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Transcript

Criminalizing Symbols or more? The NBA Dress Code and "Hoodies"

Course review...

LABELING THEORY:

  • Labeling Theory paved the way for theorists, giving a new perspective to criminological thinking. One of the key academics to study this area was Howard Becker (1963), who identified the power of labeling individuals.
  • "....deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an 'offender'. The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label" (178).
  • This means that behaviour alone is not deviant, but the result of society saying it is so in line with legislation and social norms for that particular society; if one does not conform to these norms, s/he becomes labeled as deviant.
  • In short, deviant behaviour exists because people label it as such.
  • Labeling is critiqued for its lack of applicability to more serious offending, such as the universally acknowledged crime of murder, however, in terms of lower level crime, where there are no obvious victims, it can provide an important alternative point of view.
  • The labeling of individuals as deviant is crucial to society's process of self-identification.
  • Hooded sweatshirt
  • Hoodie
  • Cotton popover
  • Bunny hug
  • Kangaroo sweatshirt.
  • The Hoodie has been a fashion item since the 1980s and can be seen in different forms and styles across all generations today. In the North America, the association is with hip hop culture and white youth borrowing the style of black youth. In Australia, on the other hand, the link is to the surf culture, however in Britain, Hoodies are classed as a problem group of people who are predominantly working-class youth, mainly boys often viewed as threatening for wearing them.
  • The dilemma presented by some, and by Anne Phipps, is that hoodies serve to conceal the face from identification and surveillance systems, and therefore can be associated with crime in that respect.
  • The media has picked up upon stories of criminal and anti-social activity which have involved a person wearing a hoodie, these same stories are then presented in the news as committed by "hoodie yobs."
  • Representing them as a group to be feared by the public has aided the creation of a culture of fear, whereby in the everyday situation where youngsters wearing hoodies encountered are seen as the "hooded thugs" from the news and are automatically associated with criminal and anti-social behaviour.
  • As with any population, the idea is that all who wear an item of clothing is seen as a symbol.
  • In this case, it seen as a symbol of criminality, deviance, and delinquency in particular.
  • However, the idea that all are criminal or should be considered as such has sparked much debate within the media and political circles. The concept that just because a person dons an item of clothing they automatically arouse suspicion because of a minority activity goes completely against any concept of individuality and difference.
  • Many shopping centres and "malls" in the U.K. have made the decision to ban the wearing of hoodies in that location, however, this has had the adverse effect of banning a section of the population and tarring all that wear a hoodie with the same brush.

In one article a young black male highlighted his feelings as to how the current attitude discriminated against him, "They just have it in for black kids in hoodies. This is about colour."

NBA DRESS CODE...

  • Sports have always provided a glimpse into the sociological soul of a country; reflecting current social dynamics while simultaneously serving as an agent of significant social change. For example, professional sports excluded African-Americans from white teams and leagues for decades before becoming one of the earliest sources of equal rights when it began to integrate athletic competition.
  • The film industry has portrayed the sociology of sports [e.g.]
  • Parallels between sports and society are still prevalent today, with athletes from numerous nations achieving success at all levels in a manner reflecting similar advances of employee diversity in the workplace. The influence of modern athletes on the workplace can even be seen in the assorted attire, trend-setting hair-styles, bountiful body art and extensive "bling-bling" that adorns the fields and factories, as well as the locker rooms and boardrooms.
  • Studies have determined that dress codes may facilitate professional behaviour and promote a more favourable image to customers.
  • Some appearance rules promote homogeneity and conformity in an effort to increase trust, fairness, loyalty and performance.
  • Conventional business wisdom advises that dressing more formally for work may increase productivity, professionalism, reputation, creativity and performance.
  • Players are required to wear Business Casual attire whenever they are engaged in team or league business.
  • Business Casual attire means: a long or short-sleeved dress shirt (collared or turtleneck), and/or a sweater; dress slacks, khaki pants, or dress jeans; appropriate shoes and socks, including dress shoes, dress boots, or other "presentable shoes", but not including sneakers, sandals, flip-flops, or work boots.
  • Players in attendance at games but not in uniform are required to wear a sport coat and dress shoes or boots, and socks, when seated on the bench or in the stands during the game.
  • Teams can make exceptions to the Business Casual policy for special events or player appearances where other attire is appropriate - i.e. participation in a basketball clinic.

List of items that players are not allowed to wear at any time while on team or league business:

  • Sleeveless shirts, shorts
  • T-shirts, jerseys, or sports apparel (unless appropriate for the the event, e.g. a basketball clinic; team identitified, and approved by the team).
  • Headgear of any kind while a player is sitting on the bench or in the stands at a game, during media interviews, or during a team or league event or appearance (unless appropriate for the event)
  • Chains, pendants, or medallions worn over the player's clothes
  • sunglasses while indoors
  • headphones (other than on the team bus or plane, or in the team locker room).
  • The NBA Dress Code seems designed to promote professionalism, repair a damaged image and reconstruct a more favourable brand all in the hope of customer satisfaction, television ratings, and overall league revenue.
  • However, Mark Bandsuch argues that the items have some stereotypial correlation with minority attire, and therefore the guidelines raise conccerns about the coerced compromise of one's racial identity as an adverse impact of the dress code, and the possibility of a more deliberate discriminatory demeanour on behalf of the league.
  • Hairstyle, for example, is historically shadowed with political, philosophical and ideological overtones.
  • "White man" uniform? (khaki pants, collared dress shirt, dress shoes with socks).
  • Many NBA players rendered their own judgment, calling the policy patently racist and hypocritical at best, though hypocrisy does not always equal illegality.

Critiques:

  • The compromise of one's identity inherent in assimilation perpetuates 2 racial harms: subordination and stigmatization.
  • Bandsuch argues that by enforcing the dress code, the NBA is stigmatizing the dress, rather than challenging stereotypes.
  • Assimilating the players into the NBA, or discriminating against them?
  • Alternatives: disciplinary action for athlete misconduct, as opposed to enforcing a dress code.
  • The NBA does take disciplinary action against athlete misconduct. Referees are instructed to no longer tolerate the players' complaints after a whistle - and to call a technical foul for behaviour that reflects poorly on the overall league image.
  • Off-court wrong-doings are punished with fines and suspensions.
  • NBA athletes are its brand - they are the public face - e.g. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James.
  • Youth and children look up to these public figures, and a professional look is seen to send a good, clean image of an NBA athlete.
  • Personal Thoughts?

- "To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream;

not only plan, but also believe." (Anatole France)

- It is for you to be, or not to be

It is for you to create, or not to create.

All existential questions, behind your shadow, are a farce,

And the universe is your small notebook, and you are its creator.

So write in it the paradise of genesis,

Or do not write it,

You, you are the question.

(Mahmoud Darwish, "In Praise of the High Shadow" 1982)

CONDITIONS TO A SUCCESSFUL DEGRADATION CEREMONY:

  • The offensive event & the offender must be symbolically removed from the realm of the ordinary, the everyday, the norm.
  • The offender must be reduced to a type that is measured against its counterpart; within a system of contrasts.
  • The denouncer must align (identify) himself as acting in the capacity of a public figure (not acting from his own personal view points) – draws upon communally verified experience.
  • The denouncer must manifest & represent values of the group & deliver the denunciation in their name, as opposed to his/her opinion.
  • Denouncer must arrange to be invested with the right to speak for the group’s values (ie invested with legitimate authority to denounce).
  • Denouncer works to ritually separate the denouncee (the offender) from the legitimate order (as being outside that order).
  • According to Marxist theory, the stereotyping of certain social groups helps in the creation of an underclass.
  • Marxist concepts concentrate on the notion of a capitalist state and the way in which all of society is linked to the means of production.
  • Behaviour becomes seen as a problem when it threatens the hegemony of the state, it is particularly noted that youth, minorities, and women are seen as deviant in this perspective, through the construction of images by the state.
  • As such, the media, which is owned by those in power, is intrinsically linked with the same overarching objectives of the state.
  • For this reason, the media could be an ideological state apparatus, which is, in essence, an instrument of the state to influence and shape society's ideologies.
  • The media will give more attention to certain stories because they can shape the public opinion to suit the political climate.
  • One key Marxist thought is that acts are defined as criminal because it is in the interests of those in power for them to be so.
  • The Bitish government's position on this issue has been to support the shopping centre bans and introduce ideas to combat youth's disrepect. Anti-social behaviour orders have been used to attempt to prevent youth from wearing them, as well as hanging around in public spaces, legislating against this as part of the Respect agenda.
  • The larger issues remain unaddressed as the focus of this discourse. The labeling of a crime committed by a "hooded thug" becomes that of demonizing an article of clothing.
  • It draws attention away from who the offender is and his/her motivation for the offence, which should surely be of far more interest to the authorities, when trying to address the crime problem.

DEGRADATION CEREMONY:

  • According to Harold Garfinkel, any communicative work between persons, whereby the public identity of an actor is transformed into something perceived as lower in the local scheme of social types is called a "status degradation ceremony" (420).
  • The identities referred to must be "total" identities. That is, these identities must refer to persons as "motivational" types rather than as "behavioural" types, not to what a person may be expected to have done or to do (to his performances), but to what the group holds to be the ultimate grounds or reasons for his performance.
  • Moral indignation is a social affect of a degradation ceremony (i.e. the public denunciation of an offender).

Shame is one type of affect that is produced in the offender. Guilt and self-disgust are other social affects.

  • Moral indignation serves to affect the ritual destruction of the person denounced. This may reinforce group solidarity.

NBA Dress Code

hoodies...

Excluded Items

  • While rituals are meant to unite society through the exclusion of the "other", they do not always induce unity and reconciliation.
  • Some argue that the integrative function need not necessarily be fulfilled through harmonization. ie. in order

to unite a group, one must divide the wider society.

  • The definition of “us” engendered by the ritual is not always formed in the positive - through a

disintegrative power; "us" v. "them".

  • The media usually helps perform this function.
  • “Symbols in general and rituals in particular do not always induce unity and reconciliation” (Yadgar, 207).
  • Rituals; trials, hearings, media coverage... Symbols; hijab, kirpan, hoodies, etc.
  • For years, commissioners restricted the exercise of their powers to matters that were related directly to competition or disputes between players and teams. Nevertheless, a slew of off-field misconduct has led commissioners, along with the support of the owners and leagues, to enhance their powers and broaden the circumstances under which they impose penalties.
  • Unfortunately, the police blotter at times has read like an All-Star team with Ray Lewis charged with murder in 2000, Peter Warrick with grand theft in 2000 and Kobe BRyant with rape in 2003.
  • The Fall of 2004 unleashed the infamous Pacers' Brawl, and the following months were dotted with player arrests for domestic violence, gun possession, drug use and drunken driving. All of these have created major concerns over league and player image, fan interest, television ratings and game attendance, prompting each league to increase commissioner authority in some form.
  • The NBA suffers severe image problems from both on-court and off-court behaviour which has unfortunately been linked to stereotypical notions of a certain subset of the African-American community. This has also led to decreased attendance at NBA games. The visibility of the league, because of media coverage and its resultant social impact, further increases the importanace of commissioner's authority.
  • The concept of labeling groups of youth as deviants descends from Stanley Cohen (1972) who utilized and developed Moral Panic Theory, in reference to the Mods and Rockers of the 1960s.
  • Cohen places emphasis on the conditions that the youth of the post-war generation were subject to, affluence is seen as key - the new teenagers had an increasing wage at a much higher rate than any other age group. This newfound wealth was accompanied by a lack of outgoing demands, as wth no dependants or responsibilities at such a young age, they were free to enjoy their wage as it was earned, the teenager had become a powerful consumer.
  • Moral Panic Theory is closely related to initial acts which are deviant or out of the ordinary, then these acts are exaggerated by the media, and form part of the media amplification. The story is kept alive with more attention grabbing stories related to the initial incident.
  • The response to the situation then involves a public call for protection from the deviants in question, the public, political and police response to the debate surrounding "hoodies".

the end...

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