What LaVar Ball Can Teach #TheResistance
The Big Baller isn’t afraid to take sides, so why are we?
Consider, for a moment, the following video. (But maybe turn the sound down if you’re at work.)
Crude? Undoubtedly. Ridiculous? Absolutely. But I would also argue that the clip, which has been making the rounds over the past few days, is perhaps the perfect distillation of the LaVar Ball experience. Here is Mr. Big Baller Brand himself, the ultimate attention hound, posing for a quick shot with what he probably assumed was a fan. Instead, as it turned out, this particular young man was not an admirer, but a hater, determined to give LaVar a rather uncouth piece of his mind. Hey, those are the perils of the job when you are the nation’s preeminent basketball dad.
But the absolute best part of the clip — and the part that is so vital to understanding LaVar’s game — is what happens next. There is no retaliation, no clap back, no trading of insults, not even a dirty look. Instead, Ball stays smiling, his grin remaining wide and bright as he leaves the frame with just a few jovial words. “Ok. Ok, that’s good.” There is no anger, no irritation whatsoever, only the perfect troll face, asking that unspoken question that we have come to know so well.
Why You Mad Bro?
LaVar Ball, it should probably be said right off the bat, has been an imperfect, problematic figure in a wide variety of ways, since catapulting himself into the sports consciousness with an endless string of interviews, talk show appearances, and branding opportunities. While much of his bluster can be shrugged off as harmless theatrics and self-promotion, there have nonetheless been plenty of instances where Ball’s behavior has crossed any line of decency, from his bullying of his sons’ former high school coach, to his sexist tantrum about the performance of a female referee, to his ‘Stay in Yo Lane’ catchphrase (now available on a variety of t-shirts), which takes on a particularly noxious quality given that it was originally born out of an implication that women should know better than to offer sports commentary.
So yes, make no mistake about it, LaVar Ball is far from a heroic figure. And yet… well… this GIF still makes me want to stand up and cheer.
That tweet, for anyone who needs a refresher, was simply the most recent salvo in the burgeoning feud between the head of Big Baller Brand, and the… *shudders*… leader of the free world. Given that 2017 is the most ridiculous of all possible timelines, it was inevitable that LaVar would eventually cross paths with President Orange Julius, and sure enough, once his some LiAngelo was detained, along with two UCLA teammates, for shoplifting during an exhibition tour of China, the crossing of the streams was complete. (That’s not a pee-tape joke, I swear.)
According to reports, President Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping for expeditious, lenient treatment for the young athletes, and sure enough, the players were on a plane back to the United States after a few days, rather than the months and years that some predicted might have been possible had they been convicted of a felony abroad.
Of course, because this is Donald Trump we are talking about, such a resolution was only worthwhile for the ways in which it could be used to reflect further honor upon our benevolent dear leader. And so, our President took to the electric Twitter machine demanding thanks, and a public show of gratitude.
The players, including LiAngelo Ball (apparently at the urging of UCLA), all obliged.
His father? Not so much.
“I don’t have to go around saying thank you to everybody,” said the elder Ball, in a predictably bonkers interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, “He didn’t call me, I didn’t shake his hand. Maybe we was doing some talking with some other people… Why are we even talking about this with all these political matters going on in the world?”
And so, despite the lamentations of our Mewler in Chief, LaVar Ball closed with a straightforward message.
“Tell Donald Trump… to have a great Thanksgiving!” Ball explained to Cuomo, “Because Big Baller is!”
And there, again, accompanied by two big thumbs up, was the LaVar Ball troll face, in all of its glory.
What, LaVar Ball worry?
So why then… Why is it so satisfying to watch the Big Baller dunk on Trump, both proverbially, and in animated form?
Maybe it’s because the rest of the world seems so damn afraid to.
Take, for example, the esteemed ‘Old Gray Lady’, The New York Times. Our President, and his supporters, have made no secret of their desire to dismiss the paper as ‘fake news’, to cast it as part of the liberal elite, a biased organization that, along with the rest of the fourth estate, functions as the ‘opposition party’ in the minds of the cranks who brought us to this place. It is hardly surprising that the current iteration of the Republican Party, one that dismisses climate science, rejects evolution, and simply ignores budget projections that are inconvenient for their reverse Robin Hood wealth redistribution, would be so hostile to the media.
No, what’s surprising is how desperate the media seems to be to placate them.
Last week, as reported by Splinter News and others, the Times made clear, in an email from Philip B. Corbett, the paper’s associate managing editor for standards, that they expected freelancers to adhere to their recently unveiled social media guidelines for “fairness and impartiality”, just like full-time employees. And what, exactly, are those guidelines? As explained by the Times when they unveiled the new policies back in October:
• In social media posts, our journalists must not express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates, make offensive comments or do anything else that undercuts The Times’s journalistic reputation.
• Our journalists should be especially mindful of appearing to take sides on issues that The Times is seeking to cover objectively.
• These guidelines apply to everyone in every department of the newsroom, including those not involved in coverage of government and politics.
It’s truly silly, of course, to expect anyone who might freelance for the Times — now or in the future — to have never endorsed a candidate, discussed politics, or even expressed a political view on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Contrary to what this policy seems to suggest, social media is not some mysterious, mythical space separated from the rest of the world. These days, it’s where we talk, and gather, and yes, even argue sometimes. It’s the height of folly to think that there’s some benefit to stripping people of their ability to express themselves in the modern public square.
The Times’ guidelines aren’t really about objectivity. Objectivity is achieved, quite plainly, by fact-checking your reporting, verifying your information, and making sure that every piece of news that’s put forward is unimpeachably accurate. Believe it or not, we all have our political leanings, and the ultimate truth of a story has nothing to do with what a reporter tweeted out a month before. No, the Times’ attempts to police the social space aren’t really about objectivity. They’re about appearances, about shielding themselves from any possibility of criticism, valid or otherwise.
And it’s not as if the Times is alone in this. On the contrary, there’s been no shortage of those ready and willing to bend over backwards to make sure they haven’t offended those who have already declared their opposition. There’s MSNBC, who made the wrongheaded (and thankfully, eventually reversed) decision to sever ties with contributor Sam Seder, all because a conservative crank willfully misinterpreted an attempt at satire. There’s Facebook, which obviously wants to combat its false information problem, just as long as, you know, they don’t run the risk of upsetting any of their more conservative users in the process. There’s the NFL, desperately doing everything they can to bring an end to player protests, lest anyone believe that the grown men in their employ are allowed the right to peaceful expression.
Hell, even our coffee makers are running scared. One month ago, after a tweet about suspending advertising on Sean Hannity’s show sent Fox News viewers into a Keurig smashing rage, (living without my daily caffeine intake in order to own the libs!) CEO Bob Gamgort quickly clarified that “the decision to publicly communicate our programming decision via our Twitter account was highly unusual. This gave the appearance of “taking sides” in an emotionally charged debate that escalated on Twitter and beyond over the weekend, which was not our intent.”
It’s a statement that’s honest, if nothing else. Neither Keurig, nor anyone else, has any intention of “taking sides”, because that’s the quickest way to commit the greatest sin of all in our capitalist utopia… to make someone mad. Better to stay neutral, to remain ‘fair’, to say absolutely nothing at all, in perpetuity, to ensure that nobody, on the left, right, or center could ever possibly object, and get in the way of doing business.
Is it any wonder, then, why LaVar Ball’s public feud with our Cheeto-In-Chief comes across as such a breath of fresh air? Here he is, the quintessential agitator, instigating a feud with a President who has proven himself to be petty, childish, and vindictive. And by taking him on so bluntly, particularly as an outspoken African-American man, Ball has undoubtedly opened himself up to reprisal, to retaliation, to all manner of people who will never buy his product, never support his brand, who will feel comfortable, just like our friend in the video up above, strolling right up and telling him what he can do with his Big Baller Brand.
And you know what? LaVar will keep smiling through it all.
That’s because he understands something that the rest of us need to get through our heads. You’re not going to go through this life, this day and age, this climate, without making a few enemies. Here we are, nearly a year into being ruled by a petulant child, manifestly unfit for the office, watching as a government meant to protect us instead strips away our social safety net, rolls back regulations, explodes inequality, and makes the sort of catastrophic decisions about our courts, our land, and our planet, that will be felt for generations.
And we’re worried about making some enemies? About offending a certain segment of the population? About remaining genteel?
I’d say that when it comes to fighting back, we could all use a little more Big Baller Brand in our collective psyche. Haters gonna hate, after all, and if LaVar has taught us anything, it’s that you’ve just got to tune them out.
Especially when there’s business to get done.
