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Bruce Dowbiggin

Insubordination: Why Black NBA Stars Don’t Buy The Vax

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Canadian NBA star Andrew Wiggins was supposed to be known as a superstar when he was drafted No. 1 overall by Cleveland in the 2014 draft. Now, after seven seasons of mixed playing results, he may instead be best known as the guy who said no to the NBA on their mandatory vaccination rules.

In a delicious irony, he exposed the patronizing double standard of hyper-liberal white NBA media— which fanatically protects black players through every hypocrisy. Until now. And Wiggins, inadvertently, exposed the dirty secret about vaccine resistance: it’s not Ted Nugent, bow-hunting whites leading the idealogical resistance.

It’s people in the black community who, by a large margin, are telling Joe Biden and his liberal pals (gasp) that, while everyone else submits, dissent is their  God-given right in America. In New York City, devastated in 2020 by Covid-19 and governor Andrew Cuomo’s ineptitude, roughly 72 percent of black New York City residents aged 18-44 are now banned banned from entering dining establishments, because they remain stubbornly unvaccinated.

In Florida, Black people have received 9 percent of vaccinations, while they make up 15 percent of cases, 17 percent of deaths, and 15 percent of the total population. (White people received a higher share of vaccinations compared to their share of cases in most states reporting data. )

The percentage of white people who have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose (53 percent) was 1.2 times higher than the rate for Black people (45 percent) as of September 20, 2021. This despite the pleading from race hustlers like CNN’s Don Lemon (‘It’s Not About Freedom, It Is About Public Health’) to force blacks to submit to the pressure for a jab.

Wiggins, now with the Golden State Warriors, refused to take the vaccine since his request for a religious exemption was denied. League rules say Warriors players must follow the guidelines of California, the home state of the Warriors. No needle, no playing at the Chase Center for Wiggins. That led the media in squishy NoCal to ask Wiggins’ teammate Draymond Green if he’ll pressure Wiggins to take the jab.

They didn’t get what they expected— or wanted. “It’s not my place or my business on whether he gets vaccinated or not — it’s your own personal choice at the end of the day what you do with your body. It’s not my place to tell him what he should or shouldn’t do with his. Because he’s not going to come tell me what I should do with my body.”  [UPDATE: Golden State coach Steve Kerr now says Wiggins has had the vax. Wiggins insists he was forced. ]

Vax nothwithstanding, Green says, “We’re dealing with something that, to me, feels like (it) has turned into a political war, when you’re talking about vaccinated [people] and non-vaccinated [people],” “I think there is something to be said for people’s concern about something that’s being pressed so hard. Like, why are you pressing this so hard? You’re pressing and pressing and pressing.”

Green continued, “You say we live in the land of the free. Well, you’re not giving anyone freedom, because you’re making people do something essentially… That goes against everything America stands for.”

In Washington, Wizards star Bradley Beal echoed Green’s comments. “I would like an explanation to people with vaccines – why are they still getting COVID if that’s something that we are supposed to highly be protected from?… It’s funny that it only reduces your chances of going to the hospital. It doesn’t eliminate anybody from getting COVID. Right?”

“Some people have bad reactions to the vaccine,” Beal said. “Nobody likes to talk about that. And what happens if one of our players gets the vaccine and they can’t play after that or they have complications after that? Because there are cases like that. But I feel we don’t talk about those as heavily, because they’re so minute maybe. But they are existent.”

Fellow NBA stars Kyrie Irving and Jonathan Isaac echoed Beal and Green on their right to decide. (Here’s Isaac dunking on Rolling Stone . Worse for vax boosters, the league’s bell cow, LeBron James, echoed the feminist diktat that it wasn’t his place to tell anyone what they can take in their body.

That brought out the hate from the press box, a hive of liberal/ progressive white thought if there ever was one.

Draymond Green joins All-Hypocrisy team for vaccine stance” bugled there New York Daily News.

Stop letting NBA anti-vaxxers spout COVID-19 misinformation” announced Yahoo.

Bradley Beal Smugly Parades Ignorance On Covid Vaccines” pronounced Mediaite.

“On vaccines, NBA players are being told to shut up and dribble” noted  the Washington Examiner.

The supposed kill shot in all these jeremiads is the new dagger of promoting “misinformation” (as if the Media Party didn’t do exactly that on Jussie Smollett, the Covington Kids, RussiaGate, Hunter Biden’s laptop and 150 more. ) “Misinformation” now being the all-purpose cleanser for thought disapproved by Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and other tech oligarchs.

For the righteous knowledge industry, hearing both sides is now a quaint artifact of the past, like John Phillip Souza band music. As we wrote Nov. 23, 2020. “The sale has been made by those in authority. They call the shots. No one is allowed to dissent. That was the end game.  And there’s no going back when the Woke media warns you that resistance will invite the cancel culture to ruin your life. This is the new reality. Get used to it. And if you value your freedoms, tough luck.”

Almost a year later black NBA stars, of all people, are the ones making this point to the civil libertarians or free-speech liberals that freedom is for everyone, not just for those with whom you agree. Who’d have thunk’ that?

 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book with his son Evan is called InExact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

BRUCE DOWBIGGIN Award-winning Author and Broadcaster Bruce Dowbiggin's career is unmatched in Canada for its diversity and breadth of experience . He is currently the editor and publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster website and is also a contributor to SiriusXM Canada Talks. His new book Cap In Hand was released in the fall of 2018. Bruce's career has included successful stints in television, radio and print. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster for his work with CBC-TV, Mr. Dowbiggin is also the best-selling author of "Money Players" (finalist for the 2004 National Business Book Award) and two new books-- Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever for Greystone Press and Grant Fuhr: Portrait of a Champion for Random House. His ground-breaking investigations into the life and times of Alan Eagleson led to his selection as the winner of the Gemini for Canada's top sportscaster in 1993 and again in 1996. This work earned him the reputation as one of Canada's top investigative journalists in any field. He was a featured columnist for the Calgary Herald (1998-2009) and the Globe & Mail (2009-2013) where his incisive style and wit on sports media and business won him many readers.

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Bruce Dowbiggin

Succession Planning: Justin’s Excellent Chinese Adventure

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Bruce Dowbiggin

The Formidable Superstar, Jim Brown Never Fit Black Or White Stereotypes

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“M***er fuckers be hanging off him. Eight of ‘em be begging Jim, ‘Please, Jim, would you fall down, please? We’re on TV, my kids are watching’.” Richard Pryor  on NFL players trying to tackle Jim Brown in the 1960s. 

The death at 87 of legendary athlete/ film star/ political activist Jim Brown comes just over three months from the death of hockey icon Bobby Hull. Both were alpha males possessed of adonis figures, the essence of vitality in their time. Brown gave up the NFL to become a film star. He went on to champion causes in the black political movement.

Hull went on to sire a HHoF player Brett Hull and work in the cattle industry. He also traded on his stardom. He is still regarded as one of the five most famous Chicago sports figures of all time, up there with Michael Jordan, Dick Butkus, Gayle Sayers and Ernie Banks.

Neither man was without controversy, however. Brown’s name was frequently associated with domestic violence. According to press reports, “On June 9, 1968, Brown, then 32, was booked on suspicion of assault with intent to commit murder against his girlfriend. The arrest occurred when Brown lived in Los Angeles while working as an actor. The woman, a model, was found semiconscious and moaning on a concrete patio 20 feet below the balcony of Brown’s Hollywood apartment.”

There were other incidents with police involvement, many in fact, but you get the drift. Hull, too, had a nasty legacy of domestic assault stemming from incidents involving his first wife. Neither man spent time in jail for the episodes. Hull made some politically insensitive remarks as well.

But, funny thing. When Hull died the Canadian sports press reports dutifully dredged up all his personal business to rebalance the adulation he received in life. As we reported at the time, some people thought that part of his life defined Hull.

But you had to look very hard into the reports of U.S. sports media on Brown’s death this week to find much about his less-attractive side. The praise for his athletic prowess was effusive. Rightly so. But for the liberal sports press that came of age in the 1960s, it was too much to taint Brown’s political legacy by showing his less-flattering past. So they almost universally gave it a pass. In one interview, Bob Costas, the liberal’s liberal in the press box, skirted the issue to dwell on his boyhood memories of Brown.

Wonder why? Those news sources that dared mention it— the New York Times— were lambasted for sullying his reputation with the facts. “It’s the New York Times vs. ESPN for scumbag of the week” is a sampling of the pushback from the sports world.

While playing at Syracuse, Brown was perhaps the greatest lacrosse player in American history before going on to football fame with the Cleveland Browns of the NFL. We can still remember, as Richard Pryor did, the sight of No. 32 dragging defenders along behind him as he set rushing and TD records in a 12-game season— records that are still mostly unassailable. He’s a Top Five NFL player all-time. Colts HOF tight end John Mackey summed up Brown’s style. “He told me, ‘Make sure when anyone tackles you he remembers how much it hurts’.” They did. Vividly.

We can also recall the shocking news that Brown was ditching football in 1966 after nine NFL seasons to star in a Hollywood epic, The Dirty Dozen, with Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes and Donald Sutherland. (He intended to return to the Browns but when they wouldn’t let him miss training camp he retired.)  How would he do? We rushed to see the film. Brown was just fine, dragging his fellow cast members after him like NFL players as he took on the Nazis.

He went on to star in 100 Rifles as Hollywood’s first black action star. Other movies followed. When the glamour of films lost its lustre Brown became an icon for the black political movement. He supported Muhammad Ali in his fight to avoid prison for refusing to serve in Viet Nam. He created camps and schools for black children and was a recurring figure at the seminal moments for black empowerment.

But his philosophy was not today’s Marxist #BLM brand. “We’ve got to get off the emotional stuff and do something that will bring about real change,” he said. “We’ve got to have industries and commercial enterprises and build our own sustaining economic base. Then we can face white folks man-to-man and we can deal.” He was not easily intimidated.

In 2018, Brown and Kanye West met with President Donald Trump to discuss the state of America. Criticized by the black community for the meeting, Brown said, ”we can’t ignore that seat and just call names of the person that’s sitting in it”. Brown called Trump “accessible”, and said that the president was not a racist. The Brown obits in liberal media buried those quotes deep in stories.

Still he scared some folks. Files declassified in 2003 showed that the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service and several police departments had monitored Brown and the Black Economic Union, attempting to smear the group as a source of Communist and radical Muslim extremism. Hillary Clinton would have been proud.

Brown himself was into unapologetic self-improvement as he showed when he went to Pryor’s hospital room after the comedian set himself alight while freebasing. While others soft pedalled their advice Brown made it clear that Pryor had to kick drugs, and that he would help him do so. (As thanks, Pryor later screwed Brown in a film deal that would have brought him millions.)

Brown was unrepentant when confronted about his past. “I’m no angel,” he told The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer in 1970. Regarding the assault allegations, he said, “I’ve never been convicted. I’ve just been harassed. I’ve been hit so much I don’t sting any more… I take it and look my accuser in the eye. I don’t look at my shoes when I talk to anybody. I know what I am. I only have to live with myself.”

That he did. The biggest difference between him and Hull was that the critics of the Golden Jet wanted to get tawdry clicks from his life story. With Brown they wanted him to advertise their Woke selves. That’s a huge and crucial difference in this insane world.

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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

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