Little Man Isiah
As a collegiate athlete and NBA professional, Isiah Thomas was a deft and compelling figure, proving both elusive and crafty, in a sport in which he was more often than not, the shortest figure on the court. Thomas was the quintessential "little man" in a big man's game. Thomas's "little man" aesthetic translated into two world championships for the Detroit Pistons and his elevation as one of the NBA's 50 greatest players. But in retirement Thomas reputation as the "little engine that could" has been severely challenged by difficult and at times inept performances as the coach and general manager of several NBA teams and as the one-time owner of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA). No doubt when he tried to succeed on the corporate side of the National Basketball Association, Thomas's status as an African-American complicated the "little man" issues he had faced throughout his career; Thomas simply wanted to be one of the boys. But as so many black athletes have found out--Michael Jordan's tenure as general manager of the Washington Wizards being the most visible example--no amount of celebrity and wealth, will allow them to be one of the boys; Unless of course if it is in the sharing of the everyday privilege that comes so easily at the expense of women.
Isiah Thomas's tenure as general manager and coach of the New York Knickerbockers has been marked by consistent failure as the team has underperformed on the court and more tellingly at the box office. Madison Square Garden, which was regularly sold-out during the mid-1990s and during the team's heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s, has rarely been filled during the Thomas era. In an era when NBA teams regularly attempt to clear salary when a team underperforms, Thomas has consistently taken on the salaries of over-paid-past-their-prime players. After Larry Brown's term as coach of the Knickerbockers, in which the coach blatantly undermined Thomas's authority, Thomas had become little more than the laughing stock of the league, turning a once-proud franchise, into the league's most visible embarrassment. As such there was little chance that the accusation that Thomas had sexually harassed a black woman employee would ever illicit the kind of strong response from Thomas's boss James Dolan, the head of the Madison Square Garden corporation and CEO of Cablevision, that 4 years of losing games and money under Thomas's leadership had rarely inspired from him. Dolan's collusion with Thomas in this regard was just further proof that it is always "money over bitches"--even in corporate board rooms.
For his part Thomas proved every bit as crafty as his professional resume suggests when he tried to maneuver past charges that he referred to Anucha Browne Sanders--a highly accomplished black woman executive--as a "bitch" and a "ho," by suggesting, in part, that such language directed at a black woman was a communally understood privilege of black men and thus should be interpreted quite differently than if such language was employed across the color-line. Such a defense falls flat in the post-Imus era, though we must to be clear that any attempts to protect black women from the sexist and misogynistic language of black men has little to do with actually protecting black women--respectfully Congressman Rush, a committee hearing about the actual lived conditions of black women would have been much more effective--and everything to with attempts to undermine black male encroachment on white male economic and political privilege. And as such, black men prove unwitting collaborators in their own demise, in part, because of their refusal to address their own sexist and misogynistic behavior.
By finding Thomas guilty of sexual harassment, but relieving him of the responsibility of paying punitive damages to Sanders, for the court has decided that Isiah Thomas is no more culpable than your average around-the-way rapper, though in a world that is so clearly defined by the messy intersections of race, class, gender and sexuality, we are always gonna hold the rappers more accountable. Holding the rappers to a higher standard than we do the real men of privilege allows us as a society to consume the spectacles of sexual harassment, sexism, and misogyny, without ever having to seriously confront the fundamental ways that women are marginalized, demeaned, and harmed in everyday life--not just by mean little words--but more importantly, by the actions that give those words their context and their power. While the Madison Square Garden Corporation will pay punitive damages to Sanders, they will seamlessly transition from their guilt, much the way so many corporate entities do, because their influence is not tangible to the everyday realities that make sexism and misogyny critical issues to women of all races.
In the end, Isiah Thomas is no more than a "little man", who is like so many other little men who like to beat women over their heads with mean little words in order the manifest the privilege that the society has long granted them. In that regard he is very much one of the boys.
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