Bryant Gumbel - "David Stern like a modern plantation overseer"

grittyman20

grittyman20

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Won't post the entire article, haven't seen the OTL episode yet but here is the quote:

"Stern's version of what has been going on behind closed doors has of course been disputed, but his efforts were typical of a commissioner who has always seemed eager to be viewed as some kind of modern plantation overseer, treating NBA men as if they were his boys. It's part of Stern's M.O., like his past self-serving edicts on dress code and the questioning of officials. His moves were intended to do little more than show how he's the one keeping the hired hands in their place."

Thoughts?

I understand what Gumbel is saying with the premise here, BUT the timing of this couldn't be anymore worse...this does nothing but add to the fuel of the pro-owner/anti-player fire while we're in the midst of this NBA lockout. The slavery reference is eh, I know there's better examples to compare Stern's relationship with the players but using that reference does have a way of getting everyone's attention
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i think anyone that compares pro athletes to slaves should be forced to spend 1 year working on an actual plantation for free...
 
indifferent.gif
 
Wasn't about comparing athletes to slaves...it's Stern's actions as commissioner to an overseer.
 
Yo Bryant Gumbel has been around a long time. Long enough to phrase that better. Wonder if this is about ratings or he really feels this way.
*Stares at Frederick Douglas picture on wall*
tired.gif
 
I'd say it should be common logic to not reference anything to anything Holocaust or Slavery related.
 
I mean we have freedom of speech and all.... but that doesn't mean you should exercise this right every chance you get..................
 
laugh.gif
boy got balls to say that about a Jew......*%%# can be lowkey career suicide but Gumbel do have decades in this *%%#
 
Horrible way to put it but i see where he coming from. Never liked Stern for that reason. I think the whole dress code thing did it for me.
 
[h1]Bryant Gumbel Drops One Little Plantation Metaphor, And Everybody Loses Their S____[/h1]
You'll notice that Bryant Gumbel never once used the s-word in his criticism of David Stern last night. His extended analogy called the players "hired hands," which ought to put the lie to any suggestion that actual, literal slavery was being evoked. That hasn't stopped the usual backlash that comes up whenever anyone even goes near that third rail of American everything. ("If he's saying NBA players are slaves," reads the highest-rated comment on Pro Basketball Talk, "bring back the plantations and i'll sign right up.")
Plantation is the key word. Plantations date back to the latifundia of the Roman Empire and continue to exist today, and they have only relied on slave labor for a small proportion of their existence. Disparity of wealth is not the concept Gumbel seizes upon; it's disparity of power. And in the sense that David Stern has long suffered from a megalomania that makes him treat his players as insignificant employees instead of valuable allies in a multi-billion-dollar corporation, Gumbel's not wrong.

I don't want to offer platitudes about the lockout being about respect, not money, because that's false. The NBA is a system that worked well when the money was flowing, but between the dried-up national economy and the inexorable creeping of richer, longer contracts, it no longer works as well. The lockout is all about who has to give up the money to close the gap between what the system was and what it has to be. But both sides will have to give something up in the end, and both will agree on the eventual solution. Believe it or not, they're all in this together.

Partners! There's a novel way to look at the NBA. The owners wouldn't be able to get rich without the draw of the actual players' play, and the players wouldn't be able to get rich without the organizational infrastructure and marketing put in place by the league. This, I think, is what Gumbel was hitting at before the baggage that comes with his plantation metaphor dragged his point down, out of the discussion. If David Stern were to treat the players as his colleagues instead of as children, mediation sessions wouldn't devolve into screaming sessions with Kevin Garnett. This is a lockout, not a strike, and the man in charge of it all is expending his effort on telling the players they're in the wrong.

It's all power, dickwaving and power. (Kurt Helin hit on this in a roundabout way when he noted the owners' frustration at their powerlessness to keep their star players from jumping ship, then masking it as "competitive balance.") When Stern says the players shouldn't have the power to choose their wardrobes, and shouldn't have the power to question referees' calls, and shouldn't have the power to accept a six-year contract if someone's willing to offer it, that's paternalism gone wild. I know what's best for you, the commissioner coos. You don't.

Gumbel could have gone with dictator instead of overseer, nanny instead of bossman. But he chose the plantation and its racial undertones because that's what comes to mind in a workplace where 83 percent of employees are black and 97 percent of bosses are white, and one of them is a racist piece of #%+$ like Donald Sterling. Gumbel also chose it because he knows the value of getting attention when making a point worth hearing. (See Jason Whitlock's "slave catchers.") But here we are, reduced to actually explaining that slavery was worse than playing professional basketball, all the while ignoring the fact that this lockout is so caustic and intractable because the man dictating the process is consumed with putting himself above his own pile of #%+$.

http://deadspin.com/58513...verybody-loses-their-#%+$
Click to expand...
 
I understand what Gumbel said. The problem how people choose to interpret it, and if there's one thing we know about society, simple words can be misconstrued into whole new meanings. He should have been more careful than to use the words "plantation overseer." There's a historically negative association with that word that people are going to jump to conclusions about.
 
RyGuy45, that was a good read.

However, i still don't think that kinda language was even close to necessary to get his point across. Shoot even the article implied that. It completely messes up dilutes the message he's trying to get out.
http://ryguy45.u.yuku.com/
 
laugh.gif
trust me Gumbel won't need to find a new career, this is nothing new. Well then again Commissioner Stern does have power everywhere
nerd.gif


Some more of Bryant's quotes over the years:


2000 after finishing CBS interview with a member of the Family Research Counsel who was defending the ban against gay leaders in the Boy Scouts:
"What a ____ing idiot."

2006 on the Winter Olympics:
"Count me among those who don’t like them and won’t watch them ... Because they’re so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention. Try not to point out that something’s not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what’s called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won ... So if only to hasten the arrival of the day they’re done, when we can move on to March Madness — for God’s sake, let the games begin."

2006 on NFL negotiations:
"Before he cleans out his office have Paul Tagliabue show you where he keeps Gene Upshaw's leash. By making the docile head of the players union his personal pet, your predecessor has kept the peace without giving players the kind of guarantees other pros take for granted. Try to make sure no one competent ever replaces Upshaw on your watch."
 
Originally Posted by grittyman20

Wasn't about comparing athletes to slaves...it's Stern's actions as commissioner to an overseer.
Click to expand...
overseer of what? it implies that stern is treating these pro athletes as slaves. i mean when you use the term "plantation overseer". i mean i get it, he's trying to make a bold sounding statement. there are better ways he could have gotten his point across though.



and as far as the article about plantations not using slaves for the majority of their existence...there is no way gumbel used the word with that in mind. he used it to to get the exact attention it's getting.
 
Originally Posted by Mr Marcus

laugh.gif
boy got balls to say that about a Jew......*%%# can be lowkey career suicide but Gumbel do have decades in this *%%#
Click to expand...
It's not like he called him anything offensive though, and there were jewish slave owners...!@#@ judah benjamin a jew was once of the highest ranking members of the confederacy, I doubt that will be an issue.

And I applaude Gumbel.  Stern did a wonderful job with the NBA for the first about 20 years of his job but he's bending down to the owners too much lately and becoming too much of a tyrant.
 
Originally Posted by RyGuy45

[h1]Bryant Gumbel Drops One Little Plantation Metaphor, And Everybody Loses Their S____[/h1]
You'll notice that Bryant Gumbel never once used the s-word in his criticism of David Stern last night. His extended analogy called the players "hired hands," which ought to put the lie to any suggestion that actual, literal slavery was being evoked. That hasn't stopped the usual backlash that comes up whenever anyone even goes near that third rail of American everything. ("If he's saying NBA players are slaves," reads the highest-rated comment on Pro Basketball Talk, "bring back the plantations and i'll sign right up.")
Plantation is the key word. Plantations date back to the latifundia of the Roman Empire and continue to exist today, and they have only relied on slave labor for a small proportion of their existence. Disparity of wealth is not the concept Gumbel seizes upon; it's disparity of power. And in the sense that David Stern has long suffered from a megalomania that makes him treat his players as insignificant employees instead of valuable allies in a multi-billion-dollar corporation, Gumbel's not wrong.

I don't want to offer platitudes about the lockout being about respect, not money, because that's false. The NBA is a system that worked well when the money was flowing, but between the dried-up national economy and the inexorable creeping of richer, longer contracts, it no longer works as well. The lockout is all about who has to give up the money to close the gap between what the system was and what it has to be. But both sides will have to give something up in the end, and both will agree on the eventual solution. Believe it or not, they're all in this together.

Partners! There's a novel way to look at the NBA. The owners wouldn't be able to get rich without the draw of the actual players' play, and the players wouldn't be able to get rich without the organizational infrastructure and marketing put in place by the league. This, I think, is what Gumbel was hitting at before the baggage that comes with his plantation metaphor dragged his point down, out of the discussion. If David Stern were to treat the players as his colleagues instead of as children, mediation sessions wouldn't devolve into screaming sessions with Kevin Garnett. This is a lockout, not a strike, and the man in charge of it all is expending his effort on telling the players they're in the wrong.

It's all power, dickwaving and power. (Kurt Helin hit on this in a roundabout way when he noted the owners' frustration at their powerlessness to keep their star players from jumping ship, then masking it as "competitive balance.") When Stern says the players shouldn't have the power to choose their wardrobes, and shouldn't have the power to question referees' calls, and shouldn't have the power to accept a six-year contract if someone's willing to offer it, that's paternalism gone wild. I know what's best for you, the commissioner coos. You don't.

Gumbel could have gone with dictator instead of overseer, nanny instead of bossman. But he chose the plantation and its racial undertones because that's what comes to mind in a workplace where 83 percent of employees are black and 97 percent of bosses are white, and one of them is a racist piece of #%+$ like Donald Sterling. Gumbel also chose it because he knows the value of getting attention when making a point worth hearing. (See Jason Whitlock's "slave catchers.") But here we are, reduced to actually explaining that slavery was worse than playing professional basketball, all the while ignoring the fact that this lockout is so caustic and intractable because the man dictating the process is consumed with putting himself above his own pile of #%+$.

http://deadspin.com/58513...verybody-loses-their-#%+$
Click to expand...
Click to expand...


I hope everyone saying he could have worded it better reads this.
 
I did a report on this topic years ago in college. I thought it was evident back then and even more evident today that Bryant Gumbel's description of David Stern is accurate.
 
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