Michael Eric Dyson Kind of Jumped the Shark on This One…
Michael
Eric Dyson is an intellectual heavyweight; I don’t have to reiterate
his credentials as a leading social critic and scholar. Trust me; if he
took issue with this writing and decided to “tweef” at your boy, I’d be
running for the hills. This is why his line of questioning and lack of
challenge/follow-up in certain statements made by Mayweather was
troubling. Like African Americans who have few intelligent, socially
aware voices, I don’t like feeling like I could do a better and more
insightful interview than someone who sat with the damned President
of the United States. He was brought in to lend to an intellectual
credibility Floyd Mayweather lacks; Floyd is a great
athlete/self-promoter, no dummy by any stretch but not someone with an
interesting viewpoint on his own image. When someone of Dyson’s caliber
is leading Floyd with generalized presumptions about black male
athletes, he is cheating the viewer. If Dyson isn’t going to use his
considerable intellectual capacity to challenge a subject, he can come
off as a cheerleader with a deep vocabulary and nothing more.
Intelligent viewers don’t need to be told racism still exists through
the prism of a pampered athlete; they want to hear how it affects Floyd
in HBO’s boardrooms. From a racial standpoint, you never see white
intellectuals brought in to codify and excuse the ignorance of white
athletes. Can you imagine Rachel Maddow doing a fluff piece on Ben
Roethlisberger?
Floyd Will Fight into His 40s…
Floyd
Mayweather statistically may limit his opposition to the fewest landed
blows in Boxing history- and there’s no Deacon Jones (maybe Willie Pep)
lying in the weeds to challenge this claim. Eerily, when elite fighters
are still elite into their mid-30s (and there are few), saying, “You
won’t be around long,” is one of those things they say to “sound” smart.
But what is smart about walking away when there’s still money on the
table? And who likes money more than Floyd Mayweather? He’ll be around
long enough to be the sentimental favorite and get the love he’s being
denied now-because that is the life cycle of many athletes. He’ll get
dropped, cut and, yes, even defeated and he’ll keep fighting. And why?
What else is he going to do; be a rap mogul? Even his buddy, 50 Cent, is
learning firsthand that hip hop is a young man’s game. As long as the
sport continues to crank out rushed TV products with an emphasis on
getting them to pay-per-view vs. becoming complete fighters, Floyd will
be there to pick ‘em off at an 80/20 revenue split. Face it; he’s an
event fighter and, unfortunately, this is an event sport.
Floyd is the Product of Enabling Women…
The
poorest-kept secret in our community is the absence of strong men; the
best-kept secret is the pathos surrounding this tragic reality. Watch
the NFL and NBA draft and you’ll see a lot of young black men who bore
the emotional brunt of an absent male; many considered themselves “heads
of household” as children. The response to the absence of father often
is the blurring of roles. Mothers tell sons they are the men of the
house, excusing and protecting them at all costs. If that male child
happens to be a gifted young man who gets to the level of a professional
athlete, you can imagine him internalizing the lofty relevance his
mother ascribed him. He is the anointer and family savior, so anyone who
challenges him on his conduct is merely jealous. Floyd considers his
upcoming jail term as “coming with the territory” of being a great man
like Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, proof that he’s getting bad
“intel” from high up the family food chain. “They locked up Jesus” is an
African American idiom many of us hear coming from our “Big Mama”
(grandmother). It’s meant to soothe but it can often delude. Men
traditionally don’t speak to their sons in this manner; wise fathers
usually have a way of knocking you down a peg-it’s Mama who exalts the
son. If Floyd has been the main provider for mother, grandmother and
sisters, they are more likely to attack any woman who “puts my baby in
jail” than hold a mirror to his face. It’s much safer and lucrative for
loved ones that Floyd continues to believe in a faceless “they” who
randomly attack him for his flash and wealth- not the flash in which he
can become enraged. Quoting Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” is an
oversimplification of a well-documented “problem” Floyd has had with
women for more than a decade; this “problem” disqualifies him as a
“victim.”
Floyd Mayweather Knows Everything About Boxing…
While
Michael Jordan runs the Charlotte Bobcats into the ground, there’s no
way to avoid the tidal wave of athletes who discredit the media as
nitwits. The “game” Floyd is playing is a transparent one and it’s a
losing game if he’s referring to one Larry Merchant. As a social critic,
Michael Eric Dyson often comments on realities he isn’t intimately
privy to, doing so well because he is educated and well-versed
in history. Larry Merchant isn’t the least bit intimidated by Floyd,
intellectually, when it comes to boxing; he was ringside at Muhammad Ali
vs. Sonny Liston II when Floyd Sr. was nothing but a little fella. The
demand for sports programming and content is at an all-time high, so the
opinions of analyst have turned journalists into entertainers and
brands just like the athletes. Funny, “Money” hating on “Money” is
something I thought Floyd Mayweather was against. Larry Merchant and Max
Kellerman are “God-gifted” just like he is; I don’t want to live in a
world where I have to consume my boxing from someone inarticulate just
because he boxed. Ironically, HBO is the pioneer of the boxer as color
commentator. They’ve made sure there’s at least one ex-fighter on hand
calling the action for close to 30 years. Floyd would be a great
analyst; the only thing keeping him from this well-paid, post-fighting
career is the fear that he may snap and yell at his co-host, “You don’t
know sh*t about boxing!”
Floyd Mayweather Loves Covering His “Racist” with “Pro-Black”…
The
sad part of this is Michael Eric Dyson knows the difference; it’s his
business to point out this distinction to mainstream America. Instead of
asking Floyd, “Why do people think you are racist?,” he should have
asked what Floyd was trying to convey with the infamous, anti-Pacquiao
USTREAM video. The Jeremy Lin tweet was easy to cover up and Floyd used
it to innocently point out how other minorities who immigrate to our
country support their culture. When I wrote about the subject, I pointed
out a clear envy. I also pointed out that African American athletes are
a well-funded majority in pro sports. Saying “I support black
athletes” isn’t some kind of provocative statement against oppression-
if you’re pro-black, you say, “I support black doctors.” Dyson, who
loves to glean hip-hop, knows all too well that Tupac Shakur (pro-black)
wasn’t a fan of the idea that what we need as a people is another
rapper or athlete. Asian Americans do need another athlete, so Asian
American kids who love sports can include this vocation as a conceivable
aspiration. When Floyd says, “Brothas do what [Lin] does every night,”
he’s articulating a racial fear and need for the NBA to “stay black”
even at the exclusion of qualified Asians- a familiar exclusion we had
to face in baseball.
And Lastly…
Look for Floyd to Stay with Non-Boxing Media. It’s Easier…
When
you’re talking to Bob Costas or Michael Eric Dyson, people who don’t
need credibility in our industry, you can expect (even with prep work)
they aren’t going to call you out on much. Dyson couldn’t tell Floyd
that Manny Pacquiao was enough of a draw that the difference isn’t
discernible to the degree that you approach him as an employer. Maybe a
particularly annoying scribe with beautiful brown eyes would point out
that he talks a lot more about Pacquiao than the other way around. Dyson
couldn’t point out that Bob Arum is the person to call if you
are indeed serious about fighting Manny Pacquiao- and that anything else
is a publicity stunt. Dyson would not point out the specifics of
Pacquiao’s defamation case, asking Floyd how accusing an athlete of
steroid use isn’t exactly basic “sh*t talking.” No boxing writer worth
his salt would sit there while Mayweather- with a straight face, no
less- compared his accomplishments and infamy to that of an Ali. Boxing
media would point out that the Alis and Leonards faced their rivals when
they were viable threats and, though at peace, now he will
stand out as an outlier in the legacy department. Larry Merchant or, at
the very least, Max Kellerman deserved the additional access and
platform for a show of this so-called magnitude but, clearly, it wasn’t
about Floyd saying anything new or illuminating. I would have been
happier if Floyd went more in depth about his charitable works but
portraying himself as a transcendent figure capable of getting the
President to be one of his ring walk flunkies (another delusion) was
more important to him. So say goodbye, boxing media; you’ve ran the
greatest star in the sport away- then again, there’s plenty of fight
scribes lining up to kiss the champ’s ring (you know who you are).
Why else would they call him “Money”?
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