David Stern: My New Pariah

As corrupt and greedy-on-the-backs-of-others as the ownership ranks of the corporate world can be, it's rare that you will see a CEO enact a policy that's frankly antagonistic to the vast majority of his or her employees.

Congratulations, David Stern, you're in select company.

I'm sure everyone knows by now that Stern has enacted a dress code for his players at "NBA functions," which amounts to, if you're not in your team's uniform, you have to wear David's uniform. The NBA has climbed aboard on the neat look that will cure all of society's ills, the business casual look.

The fact that Stern has a right to enact these dress codes, and the players can accept it or be gone, can be taken for granted. So the issue to me isn't whether he can or can't do that, because clearly he can. It's whether he should or shouldn't — and he certainly should not.

Many are speculating whether this dictum amounts to racism. I don't think this was a consciously racist decision by Stern and the boys, but the issue of race is absolutely 100% pertinent in this case. If the NBA was made up primarily of Amish, injured players would wear traditional Amish garb on the sidelines because that's their culture. Stern wouldn't care.

If the NBA was made up primarily of German traditionalists, injured players would wear lederhosen on the sidelines because that's their culture. Stern wouldn't care.

The clothes injured black players wear represent black culture. So why are they being banned? What's the difference?

Apparently, Stern feels that the street clothes he sees today are hurting his product. In his new policy, he bans some universal accessories such as caps, headphones, whatever. So is it those items that are the scourge of the league, the kind of thing that's hurting his product?

No. If it was, he would've banned them 10 or 20 years ago. It's obvious he sees something now that he feels he has to act on now, that's hurting his product now. So what it the difference between the clothes on NBA sidelines now and 10 years ago?

FUBU. Low riders. Hats to the side. That sort of thing.

To ban the uncontroversial items like headphones is a smokescreen to get rid of the new fashions he dislikes while still appearing to be content-neutral. If not, the timing of the move doesn't make any sense, does it?

So what "culture" do the new clothes belong to? It's not thug culture, it's black culture.

Don't agree? Well, tell it to the straight-A kids in the inner-city who wear FUBU. Tell it to the drug counselors and the community leaders. It's not just drug dealers wearing this stuff. The guy who designed the first RocaWear coat, I imagine, never robbed a liquor store and didn't pass out his clothes in crack dens. In India, the lowest criminals and the most honorable men both wear silk kurtas. If the league was primarily Indian, and they all wore silk kurtas on the sidelines...

And yet, David Stern, a guy who has about as much in common culturally with the vast majority of his players as the CEO of McDonalds has with his employees, is prepared to make that cultural judgment anyway. He's prepared to say, and essentially has said, "those kind of clothes send a bad message. The good message, the right message, the civil message, is portrayed by wearing the clothes of my culture — the affluent. Employees, heretofore you have to stop wearing your ghetto black stuff and start wearing my affluent Land's End stuff." It's important and relevant that he's asking them to dress the way he and most other NBA executives already do.

Again, I'm not challenging Stern's right to make this decision. I'm challenging the justness, the motivations, and explaining how race plays a big part in this, whether Stern realizes it or not. Anytime we tell people, "If you want me to pay you, don't dress the way you're comfortable, dress the way I am comfortable," and that there's a right and wrong way to dress, we are doing our part to keep the flames of racism, classism, and prejudice going. Same goes for you if you forgive or defend these decisions.

As a marketing ploy, this move is going to backfire in a big way. If the middle American red-staters that Stern is trying to attract are convinced that NBA players are thugs, putting them in a different outfit certainly won't change their opinion (as I suspect the protesters in the comments section will bear out). However, since this move does represent a big middle finger raised to urban America, the America that buys scads of NBA-licensed products and wears the clothes the players can't anymore except on their own time, it's hard to figure out how this won't be a money-loser. Who will Stern blame then? Hint: not himself, or any of his actions to make the sport more pseudo-sanitized.

P.S. Don't kid yourself into think that low-riders, FUBU etc., doesn't really count as black culture because a lot of white kids, including plenty in the NBA and in the affluent suburbs, have co-opted the look. Just in case anyone had an inkling...

P.P.S. So you yourself have to dress like that for your job. Great. Difference is, you weren't allowed to wear t-shirts and jeans yesterday, and no longer allowed to today. The corporate trend in dress codes these days seems to be less formal, not more. The thinking is, "Who gives a rip what you wear, will you work hard? Good, then we want you to be comfortable." What a brave man Stern is to buck that trend.