Postscript — What Changed In The City Where The Point Gods Reigned?
CULTURE EATS STRATEGY, SOMETIMES
This summer, the Boardroom-produced documentary Point Gods was aired on Showtime with much fanfare and acclaim. As a New York City kid, a Bronx boy, and a uber-basketball fan, I was excited about the film.
This one was for every kid who used Rod Strickland to embarrass someone in NBA Live. Or had Starbury get busy on a non-believer in NBA 2K. For the 90s babies who spent hours practicing the Shammgod and shooting on milk crates until they were good enough to get some run. And too many times heard from some adults “you better know your school work like you know __________.” (Like you know anything non-school related.)
At this point, I know it is stereotypical and cliche to romanticize basketball and New York City. But in typical NYC bravado: if you know, you know. This documentary was for the New Yorkers who crowded neighborhood tournaments and followed AAU teams because community was more important than national; and everything local was realer than most things NBA.
RULE #1: SHOW YOUR WORK
Basketball is the first place where I learned that culture eats strategy, as the business saying goes. Unless: your skill is equal to your heart and your analysis matches your work. You can’t claim to be good, smart, or better than anyone unless you show your work.
I was invited to contribute some socio-economic and political analysis to the film Point Gods and I’m honored that part of my insights were included in the final cut. With the film out for the world now, and more time to reflect on the storyline and the era, I want to share my brief “postscript” on the social, political, and economic insights that compliment the documentary.
#FACTS — BLACK PATHOLOGY IS A MYTH
Black working class families in the urban north had to demonstrate remarkable resilience to survive the White backlash of the 1970s and the racist “wealth-less” economic policy of the 80s and 90s. What resulted was a slew of pundits, journalists, and finally politicians, who explained Black poverty and the struggles of the working-class as the result of self-destructive “cultures of poverty” and the group’s inability to respond to changing market forces. You might have heard of the dog-whistles used to blame, and ultimately regulate, the Black working class: welfare queens in Cadillacs, super-predators committing violent crimes, crack babies aging into mal-developed youth….and on…and on. Even the prominent Cornel West, in the early 1990s, engaged in the thesis of self-imposed Black working class decline, writing in the opening of Race Matters that the “recent market-driven shattering of black civil society — black families, neighborhoods, schools, churches, mosques — leaves more and more black people vulnerable to daily lives endured with little sense of self…”
Point Gods rejects that analysis by focusing on the social and family structures that support most of the guards in the documentary. Vince Smith was present for his younger brother Kenny and so many other Queens young men — including Kenny Anderson. The eldest Marbury boys, along with the entire family, shepherded Stephon into stardom. Mark Jackson’s mother and father came to all his games, to make sure “Action Jackson” knew he was supported — and to let others know, he wasn’t alone. Niehsa Butler talks about her father taking her to Gauchos and being there as her career ascended.
In all, it was beautiful to see so much Black parental and sibling love and encouragement — in the midst of America’s late 20th century economic turmoil. And to see plenty of Black boy joy!
SYSTEMIC RACISM IMPACTS CAREER CHOICES
Black male participation in the labor force has been the subject of voluminous academic research, perhaps most noted in sociologist William Julius Wilson’s “underclass” argument of the late 1970s and 1980s. The economic status of Black men with little-to-no college education or postsecondary credentials has been perilous from the late 1960s to present. Without counting those incarcerated or in difficult to research networks (like those who are housing insecure), Black men have employment rates lower that are have consistently been lower than White or Latino men. A 2021 Brookings Institute report highlights research which shows that “Black men experience less upward and more downward mobility over time, relative to their parents, than do any other race/gender group” in the United States.
The players, families, and communities depicted in Point Gods lived through the heart of these shifts and their impacts. This economy certainly effected their choices, especially those of the young men. The economist Kerwin Charles writes that “the median black man’s relative position in the earnings distribution has remained essentially constant since 1940.” In the context of this 2018 observation from Charles, there are hundreds of explanations that have been posited throughout the preceding decades regarding stagnating Black male economic outcomes. But I think the loss of manufacturing jobs is a key factor. The Wire’s creator David Simon succinctly describes the impact in this 2005 interview.
The relevance of the above discussion to Point Gods is that we have to add a structural and systematic analysis to our general observations. It is not just social status and networks that steer life choices. Basketball’s popularity and attraction to the young Black men of the 80s, 90s, and even 2000s stems from it being a more feasible, accessible pathway to upward economic mobility.
ALL THAT GLITTERS ISN’T GOLD
Systems, structure, and culture aside, NYC’s basketball culture was simultaneously glorious and problematic. Many of our “Point Gods” fought demons, like Pearl, Kenny, and in the end Starbury. The development of entertainment as Black men’s the most viable option for economic security was a reality that exposed us to the worst ills of capitalism. Lastly, the institutional pillars of our local basketball culture had some adults that represent Black love, but too many others who were vultures, parasites, and abusers — any of your favorite AAU program has probably had to navigate those troubles, or ceased to exist.
Passion inspires, motivates, and feeds persistence. Competition fosters self-awareness, accomplishment, and belief. Sports — including basketball — has given all the previously-named positives to most of the children (and grandchildren…and great-grandchildren) of the Black Freedom Struggle. The evolution, and survival of our people, requires us to do something that Professor West points out in the earlier reference chapter of Race Matters.
“The genius of our Black foremothers and forefathers was to create powerful buffers….to equip black folks with cultural amor to beat back the demons of hopelessness, meaninglessness, and lovelessness…cultural structures of meaning and feeling that created and sustained communities…amor that constituted ways of life and struggle that embodied values of service and sacrifice, love and care, discipline and excellence.”
When you watch or reflect on the Point Gods documentary, I hope you hold on to these points alongside your fandom and nostalgia.
