All That and a Bag of Mail

It’s Friday and all of you are pretending to work while you feverishly hit refresh waiting for the mailbag. Well, have no fear, I’m here for you. 

We start off with our beaver pelt trader of the week, Rachel Dolezal, who is the President of the NAACP’s Spokane, Washington office only she isn’t actually black. Despite, you know, pretending to be black for the past several decades. Who outed her? Her parents. What did Dolezal have to say when confronted with her fake blackness? 

“We’re all from the African continent.”

So true, Rachel, so, so true. 

Given that Caitlyn Jenner is receiving a courage ESPY for deciding to be female instead of male, Dolezal has to receive an ESPY for courage too, right? I mean, if going transgender takes courage, so does going transracial too, right? If we can all be whatever sex we feel like we should be, why can’t we all be whatever race we feel like we should be too?

More seriously, this is just more evidence of the media’s fixation on clear boundaries of race not applying in a modern day multi-ethnic America. The average “black” person in America today has 26% European DNA and the average Hispanic person has over half European DNA too. Unlike in past years where your racial identity was a product of stories from your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, we can actually have our DNA analyzed and see exactly what we’re made of. There’s no uncertainty. As a result race is becoming, increasingly, a convoluted construct. What if our actual race is different than what we’ve been told by our families? 

It also raises a more interesting question: If Rachel Dolezal is a strong civil rights advocate — which reports are she was — why does it matter what race she is? Moreover, why did she think she had to lie about her race in order to be a strong advocate? Anyway, my advice, as always, is for everyone to screw everyone else and get back to the important things in life — making fun of dumb people regardless of their racial backgrounds. 

But what do I know, I’m just a black gay Muslim trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents. 

Robert writes:

“Hey Clay,

With the coming out of Caitlyn Jenner and the crapstorm it caused when she won an espy I started to wonder what would happen if a more high profile athlete went transgender. Bruce was relatively well known, but Olympians often tend to have less staying power than athletes in other sports and he seemed to be better recognized as a recurring character on the Kardashians.

Imagine if Peyton Manning announced he was a girl. He is the favourite son of one of the most conservative states in America and the most recognized player in the most “manly” sport. Would Tennessee disown him? How would the NFL handle the situation?

What about Nick Saban? If he became a woman how would the 85% respond. Would they still adore him? Would they demand he step down from his coaching duties? I think the only way this ends is with the state of Alabama imploding in on itself.

I think the most interesting one would be Michael Jordan, though. He is the most regonized name in American sports and basically the only athlete who is acknowledged as unquestionably the best player to play his sport. Even after being retired for a decade he is still one of the faces of the league and is more marketable than most of the current NBA stars. How would he have to change his brand? How would the NBA handle it? It’s considered taboo to call a transgendered individual by their old name. Would the NBA still list him as Michael when talking about his past accomplishments? On merchandise? Most importantly, how would this affect his comparisons to Lebron? Since most of Jordan’s fans are sexually insecure middle aged men would they turn on their childhood hero? Would more conservative fans switch their allegiance to Lebron on principle? Most importantly, how much fun would Twitter have making jokes about Lebron being worse than a girl?

I seriously think this will happen to high profile athlete in sports at some point and wonder what your thoughts on this are?”

Good Lord, all three of these guys changing their genders would be great for Outkick. Which, to be honest, is really all I care about. Do you know how much mileage the 85% would give me over Nicolette Saban?

What if Jordan also decided he wanted to become the first person to win a gold medal on the men’s and women’s basketball teams? I don’t even know how this would all work out. Is that permissible? Don’t the Olympics gender test and disallow you if you have too many “masculine” traits to be considered female?  

I also wonder what’s next after transgender? What can liberal people in America make you feel awful about being insensitive about next? “Oh, you don’t understand how courageous it is to change your gender? You’re a horrible human being. We’re all going to shame you on social media now.”

What’s next?

I’m totally fine with polygamy. But if Steve Young — descendant of Brigham Young — went public and said, “You know what, I believe in plural marriage.” Would ESPN give him an ESPY for courage? I mean, isn’t that more courageous than changing your gender? I think you can go to jail for plural marriage. Your health insurance might well cover gender transition.   

If it’s not polygamy, I don’t even know what’s next. I’ve been asking people all over the place what’s next and no one has any idea. What subset of people is being disrespected right now that I need to be showing more respect to. I want to practice in advance. Because, look, I’m all for people doing whatever they want to make themselves happier. I don’t care who you screw or what genitals you have or how many drugs you do or how many wives you have. I really don’t give a damn at all.

And I hope Caitlyn Jenner is the happiest person this side of a kid going to Disney World for the first time. But do we have to pretend like Caitlyn Jenner is fucking Nelson Mandela fighting apartheid in South Africa? What bad things have happened to Jenner? She got a new reality show and the cover of “Vanity Fair.” She’s not going to jail. She’s not losing her life. Some people will say bad things about her on social media and on television. Well, welcome to the real world. Not everyone likes you no matter who you are or what you do. 

And, by the way, since when did being insensitive become the worst thing in our country? Why the hell does everyone have to tap dance around everyone else trying to avoid “triggering” their hurt feelings? This is America. This is the least offensive time to live in the history of our country and there are more offended people than at any time in the history of our country. Guess what, you don’t have a right not to be offended by something. If someone says something you don’t like, fucking deal with it and get on with your life.

I swear to God, we would get our asses kicked in every goddamn war we ever won if we fought them today.

Can you imagine how we’d train new soldiers if World War II was today? “You have to kill the Nazis with decency and respect for their cultural institutions. Allow them to die with the proper measure of self-respect, otherwise there’s no point in winning the war at all. In fact, some of you should let the Nazis kill you so they don’t feel bad about their inferior armies and weaponry. After all, this is an inclusive war. We are not going to be insensitive to the Nazis.”

An astounding number of you via email asked a similar question: “Thoughts on LeBron’s dick?” (ABC accidentally aired LeBron’s dick in the pregame.)

As a huge LeBron James fan I was kind of disappointed, honestly, in how average his limp penis looked. 

I kind of thought that if he wanted to LeBron could lasso tackle somebody with his penis from like twenty yards away.

Now I don’t think that. 

Which makes me a bit sad. 

(And all you Jordan fans know you were actually thinking, “Psshaw, Michael Jordan’s limp penis wouldn’t have even fit on the camera screen.”)

John writes:

“Clay,

Now that you’re back trolling the 85% with your dumbest fan bases, you’re no doubt getting a bunch of outrage and people calling for you to be fired or worse, which in an ironic twist only ends up making you more money (maybe you can afford to fly to Destin next time?). Wouldn’t a better strategy for those that hate you be to encourage you to expand your dumbest fan base lists? Just imagine if you started a series of the dumbest political views, gender identities, sexual orientations, religions, races, ect. Crazy as the 85% may be, I think in general they’ll limit their killing to trees, but the zealots in other areas would no doubt be more likely to do you in.

I’m not advocating expanding your series, as I do think serious harm could come to you and your family, but for those in the 85% looking to silence you, that would be the most effect method I believe.”

This spring on Outkick: the ten dumbest Muslim prophets. 

Ranked. 

What could go wrong?

Seth writes:

“I’ve always been a Lebron fan, and I got to thinking while watching the last couple of games. There’s no doubt the Warriors win this series in their sleep if Lebron is out. It would be the Monstars vs. Toon Squad without MJ. The Cavs wouldn’t even have a Bill Murray to turn to. But, obviously Lebron’s dominance is standing in Golden State’s way. So, what if Steve Kerr/Warriors management decided they were so desperate for a ring, that they were going to take Lebron out. I’m talking Bountygate style. Find your least valuable dude on the bench (or sign Ron Artest to a 1 game contract), give him a few hundred grand under the table, and have him go in and go straight for Lebron’s knees. Lebron has been nearly indestructible during his career, so it wouldn’t be easy, but he is human after all (I think). Obviously the guy who puts the hit on gets ejected, and probably shunned for life if he makes it really obvious.

But, after its all said and done, the Warriors give up 2 points and the ball, and have a guaranteed ring. Would the risk be worth the reward? If the truth comes out, what would the backlash be like on an organization if they were to pull something like this in a series of this magnitude, against the world’s best player? Which organization in professional sports would be most likely to do something like this?”

 

I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often. 

For instance, Kendrick Perkins, even though he’s on Cleveland, is the perfect goon to send in and wreck LeBron if he was on Golden State? He’s not playing, his career’s basically ever, he has no talent left. Why not? The best thing about this would be LeBron’s initial attempt to oversell the injury before realizing that he was actually hurt. Like last night when he flopped his way into the television camera to try and draw a flagrant foul. He’s the first person to throw himself into a television camera since Kim Kardashian’s sex tape. (Honestly, the NBA and soccer are so similar now when it comes to flopping that American sports fans can’t even point to soccer and bitch about this any longer).

If LeBron’s out I’m not sure the Cavs could score more than sixty points in a game. Who’s scoring on this team without LeBron facilitating?

Remember several years ago, back in 2005, when John Chaney sent in the goon for Temple against St. Joe’s and his player fouled out in four minutes after just fucking up everybody?

Chaney had to apologize and he suspended himself for one game. 

But if Kerr did this — and it was somehow proven that he was involved in ordering the code red — I think Adam Silver might have to ban him from coaching for five years or so. Seriously. Because if you didn’t act aggressively, everyone would start doing it and soon the NBA would be like the NHL, where you had guys on every team who existed solely to fight. And then white people would stop going to the games and none of them would realize how hypocritical it was to love white guys fighting in hockey but hate black guys fighting in basketball. 

Having said that, and despite his relatively average looking limp penis, I’m not sure anyone could hurt LeBron in the context of a basketball game.  

Chris writes:

“With the Women’s World Cup starting this week, I want to know your thoughts on Hope Solo being allowed to play for the United States Women’s Soccer Team. With the NFL and other professional sports league starting to take a hard stance on domestic violence, do you believe there is a double standard when addressing domestic violence penalties between men and women?”

There’s a clear double standard at play, but I understand why that is. Because women don’t beat up men that often. Men do beat up women all the time. We aren’t punishing the athlete, we’re punishing the larger societal issue, the athlete is just the story that allows the larger story to be told. And Hope Solo’s fortunate that what she did is comparatively rare. Because if, say, Tim Howard were charged with the exact same crimes as Solo, he wouldn’t have played in the World Cup.  

And that’s one of my biggest problems with the way the leagues are responding to domestic violence issues. Guys like Ray Rice aren’t being penalized for what they did, they’re being penalized because of the larger societal issue. The NFL is sending a message that it won’t stand for domestic violence. That’s all well and good, but you can’t make one or two guys the scapegoats for all of society.

And here’s the deal that no one else seems to talk or write about — THE NFL DOESN’T HAVE A DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PROBLEM. 

I feel like I need to scream this from the rooftops: ALL ATHLETES HAVE LOWER RATES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE THAN MEN THEIR AGE IN OUR COUNTRY DO. 

You know who has a much higher rate of domestic violence than athletes — police and members of the armed services. 

How much do you hear about their issues with domestic violence?

So my point’s pretty simple: the NFL just reflects larger societal issues, it doesn’t cause them. Moreover, if our rates of domestic violence were the same as the NFL’s our country’s overall rate of domestic violence would have plummeted. That would be a great thing.

But the NFL’s the worst and Roger Goodell should definitely be fired for not curing cancer. 

Ben writes:

“Clay, you’ve written before about sports leagues suspending (or not suspending) players for criminal accusations, ie Ray Rice, Kobe Bryant, etc. Now, this Hope Solo/USA Soccer/double standard issue has me wondering… when did the vast majority of the public ordain their favorite sports leagues to be a higher authority on law and order than the actual justice system? We have people whose full time job it is to investigate, prosecute, defend, judge and punish crimes like these.

Our society invests billions of dollars a year in our justice system, but despite all of that the only authority anyone cares about is that of a sports executive. That executive, by the way, has zero experience whatsoever in investigating, prosecuting or judging criminal cases. Isn’t that messed up? Don’t we as a society have that wrong? Have we, as a society, put sports on such a lofty pedestal that we hold them in higher regard than our judicial system? Will we ever be able to just let the people who punish crimes for a living punish crimes, and let the people who run sports leagues for a living run sports leagues, and if ever along the way one of them does their job very poorly (as the justice system has certainly done in the Ray Rice and Hope Solo cases), then we hold them accountable for it and not somebody else?”

This is my biggest issue with sports leagues punishing players for off the field acts. 

It leads to situations where everyone is madder at Roger Goodell for his Ray Rice suspension than they are at the judicial system for not punishing Rice. 

It’s totally backwards. 

I wrote last month that when Adrian Peterson was charged with child abuse the first reaction most people had was, “What is Roger Goodell going to do about Adrian Peterson’s alleged child abuse?”

No one cared what the judicial system was going to do. 

Have we really reached the point where the NFL is the Supreme Court? I guess so. It’s like ancient Rome right before it collapsed, bread and circus galore. 

Chris A. writes:

“Hey Clay,

Me and my friends were drinking a while back when I introduced them to a game called “Perfect In Every Way But.” If you’re not familiar with the game, the premise is there is a perfect woman, solid ten, great personality, everything you ever wanted, but she has one fatal flaw. You name the flaw and people vote whether they could marry that person or not. Some of the ones we came up with, could you do these?
1. The only type of sex she’ll do is use a strap on on you.
2. Screams your best friends name every time she orgasms.
3. Is a member of the 85%
4. Has a dick
5. When the full moon is out, she invites Nick Saban over to Eiffel Tower you. And he accepts.”

This is such a fantastic game. Because the hypotheticals are fun to come up with, but the best part is reacting to what your friends agree to accept. “But she has AIDS?!”

Also, I have a question about number five. Every full moon Nick Saban comes over and we Eiffel Tower or just one full moon. Because I’m totally fine with a threesome with Nick Saban, but I wouldn’t want to do it every full moon. (Even though you know he’d never come over during football season.)

I’m fine with number two.

None of the others though. I wouldn’t marry a really dumb girl or a woman/man with a penis.

Despite what you might believe, I do have standards. 

…

Wow, we covered a lot of ground in the mailbag this week.

Have great weekends and you can always reach me with mailbag questions at clay.travis@gmail.com