formerlyknownas wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
Tad Queasy wrote:
pittmike wrote:
Maybe I am just old but wasn't that a very popular word to use back in the late 80's and 90's? Born out of rap and the groups around entertainers and athletes. I can see James being annoyed as they are adults and so on but I think posse is one of those words that crosses over to everyday vernacular.
That was the first thing i thought of, too. Maybe Phil thinks "posse" is still a word the young'uns of today use to describe their friends/group.
I don't think so. He's been around young black men his entire life. But he's an old man now. Just a shadow of the counter-culture hippie he used to be. He reflexively leaped to defend the authoritarian Pat Riley, probably from the comfort of his rich girlfriend's apartment. In doing so he purposely used a word that cast aspersions on a group of young black professionals within the context that he used it. Like I said, I don't think it was intentionally racist, but I can understand why LeBron got salty.
Jackson once referred to the Church of Latter-Day Saints as a "cult," and that seems ten times more egregious than this.
Even if has been around black men all his life, would he know that
posse has this special meaning? Why would Lebron even care?
About fifteen years ago I told a student who was trying to find a time to talk with me about a paper she wrote that "eventually, we'll hook up" (or some such). She looked at me strangely, said "ok," and walked away awkwardly. It was weird enough for me to mention it to a colleague, who said, "Wait a minute. What did you say?"
Oops....
I had another student who once wrote about being a "dancer". I almost mentioned it in class a few times--"Well take Sarah, here; she used to be a dancer"-- but didn't. At the end of the semester, she thanked me for being so supportive and non-judgmental. "Why would I judge you?" I said. She responded, "Well, the whole dancer thing . . ." I shrugged. About two hours later, it dawned on me what she meant.
Guaranteed Phil knows what a posse is. A better analogy would be if you knew exactly what a dancer was but you said to the class, "Hello, class, Tiffani has just informed me she is a stripper!"
Like I said, if Jackson had used "posse" in a different context he would have simply sounded like a grandpa trying to be cool the way Joe Maddon often does. But the way he used it, I fully understand why LeBron took offense. I'm not attributing bad intentions to Phil. I think he just thoughtlessly said something without considering how someone else would take it. And I don't think LeBron was infuriated. He didn't call for Phil's job or try to whip up a racial micromob. He just said, "Fuck Phil Jackson." I think that's the right response.
What I find rather delicious is that Phil so obviously views himself as this anti-Establishment icon, the man who played in The League and who knows how to handle the black superstar, but really he's become just another old guy yelling at a cloud.
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