URI Professor Calls Tom Brady a Dog Whistle for White Supremacists. Or Something.
There was an America that existed for a century or so – one that I like to think I grew up in – where sports was filled with instructional, moral tales of inspiration. Where the culture admired the people who overcame long odds to achieve great feats. Babe Ruth not only grew up in an orphanage, he was an overweight, whore-chasing drunk who nevertheless rewrote the record book. Joe Louis was the seventh of eight kids in rural Alabama who joined the Army in WWII and beat the snot out of an Aryan superman. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Ted Williams was the half-Mexican son of a Salvation Army worker and served in two wars. Michael Jordan was cut by his high school coach. Team USA beat the Soviets in Lake Placid. Rocky Balboa beat Ivan Drago and ended the Cold War. And so on.
But America has changed. At least it’s changed for some people. And for them, a person coming up through the ranks, believing in themselves, never giving up, working hard and achieving great things is not necessarily something to celebrate. In fact, it’s a symbol of the very worst in all of us.
Meet URI Associate Professor of Kinesiology Kyle Kusz. Not to be confused with Kyle Kuzma of the Lakers. No, this is Kyle Kusz:
When he’s not teaching kinesiology, which is “the study of the principles of mechanics and anatomy in relation to human movement,” the good professor is somewhat of an authority on masculinity and culture. Which you probably surmised from the Google image. And he’s got a thought-provoking piece on my go-to site for all things sports and principles of mechanics related things, Sport in American History. It’s really long and I’ll do my best to reduce it to just the highlights. But SparkNotes version: Prof. Kusz is not happy with Tom Brady’s success story. Not one damned bit.
It starts with 12 paragraphs about Donald Trump. Which I only skimmed but can probably boil down to “the orange man is bad.” It’s basically any SNL “Weekend Update” from the last two seasons, with the same number of laughs. It’s that 13th paragraph where we finally get past the backstory and into Tom Brady’s journey as a puppet for the White Supremacists:
But for the rest of this essay, I want to offer some developing thoughts on Trump’s repeated use of white sportsmen—but particularly his twitter-based affection for Tom Brady—as dog-whistles to communicate his brand of white supremacy. I contend that Trump has used white sportsmen like the late Joe Paterno, Bobby Knight, and Brady as dog-whistles to connect on an affective level with American white men from various regions of the United States so they feel like Trump is a politician who finally understands them and will fight to protect and preserve the white male prerogative for men like them.
To review: Tom Brady, who’s spent his adult life being voted team captain by a diverse locker room of mostly minority teammates from Samoa to Georgia, from St. Vincent to Europe and is an internationally recognized icon in Latin America, is a dog whistle for the white male prerogative. And this is NOT what the white male prerogative looks like.
Got it? Good. Moving on.
Like Paterno and Knight, Brady has suffered a much-publicized fall through his role in the recent Deflategate scandal. … Brady’s devotees have ardently alleged that he’s been railroaded by a NFL Commissioner who has capriciously wielded the institutional power of his office to illegitimately punish a living legend—in Trump’s vernacular ‘a true champion and winner’—who will one day be immortalized in Canton, Ohio.
The coded language of Trump’s tweet reveals that part of Brady fans’ impassioned fury about Commissioner Goodell’s punishment of Brady can’t be explicitly named. There are at least two racial dimensions to Brady’s supporters defense: 1) they seem unable to believe that a living white male NFL legend would not be protected by the League; and 2) they sense that Goodell targeted Brady because punishing him—a player who embodies all the virtues of all-American white sporting masculinity—would allow the Commish to deflect mounting criticism that his previous player conduct punishments were guided by a personal racial bias that was unfairly targeting black players. Who better to use to alleviate such an allegation than a white quarterback whose ‘I’m just here to play football’ pose, ferocious competitive spirit, and proven record of success makes him the ultimate symbol of American-state sanctioned white male perfection. What other act would better mitigate the Commissioner’s momentary development of a racial conscience?
Actually, Brady’s supporters believe Brady was innocent not because of race, but because of science. PV = NrT. The Ideal Gas Law is middle school level physics. I’d assume an Associate Professor of Kinesiology at URI might be familiar with it. I stand corrected. And the good professor isn’t doing himself any favors by using “Roger Goodell” and “conscience” in the same sentence. Just as Mrs. Ray Rice or anyone in New Orleans if you don’t want to take my word for it. And for the record, as a white male myself, if any other ethnic group is interested in claiming Goodell as their own? Help yourselves. You don’t even need to thank us.
[Brady’s] is a tale of his being an athletic underdog who has only become one of the NFL’s all-time best quarterbacks because his strong work ethic, strict discipline, and smarts have enabled him to overcome the doubts and minimal opportunities afforded him by so-called football experts in college and upon his entry into the NFL. This tale transforms the flesh and blood Brady into the fantasy of the self-made American man, a figure that has been instrumental historically in masking, protecting and preserving the white male prerogative in American institutional life.
I’m missing something. I feel like Kusz is trying to tell us that being a self-made American man is a bad thing. That we’d be better off as a society if he never made the cut at Michigan and instead became the guy who served the professor his Blonde Caramel Cloud Macchiato and tried to sell him his self-published Jazz Fusion CD this morning. But I’m just not seeing it.
But it also subtly situates him within the racial politics of our times as the humble, hard working white guy who seems to lack any trace of social privilege, doesn’t display any inflated sense of entitlement and thus can be cited by defenders of the status quo to deny the idea that any systemic racial and gender privileges exist at all.
I see. So being a humble, hard working white guy without any inflated sense of entitlement is wrong. And Brady news to stop figuring out how to distribute the ball to the open man against Sean McDermott’s coverages and blitz packages and start admitting the systemic racial and gender privileges that seem to exist everywhere. Except at the URI Department of Kinesiology, it would appear. Go on …
Perhaps the best place to see just how easily Brady’s all-American/underdog/self-made man identity can be transformed into a disturbingly fascist image of ‘white supremacy as militaristic nationalism and white conformity’ is in a 30-second UnderArmour commercial. .. Titled ‘Rule Yourself,’ the commercial immediately grabs one’s attention as it employs a digital filming technique that visually clones Brady into hundreds, if not, thousands of copies. As if dreamt up by Baudrillard himself, the commercial offers viewers a veritable army of simulated Bradys, all conspicuously clad in gear that is conspicuously black and red (some of which is adorned with the stars and stripes and military fatigue motifs).
[It] is presumably intended to connote ideas of hard work, discipline, and national pride to American audiences so eerily transforms in the span of 30 seconds into a Nazi-like vision where racial difference is eradicated in favor of the valorization of an army of idealized white men moving in perfect conformity with one another.
In today’s language, ‘Rule Yourself’ offers a national fantasy where only white male winners matter.
Of course! It’s so obvious! Brady wasn’t selling athletic wear for a company he owns stock in! He was selling a militaristic approach to white male dominance, right out of a Joseph Goebbels propaganda film. And while we’re at it, Peyton Manning sings the Nationwide jingle very much to the tune of “Deutschland Uber Alles.” And Aaron Rodgers “Discount Double Check”? The Gestapo’s central administrative office for Nazi Party affairs was Department C. Deutsche Department C. “DDC.” Coincidence? I think not. Finally:
And if we read “Rule Yourself” Brady intertextually with the living, breathing G.O.A.T who is frequently imagined as the man who has it all (the riches, athletic prowess, fame, supermodel wife, and healthy family), then part of Brady’s appeal—something that Trump and other anxious white men certainly recognize—is how, perhaps like Viagra or Oxycontin, it can feel like an antidote to those feelings of self-loathing they just can’t seem to shake.
I’ll admit it. He’s finally right. After reading Prof. Kusz diatribe, I do have feelings of self-loathing. For putting myself through this. But also because I’ll never be Tom Brady. I’ll just try to remember I’ll also never be this guy. Impeach him.