A hockey game probably is the last place I would expect to find myself examining my own racial bias, but that was what happened the other day.
I am increasingly becoming an avid fan of professional hockey. This despite the fact that I have no personal history with the sport. I've never lived in a place that an ice patch would last more than a couple of hours. So, why do I like it so much? Is it the sport itself? Or is it the ethos of hockey? And is the ethos attractive because it so much embodies white culture?
My daughter, Casey, and I took my son-in-law, Tim, to a Sharks game on Tuesday as a birthday present. Earlier that day, the NHL indefinitely suspended a player named Sean Avery for -- horrors -- making rude comments about his ex-girlfriends. At the end of the game, Sharks star Joe Thornton was interviewed and he couldn't have been more wholesome. Handsome, smiling, modest, hair sweaty from hustle, Joe told us he had no choice but to play hard because "our fans are the greatest."
No bling. No body art. No boasting.
Hockey is a game predominately played by white guys and watched predominately by white people. And as my interest in hockey waxes, my interest in basketball wanes. As I mulled it over the past couple of days, it seems to me that I drifted away from the NBA as the game became more representative of urban culture. Back in the day, I rooted for Jerry West and Rick Barry -- both white. I also was a big fan of Nate Thurman, a black man, but he brought a blue collar attitude to the court.
As this was running through my head (A 45-minute commute gives one a lot of time to think) I reflected on some training on white privilege I did a few years ago. One aspect of the training was trying to be sensitive to expectations I have and assumptions I make that are based in my culture as a white male. Whites don't often think about their own culture and often deny they even have a culture. But just like mac and cheese is white soul food, the National Hockey League is white culture displayed on the sports page.
So after all of this navel gazing do I think I'm a racist? No. But I do think I have some biases that derive from 60 years of living in a white culture. I don't think liking hockey is a bad thing. And I am even willing to admit that neither is the NBA.
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3 comments:
I also find it really hard not to find the NHL comfortingly wholesome. While it is one of the more violent of sports, the league does have a very endearing sense of sportsmanship and pride in making sure their name is represented well. I find it much easier to watch a sport where people aren't legally changing their last name to a number or retiring and unretiring just to get attention or shooting themselves in the leg with a handgun they brought into a night club. Maybe that is partially racial bias but I feel like it is more cultural bias. Maybe it is my cultural that dictates that you must have a certain modesty in all acts. But mostly I find the behavior of some of the most prominent professional athletes absolutely appalling.
Quit showing off and play your game. People will pay attention to you if you just do your job well. You don't need to shoot yourself in the thigh to get noticed.
I think more leagues would do well to take a page out of the NHL's book and not allow some of the ridiculous behavior that goes on in their leagues.
Very well said, Casey.
It's interesting to think about how culture is shaped by race and affects our view of the world.
I think hockey is a great game. The more I watch it, the more I appreciate the athletic skill involved. But I wonder if I ever would have discovered it if I wasn't turned off by the behavior of the big stars of the NBA and NFL.
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