So is this National Basketball League promotional TV commercial from Australia infested with racism, as many are claiming? You be the judge … I’m washing my hands, and my feet, of the entire thing.
OK fine, here’s the background: The commercial shows various NBL players running through a family’s home, throwing passes, taking shots and generally destroying everything in sight. I assume they have home insurance for that sort of thing in Australia. Anyway, at one point, Sydney Kings forward Taj McCullough, who is African-American, leaps onto a white couple’s bed and nuzzles up to the woman. This has outraged several African-American NBL vets, who say it’s insensitive and racist.
Former Melbourne Tigers player Darryl McDonald:
“It puts black Americans in a bad light,” McDonald, who is also African-American, told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. “That commercial has nothing to do with basketball. Nobody else would present their sport this way.”
Video following the jump.
From The Grio:
In a statement on Friday, the NBL defended the ad as “lighthearted and fun.”
“We believe viewers and supporters will certainly see the promo in the light in which it was intended, and we note the overwhelming feedback from the public that this is indeed the case,” the NBL said.
But Cal Bruton and Leroy Loggins, African-Americans who became naturalized Australians after starring in Australia’s domestic league in the 1980s with the now defunct Brisbane Bullets, were both highly critical of the concept of the advertisement.
Bruton said it was particularly insensitive because it calls to mind the case of former Brisbane Bullets player Bryant Matthews. Matthews, an African-American, was convicted in 2007 of raping a white woman who was in bed with her partner at the time of the attack.
I could get all opiniony about this, but I have a deal with Australia: They keep sending us Emu oil and Lauren Jackson, and I stay out of their sports TV controversies.
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Aussie basketball TV ad slammed as racist [The Grio]
