Phil Mushnick has earned quite a reputation for blowing up his targets.
So you can bet many of those targets are having a fine time watching the New York Post columnist come under considerable fire for last Friday’s column. It included this highly combustible passage about Jay-Z and the Brooklyn Nets:
As long as the Nets are allowing Jay-Z to call their marketing shots — what a shock that he chose black and white as the new team colors to stress, as the Nets explained, their new “urban” home — why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment?
Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N——s? The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B—-hes or Hoes. Team logo? A 9 mm with hollow-tip shell casings strewn beneath. Wanna be Jay-Z hip? Then go all the way!
Mushnick is being pounded for using the N-word, even if he didn’t spell it out, and for stereotyping. The worst accusation: people are calling Mushnick a racist.
James King of the Village Voice wrote Friday:
The story of Mushnick’s blatantly racist attempt at satire is getting some attention in the blogosphere — as well it should — and we’re more than compelled to give it a little more.
Then King concluded:
We haven’t heard back. We’ll let you know if we do. Meantime, Mushnick might want to get his lipstick handy — we have a feeling Jesse Jackson’s ass will soon be in need of a smooch.
So now the tables turn on Mushnick. You can be sure over the years many of his subjects/victims have complained to the Post columnist about being misrepresented or unfairly characterized.
Monday, Mushnick did the same to King in a post at Village Voice. Mushnick wrote:
I’m never comfortable using that word [nigger]. That’s the way I was raised. Shame on my parents. The ONE time I spelled it out – for accuracy – I was widely condemned as a racist. So either way, I’m a bigot. I know what’s in my heart and my head, the way I was raised, and the way I raised my kids. But you’ve painted me a racist. Good work, James. And good work, if you can get it.
Later in the post, there’s this passage from Mushnick.
One last fleeting thing, perhaps a defensive thing. Recall Marge Schott, the racist owner of the Cincy Reds who was infamously banned from baseball for her n-word – sorry, nigger – references to blacks? Know who publicly exposed her, leading to her expulsion? Ah, never mind. You already know me as a racist. Ever hear of McCarthyism? That’s you. Ready, fire, aim. Nice job.
It is absurd to think Mushnick is a racist. His regular readers know he is a crusader for social justice in sports and beyond.
Mushnick, though, did make a mistake in making his point about Jay-Z. I don’t think there is any place for that kind of language, even in satire.
Mushnick has yet to address the controversy in two subsequent columns since last Friday, including one today. That’s too bad. It would be interesting to hear his perspective on being at the other side of the table.
Follow-up: Yesterday, I noted Mushnick’s Sunday wasn’t promoted on the Post’s main sports page on the Net. I found it curious since 10 other sports Post columnists were displayed. Probably a coincidence. Still, the omission was rather curious given the timing of the controversial Mushnick column.
Well, I checked today and Mushnick’s column was featured in the column wing, right under my old golf pal, Mark Cannizzaro.
Well, the whole problem here is that Mushnick should be holding Jay-Z up as the mantle of what going from the street corner to the corner suite can do for someone. Mushnick should be talking about that someone who did make a name and profit off of a vicious lifestyle was able to parlay that into into making profit off ventures that do not glorify an old lifestyle.
And as for Marge Schott, Mushnick was not a lone crusader, or even the first crusader, and the fact that he has to result to a look-at-what-I-did-once defense, instead of a look-at-my-friends-and-associations defense speaks volumes for the fact that he refuses to admit that what he wrote is not only in bad taste, but offensive to every member of the Nets organization, including those who have no direct connections to ownership.
Furthermore, Mushnick is engaging in the same broad-brush McCarthyism that he accuses others of when he accuses those who criticize him as a McCarthyists.
Ed, if accurate quotes are not fair game in criticism, nothing is.
PM nailed JZ and he has exposed many fools in the process. There is not a construct to be made that justifies JZ’s fame and success. PM has forced the real enemy to look at himself.
That enemy is us.