Unfair stereotypes must be enforced!

I wouldn't normally write a post about basketball, but this report about dress codes in the workplace intrigued me:

The NBA has announced that a dress code will go into effect at the start of the season. Players will be required to wear business-casual attire when involved in team or league business. They can't wear visible chains, pendants or medallions over their clothes.

Jackson, who is black, said the NBA's new rule about jewelry targets young black males because chains are associated with hip-hop culture, and he said the league is afraid of becoming "too hip-hop." In protest, he wore four chains to the Pacers' exhibition game against San Antonio on Tuesday night.

Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce agreed that the new rule targeted young, black players.

"When I saw the part about chains, hip hop and throwback jerseys, I think that's part of our culture," Pierce said. "The NBA is young black males."

The dress code has accordingly been denounced as "racist."

I was a bit suprised to find a post at Daily Kos in support of the dress code:

Like any business, the NBA wants their employees to be model citizens that represent their business well. That's not racist -- that's just good business sense.

And if they don't like it, they should just quit.

My only question: why is it when professional sports figures who happen to be African-American are asked to have a certain level of conduct, why do they play the race card?

Well, only some of them are. But I'm also wondering why dress codes in other workplaces aren't just as objectionable on "racial" grounds.

Already, objections to workplace dress codes based on religious grounds have been upheld. And there's a groundswell of opposition to dress codes in bars and nightclubs for racial reasons. (Innumerable objections to dress codes have also been based on "transgender discrimination".)

Legally, the only thing left to determine is what it is that might constitute a racially based dress code objection. (The old "disparate impact" perhaps?)

What I'd like to know is precisely how is a race supposed to dress? I mean, isn't that an unfair stereotype too? If I said that black people wear "visible chains, pendants, medallions and baggy shirts," it would be completely reasonable for people to say I was unfairly stereotyping people.

Aren't people unfairly stereotyping themselves?

Where might this leave me if I wanted to work at a hip hop radio station or recording studio, and they insisted I wear a baggy shirt and a medallion?

How would I assert my right to dress in the style of my racial and "cultural" heritage (presumably the heritage left to me by dead white males)? Would the ACLU take my case?

posted by Eric on 10.20.05 at 07:26 AM





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Comments

It is based on race. Too much "Hip Hop" and the perception of the gang culture, puts white people off the game and gives the appearance of supporting the violence and criminality of gang activity.

What needs to be understood is that it isn't based on racism. The desire to create role models for young Black men that isn't gang-like isn't racism.

As a hypothetical, if basketball players adorned the uniform of Nazis, and the youth adopted them as role models, would it be racism against Germans if the owners told them to quit it?

The idea that gang attire is "cultural" to all Blacks is racism. Paul Pierce is the one touting it.

Grand Stand   ·  October 20, 2005 09:08 AM

I'm pleasantly surprised to see Kos taking a stand against the "race card". I have had it up to the water level with the "race card". I have seen many Negro men very well dressed in suits and ties. They have dignity, style. They don't look or act like criminals.

If I were an employer, I would also forbid tattoos and piercings, which disfigurements are as prevalent among the white youth as among the black. Long hair on men, too. I am a square.

Heh. SMA— as far as long hair on men, it depends. As an example, my husband has very fine blond hair that he washes daily, and quite honestly it is far more becoming than a short cut would be. (I know this because he has had short hair at various times in the past.) And when he goes to work he binds it back neatly in a ponytail so as to keep it from getting tangled.

It's mostly a matter of upkeep. Long hair requires more work to keep clean than short. And since I have started work at a photo studio, I have determined that a clean person with long hair is far more attractive than an unwashed person of either gender. Zooming in to twice normal size to retouch photos will do that to you.

B. Durbin   ·  October 22, 2005 07:54 PM


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