Russell Westbrook Incident: A Case Study in white supremacy

If you don't follow professional basketball and/or just missed it, an accident happened last night in the game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.  During the second quarter, Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook got into a heated exchange with a fan sitting closely behind the Thunder bench.  Anyone who follows pro basketball knows that Westbrook, one of the game's best players, has a long history of extreme intensity and quirkiness, but none of that excuses the immediate racism that displayed itself immediately after this incident became public.

First, there was the extremely unusual occurrence where the fan in question was provided a full length interview about his version of events.  As is usually the case, Westbrook, was able to talk about the incident during the post-game press conference.  Obviously, the version of events differed significantly between the story told by Westbrook - an African player, and the fan - a European (white) man named Keisal, weasel, something like that.

The early news and sports talk shows this morning were immediate in focusing the blame for the incident primarily on Westbrook.  Its true, there was a video produced by a fan that showed the tail end of the incident where Westbrook is seen spewing out a profanity laced tirade against this fan and his wife who was presumably sitting next to him. These early morning reports relied heavily on this video and Westbrook's history of getting into confrontations with people to suggest that Westbrook should be punished for his tirade.

By this afternoon, the tide on this issue had changed considerably.  The reason for this switch was the account of the incident from the fan began to be brought into question due primarily to social media research a number of people did on this white man's history.  His previous tweets and posts apparently were littered with racist comments, etc.  There were also tweets where he requested someone to physically beat up Westbrook specifically.  All of this after the fan, during his interview, spoke as if he had no idea what triggered Westbrook.  According to this fan, all he said to Westbrook was "put some heat on your knees!"  This person also claimed his wife, who was clearly called out by Westbrook during his tirade, had said nothing and should have never been "threatened" by Westbrook.  During his account of the incident during the post game press briefings, Westbrook said the man said "get down on your knees like you used too!" and that his wife immediately repeated the racist comment.  

What makes this entire thing reek of white supremacy is that the history of the man should never have had to come into the picture in order for most people to recognize the smelly nature of this European's account of the incident.  And, the fact so many people do not possess the skill to detect white supremacy in its subtle forms of operation, is proof why so many of you need to shut up when these incidents take place.  Most African people, especially those of us dedicated and involved in the African liberation movement, have learned to have razor sharp white supremacy detection mechanisms in our day to day lives.  So for me, the first sign of b - - ls - - t was when I saw the picture, not the video, but the picture of Westbrook standing and yelling into the stands.  When you look at the fans they are staring back into the stands, any of them with looks of shock on their faces.  And, since this is Utah we are talking about, all the people in question are Europeans.  If Westbrook had experienced a complete meltdown simply because someone had given him rehabilitation advice, as this white man is claiming, its doubtful that people would be so focused on whomever was behind him in the stands the way people are looking back at them.  Typically, when someone is having a meltdown, you would expect people to be observing the person yelling and screaming, not the person they are screaming at.  The other silly thing about this is the man's claim that all he did was give heat pad to knee advice.  C'mon now.  Westbrook is one of the game's biggest names.  He has played professional basketball for 11 years now.  That means he's probably played about 900 games in front of millions of people.  Surely, he's heard just about everything yelled at him by now.  There's no way you are going to convince me that after all that experience he is going to flip out because some big gut idiot suggests he use heat on a sore knee.  In fact, I knew as soon as I saw how Westbrook was triggered that racism was probably involved.  And, I knew that before knowing anything about the situation because again, after a while of studying and participating in this work, not to mention experiencing white supremacy at an expert level, I know what it looks like when a colonized person feels the need to express their dignity.

Now, like Malcolm X so correctly told us, when people are oppressed, they are not always going to always express that pain in calm ways.  Malcolm used the example of a child touching a hot stove.  The stove is hot.  The touch produces extreme pain and the child reacts accordingly.  Malcolm makes the point that oppressed people react to pain often in the same manner.  So yes, Westbrook, as is often the case when we are assaulted with white supremacy, reacted with profanity, anger, and overall emotion.  And, I'm here to say he had every right to do so.  That white man is lucky that's all that happened to him.

The other filthy part of all of this is the unspoken mechanisms of white supremacy and how they work.  Besides the fact other players on the Thunder bench completely backed up Westbrook's version of events e.g. what was said to him that triggered the incident, no one has backed up what the white man said.  The only evidence he has produced is the video which only captures Westbrook's response, not what the man said that triggered the incident which means there's also no evidence to support his ridiculous claim that he only made a simple medical suggestion.  And then, the white man invoked the innocence of his wife and the fact Westbrook allegedly threatened her.  There are a couple of racist problems with this and there are also some cultural misunderstandings happening as well.  The racism is every European knows that if they articulate any encounter they have with any of us, because they speak the language e.g. verbal and non-verbal communication techniques of Western European culture - the norms in capitalist societies across the world today, and they fit the image of this societies - they will be instantly believed against whatever we say about them.  Whether they are telling the truth or lying is ill relevant.  All they have to do is the above and that, juxtaposed to one of us yelling and cursing at them, will ensure that the majority of people in this society, regardless of their ethnicity (this is about institutional training and conditioning) will believe them over us.  Then, to invoke the white woman in trouble from being attacked by the big black beast racist tradition, that deal is sealed!  This man was even conscious enough to throw in during the video that Westbrook is "a big guy" the subtle reference to the big black buck who is always a danger to the purity of the most sacred white woman.  In other words, although its very popular with white people to hear them say "I don't see color" since we know everyone in these capitalist societies is trained from birth to see color, all a European has to do in reference to one of us is talk about our size and our race is remote control, placed in the equation with a formula result of guilty!  As for further evidence, since white people don't have a sterling history of stepping forward to speak truth when racist incidents happen against us, I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen, but I also wouldn't wait for any further evidence to come from Mr. white man cuz, chances of that are slim to none. 

And, in 2019, all of this dysfunction works 99.9% of the time.  The internet has only been around for 20 years so imagine how much we have been railroaded into prison and death behind this type of cowardly activity in the course of history.  Emmet Till?  George Stiney?  The Scottsboro Boys?  I can go on and on.  

The cultural misunderstanding is in white supremacy's intentional effort to make every African seem unreasonable and violent.  So, with this backdrop, whenever one of us expresses anger, which we have every right to do just like everyone else, we are immediately labeled as trouble.  Coincidentally, this is why so many African families train their children not to react to anything which unfortunately teaches us to internalize our oppression.  If you understand this, then you realize why we have so many health pandemics e.g. diabetes, hypertension, etc., but back to cultural misunderstandings.  African culture is fundamentally different from European culture.  Wherever you go in the African world you will see people who are extremely expressive and outgoing in articulating our feelings.  Doesn't matter where.  This is who we are and how we function.  No matter where you go in the European world its mostly opposite, at least compared to us it is.  We are primarily abstract culturally.  Europeans are primarily linear.  So, African people understand that when an African says something like "I'll beat yo @ss and your womans!" that African isn't literary saying they are going to physically attack your woman.  What they are communicating simply put is that both of you need to just get the hell away from them.  To European culture, if you say something, that's exactly what you mean so these racists are trying to say Westbrook threatened this white woman when that's not really what he was saying, despite his very believable claim that she, like most white women, is far from innocent in this matter.  Much of these types of cultural misunderstandings are underpinnings of white supremacy.  This system dehumanizes us which makes it much harder for people to see us as complete human beings, thus making it impossible for people to understand anything I've explained in this paragraph.

A few years ago, there was a study done on a community somewhere in the Midwest, U.S.  This small community, all European, was up in arms because it was proposed that the local  middle school be renamed Martin Luther King Middle School.  There were no African people to speak of in this community.  When reporters asked the parents and community members why they opposed the name change so vehemently, the people responded that they had no issue with Dr. King - which of course is a lie, but that they were just concerned because to name the school that would bring unwanted stigmas they didn't want their children subjected to.  What they meant was stigmas about performance capabilities and other problems with academic recognition.  When I read that, my first thought is if these white people reject naming their school after an African like MLK because they don't want the problems that come with that, imagine how it must be for us to live this experience 24/7, 365 days a year?

So, for those of you who genuinely wish to understand the day to day mechanisms of white supremacy, but struggle to do so, hopefully, these examples will help.  The primary issues are this system operates in a very subtle fashion.  There are tons of subliminal messages that are pumped into us all the time by all institutions from school to church to work, etc.  By the time we can talk, we already understand many of these messages on some level.  One of them is that white people will always be believed over us.  Another is that white people can treat us anyway they wish because they will be believed over us.  Another is the reason they will always be believed over us is the system is designed for them to plug into it and function, something not afforded to the rest of us.  And, that last part is where the white privilege comes in.  

With living with this sick reality everyday, people are always asking me why I shut down white supremacy with such aggressiveness.  And, I admit, when I'm confronted with it, I do take a smash mouth approach to the person perpetuating it (which is something I love to teach/train people how to do).  The dignity for oppressed people can never come from the system perpetuating that oppression.  Our dignity comes from our culture and our experiences.  It comes from our desire to be free.  Westbrook's response may seem obscene to those who are trained to see life through that white supremacist visual, but for me, its simply a sign of better things to come.  After 500+ years of this, any type of response we give that centers us is warranted and long overdue.