Won the Election. Its our world . We own the White House and we own the NBA. Its our world now. If they don’t like it they can get in there dam pickup and go back to England.
on January 22nd, 2010 at 9:28 am
I think I smell a WN sockpuppet.
on January 22nd, 2010 at 10:05 am
Hey Furman: What are you so argery about. You guys do own the NBA. Do you think a all white Basketball league would put The4 NBA out of business. Hell No It would be the laughing stock of the country. How many people do you think would pay to see some skinny white kid do his set shot…….. The only thing I know it would do would be to put a couple thousand people to work players ,coaches, league officials, refs, security, arena maintaince and many others. Your Obama Hero hopfully would be glad to see people working. Or maybe we can just set around and hate. Racist? sure but who really cares??????. Damn at least these guys are trying not to hate…..
on January 22nd, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Why does anyone care what the guy wants to do and who he associates with?
If he wants his own league and can gin up the money for it fine.
He’s not asking you liberal kooks to join or pay for it.
on January 23rd, 2010 at 9:54 am
How about the “Boston Teabaggers” team?
There’s a monochromatic group for you.
Every single neck is red.
on February 7th, 2010 at 2:22 am
Well it is true. Sometimes the truth hurts. Why can’t whites do an all white thing without negative feedback.
If you don’t agree with a all white team isn’t that Bigotry and if your not white and hate the idea you’re a raciest.
Well? I thought the SPLC was to help with things like this
but we know the Southern Poverty Law Center are the biggest haters and raciest of them all!
on February 18th, 2010 at 11:12 am
How about we forget about ‘color’ and demand higher ethical and moral standards?…..3.0 minimum…and some manners? Bet ya can’t get a team together….