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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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Lebron James is upset that he was asked questions about Kyrie James’ potential anti-semitism but was not asked about Jerry Jones potential anti black racism. For those not familiar, Kyrie is a basketball player that posted a video link to a movie that I understand is making the claim the blacks are the real Jews. Kyrie refused to apologize until he eventually did. A photo of Jerry Jones emerged that showed Jones was in the crowd that was attempting to prevent Arkansas from de-segregating schools. It isn’t clear from the picture whether Jones was participating or merely watching a spectacle. Also of note Jones was only 14 and it was about sixty five years ago. Jones is an owner of the Dallas Cowboys, a football team (the real football; not the silly sport being played in Qatar right now).

Below is a link to ESPN.

This seems like Lebron’s attempt to revenged racism as “whites against blacks” instead of the conversation that blacks (eg Kanye, Kyrie, other athletes) have an anti semitism problem. The reason I think so is because the situations couldn’t be very different.

  1. Kyrie did these actions today; Jones was photographed 65 years ago. People change.

  2. Kyrie is a grown ass man. Jones was 14.

  3. It isn’t clear Jones was even being racist.

  4. It is more natural that Lebron was asked about something happening in the NBA as opposed to something happening in the NFL.

I am curious if this will be successful. The dirty secret is that the black community does have some pretty big racism issues (eg anti antisemitism). It’s also interesting that instead of leading the charge, Lebron wants to redirect. It makes it seem that he doesn’t give a damn about justice but just special pleading for his own race. Now of course I’d believe that because I dislike Lebron. But curious to hear other thoughts.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/35153937/lebron-james-faults-media-not-asking-1957-jerry-jones-photo

The cool woke intellectual guy HBU-grad in all these celebrities' circles is definitely hotep, where "wokeness" means the original "the CIA created AIDS and crack to keep the Black Man from realizing his natural superiority and unlocking the melanin-activated pineal gland powers of our Egyptian ancestors." You can hear threads of it in the lyrics of every rapper that's trying to be an intellectual, like Immortal Technique. I've been listening to more Kanye recently and noting every time it comes up.

These guys always have a ready explanation for why the celebrity's "fake jew" accountant says he doesn't have any money left, and why it doesn't have anything to do with buying his entourage expensive cars. So imo there's just this general attitude of mistrust for white/jew authorities plus a healthy dose of "all my homies know-..."

These guys always have a ready explanation for why the celebrity's jew accountant says he doesn't have any money left, and why it doesn't have anything to do with buying all his friends expensive cars.

Or it might have something to do with Jewish record execs and young rappers and the things that record execs did to anyone unequipped to stop them.

These complaints have gone on forever, on everyone's part. But I suspect black people have more cover to just notice certain demographic facts and be racially explicit/bigoted about them because they're seen as lower on the stack.

What percentage of their earnings do you think average mega successful athlete/musician is keeping vs their agent and manager?

Interesting that I said record exec and you said manager.

One outcome of this is that you seem to be debunking my point by saying that agents and managers were likely acting in good faith but the rapper was negligent. But you really aren't because a manager and record executive are different. A record executive is, imo, widely accepted to have his own set of interests which intersect with making an artist successful but can diverge in other, crucial ways, while a manager is supposed to work for the interests of their lord.

Beyond that, another outcome is that you completely pass by my point that complaints about record executives are universal in the music business to tell a different story about ungrateful financial naifs blaming their managers.

Those people obviously exist, but the point is that everyone shares the same disdain here - even successful artists. Blacks just seem to get away more with making it racial. Though they seem to be running out their string now.

This is a classic Marxist complaint about capitalism, but assuming you aren’t a communist it isn’t clear that the CEO of Lockheed Martin (who i presume has a handsome equity comp plan) is “more unfair” about the surplus value he extracts than the CEO of Sony Music.

I'd disagree here. The CEO of Lockheed Martin is in charge of a giant bureaucracy, consisting of many moving parts, and where no single employee is vital or irreplaceable. The value is in the product

This is not the case with musicians or athletes. Jerry Jones relies on Dak Prescott to win football games way more than the Lockheed CEO (Jim Taiclet, apparently) relies on any single employee to make war machines. Similarly the record execs need artists, who are disproportionately important to the business of selling music.

That's why it's particularly relevant to American blacks. They are almost exclusively wealthy through entertainment, not business or manufacturing or entrepreneurship. And therefore the American blacks who get rich are almost always in these positions of producing vastly more value for their employers than your average employee, or even your average millionaire.

You can argue the unfairness is the same, but I'd argue that LeBron on Kanye (or Taylor Swift) is irreplicable in such a way as to give them credence to their complaints.