Tuesday night during the Lakers and Spurs game, TNT cameras caught Kobe mouthing a homophobic slur in the direction of an NBA referee, and less than 24 hours later, one gay rights organization has already called it a "disgrace" and "horribly offensive."
One day, the word "f—got" will be considered every bit as evil as the word "n—ger" and we can all live happily ever after. Until then, our reality's more complicated.
As the Human Rights Campaign continued in their critique, they explained, "Hopefully Mr. Bryant will recognize that as a person with such fame and influence, the use of such language not only offends millions of LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] people around the world, but also perpetuates a culture of discrimination and hate that all of us, most notably Mr. Bryant, should be working to eradicate."
For his part, Kobe offered an explanation. "What I said last night should not be taken literally," he explained. "My actions were out of frustration during the heat of the game, period. The words expressed do NOT reflect my feelings towards the gay and lesbian communities and were NOT meant to offend anyone."
Meanwhile, the NBA announced late Wednesday afternoon that the league will fine him $100,000. As David Stern said, "While I’m fully aware that basketball is an emotional game, such a distasteful term should never be tolerated. Insensitive or derogatory comments are not acceptable and have no place in our game or society."
And here's where we take a step back... The best treatment I've ever seen of hateful language came from South Park, naturally. In their episode about the N-word, they mocked whites' propensity to overreact to isolated incidents of hate speech and then congratulate themselves for false progress. Then, they hit on the fundamental problem unperpinning everything.
"I get it now," Cartman tells his black friend at the end. "I ... don't ... get it. I've been trying to say that I understand how you feel, but, I'll never understand. I'll never really get how it feels to have a black person have somebody use the N-word." It's as simple as that.
This is why South Park owns satire. They can expose the absurdity of racial sensitivity, and, at the same time, explain why we all need to be more sensitive. And all of it applies to the f-word, too.
(The juxtaposition of the two words is particularly funny here. Because if a Steve Nash ever called Kobe the n-word, he might get beaten to death on the spot. But the f-word remains fair game...)
What's the difference, then? On the surface they're the same, but within a cultural context, it's more nuanced. Where everyone grows up learning that it's "horribly offensive" for white people to say the n-word, we haven't gotten there with the f-word.
As Chris Rock once told America, "You don't have to be gay to act like a faggot. You don't even have to be a man to act like a faggot ... It's not the word, it's the context in which the word is being said." To some people, that makes sense. To 17-year old me, that makes sense.
So within a cultural context, it's hard to hate Kobe for what he said. Some people understand the word to be so despicable that saying it in any context is disgraceful, where others (like Chris Rock) can sometimes understand it differently. We haven't gotten to the point where the weight of that word is a shared cultural understanding, the way it is for white people saying the n-word. We'll get there one day, but right now, we should heed South Park's caricature of the way our culture works.
For instance, the NBA fining Kobe $100,000 grand may look like progress, and indeed, it sends a nice statement about what the league stands for. But it's hard to call it progress when A) that kind of language gets used every single night in the NBA, and Kobe's biggest crime was getting caught Or B) If the NBA wanted to take a stand on actual, tangible discrimination that alters lives, then they would look at Donald Sterling long before they get to Kobe.
"The words expressed do NOT reflect my feelings towards the gay and lesbian communities and were NOT meant to offend anyone," Kobe said. It may have lacked contrition, but it's sincere.
So while it's good to see people criticizing the language he used and the culture that makes it so accepted (because that's how we change), that's where this should end. Because this just sucks for everyone.
Regardless of what he said Tuesday night, crying homophobia at Kobe or the NBA is just as ridiculous at crying racism toward the white kid that gets caught rapping the n-word. But at the same time, even if Kobe wasn't talking about homosexuals Tuesday night, it doesn't matter. Some homosexuals may have felt the sting regardless, so Kobe will feel the heat.
Both sides feel singled out and unfairly attacked here, and both have good cause.
That why it's such a crappy situation. It'd be a lot more convenient if we could find true evil to ease our understanding here. But for now, reality's more complicated.