Phil Mushnick Is Putting the System on Trial By Suggesting the Nets Become the "New York N-----s"

Bob – Such obvious, wishful and ignorant mischaracterizations of what I write are common. I don’t call black men the N-word; I don’t regard young women as bitches and whores; I don’t glorify the use of assault weapons and drugs. Jay-Z, on the other hand…..Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N—ers?”

Jay-Z profits from the worst and most sustaining self-enslaving stereotypes of black-American culture and I’M the racist? Some truths, I guess, are just hard to read, let alone think about.

(Same column I provide support for Amar’e Stoudemire at a time when everyone in town is ripping him to shreds. That was my LEAD, too, but what does that matter?)

First of all, yes. Jay-Z is the only NBA owner allowed to say that word. Can David Stern fine him when his next album drops? I guess he could if he wanted to, but there will be no more public backlash against Jay-Z’s music than there usually is. That doesn’t change the fact that Jay-Z gets to say that word because he’s a rapper. Phil, as a columnist, does not. No matter how many nice things he says about Amar’e Stoudemire.

Just because Mushnick meant that part of his column to be… satire, parody, something – he never explains that part. Whatever it is, that doesn’t mean it’s right. I’m not here to call Mushnick a racist. I don’t think he is a racist. I’m here to point out that he – and the New York Post and his editors – published a column that said something racially-charged which can definitely be classified as racist. Intent doesn’t really matter.

Phil Mushnick’s Friday morning media musings aren’t Huck Finn or a Chris Rock bit. If this was humor or art, it was shit. The New York Post is embarrassing itself by supporting this. It’s not Mushnick that was wrong – it’s every person who read the column who was wishfully ignorant in their wrongheadedness. Jay-Z, the Brooklyn Nets and the National Basketball Association are the ones profiting here. Blame them.

[Bob’s Blitz]

Previously: Phil Mushnick Says Under Jay-Z’s influence, the Brooklyn Nets May as Well Be the New York N—–s”