Kobe Bryant is no saint but he is Superman on the basketball court.

Kobe Bryant (25), is accused of raping Katelyn Faber a 19 year old, white, blonde haired,  blue-eyed, female from Colorado. Bryant faces 4 years to life in prison or 20 years to life on probation if convicted of felony sexual assault. I have learned not to invest in the business of stating whether a celebrity is innocent or Guilty in a sex case, but under the circumstances I am saying Kobe is innocent! At least so far he is. Let us not forget the axiom "innocent until proven guilty". Kobe defenders have conceded his guilt in some areas, for example we know, he is guilty of adultery and being stupid enough to have unprotected sex with a strange woman he had only known for a few hours.

Often times when we have allegations of "acquaintance rape", it is just one person's word against another person's word. The fact is that they had sex, the question is, was it consensual? This ultimately comes down to each person's character or in this case image. The image of the accuser and accused are:

The accuser: Since Faber is not a celebrity, what the public knows about her has all came forth because of her rape allegation. Since then what we have heard about her is less than flattering. Detectives testified "she has had sex with 2 other men besides Kobe within a 15 hour time period". She tried to commit suicide, because either an ex-boyfriend left her or she was not accepted as a contestant on the reality show, American Idol. A close female friend told the Register (local eagle county Colorado newspaper) that she has a history of over-emotional reactions to problems in her life. People from her college campus, who claim to know her, say she is a promiscuous drunkard who at times has worn the same underwear for 3 days (yuck).

The accused: Prior to this accusation Kobe was like Superman, he shined even among the brightest of NBA stars. Already he's assured a spot in the Hall of Fame, due to his habit of sinking big shots and making amazing circus shots. The public loved him and although he never went to College he has been able to project himself as an athlete intellectual. He's cool under pressure. Articulate and multilingual he became a statesman of the game at an early age. He seemed so much better at so many things than everybody else. The majority gave in to the hype and some of us perceived him as superior because we almost believed he could fly.

What a difference a day can make especially when your Black. Don't accuse me of injecting the "race card" either. After all it was officials with the Eagle County sheriff's office and prosecution employees who injected the race card by having in their possession on the 1st day of hearings, T-shirts that suggested the young black millionaire, hung. Knowing the history of lynching and Black men in America, one would have to be crazy or totally ignorant to not admit this is a problem. Kobe's lead defense attorney Pamela Mackey said the shirts were "racist and invocative of Klan lynching when seeing the 78 anti-Kobe T-shirts that the prosecution side had from a company called Hangmantees.com. The anti-Kobe company has created 2 styles of "hang Kobe T-Shirts". Their other listed merchandise is 2 styles of hang Michael Jackson T-shirts. The only other merchandise they sell are pro-Irish bottle openers. Humhh... sounds like a "race thing to me". It's going to be obvious how much race is a factor, when Kobe Bryant's case goes to trial this fall. He won't actually be tried by a jury of "his peers". Kobe's trial will be in a super white town, in a really white state, and with a 90% chance he will have an all white jury. His defense team argued for a change of venue, which actually means we want some people of color as "his peers", but the request were turned down.

Black athlete equals Bad rap 

The organization, Young African Americans against Media Stereotypes (YAAMS) asks the Question What if Kobe were white Would he be at the center of this media firestorm? (link) They then document how the media has been almost silent on the allegations of sexual misconduct by professional white athletes like Mark Chumura and Peyton Manning. Even die hard sports fans are not aware that the Indianapolis Colts star quarterback paid a woman nearly half of a million dollars for a sexual harassment case in order for it to be settled out of court. Even though this was a big settlement, there were only a few people who had any awareness of this settlement. With Kobe the media documents his every move. They stick microphones in his face for press conferences, the paparazzi follow him to each court date, and he can barely get in or out of practice without cameras flashing somewhere. The media speculates on every aspect of his life.

This hype ensnares the best of us; I even got fooled recently. I was reading the media's negative headlines when Baltimore Ravens running back Jamal Lewis was indicted on federal drug charges a few months ago. I called him a "dumb jock" before I had even heard any evidence against him. When I read about the case I was shocked that such old, flimsy and ambiguous speculation was enough to warrant a grand jury indictment. Lewis was fresh off a stellar season whereby he almost broke the NFL Single season rushing record and had just signed a 35 million dollar contract. The feds had an agent call him and try to arrange a cocaine purchase. Lewis never agreed to anything he just listened. After a very high profile year they want to indict him on conspiracy based on a call they placed to him four years ago. The superman of the NFL could dodge defenders but there is no escaping the media.

The media seems to have a vendetta against Black athletes magnified by the acquittal of O.J. Simpson. Ironically today (June 12th) marks the 10-year Anniversary of the O.J. Simpson case. The majority of whites in America think OJ killed his wife and if they did not initially, the constant mantra in the media saying "that OJ got away" made them change their mind. Immediately, angry whites began calling for a change in the system. Their biases and influence are still formulating public opinion today. Just last month Rosie O'Donnell got into a argument with co-host Star Jones over what Rosie called the unfairness of Martha Stewart's conviction in the face of O.J. Simpson and Jayson Williams going free. She said "Black people have so few role models, They said, 'You know what? I don't care. You're not taking our [Simpson and Williams]". Rosie's ignorant and uninformed perception of African American public opinion is probably agreed on by at least 10 million other whites. Her bias failed to tell the whole truth which is that most Black people don't really care about or support Williams. Williams was found not guilty on aggravated manslaughter and assault but will be retried January 10, 2005 on the reckless manslaughter charge which carries up to 10 years in prison and Williams was convicted on four lesser counts stemming from a failed effort to conceal the shotgun shooting of Costas "Gus" Christofi. He could be sentenced to probation or up to 13 years in prison on those charges. Kobe's case is more similar to the OJ case than any case since then, even though it does not involve murder. It involves the hot buttons of America media white female, black males, and sex.

Don't believe the hype - white wives the minority

If the white media is playing the race card what do we make of Kobe's other big detractor. That happens to be Young Black females, yes many sistas are publicly conveying strong anti-Kobe rhetoric. Why? - It's simple. Kobe married a female who was not Black and has an image of a gold digger. Even Kobe's own family was chagrined when he announced that he was going to marry Vanessa Lane.

But if sistas are going to badger Black male superstar athletes due to this selection, the image of the Black athlete has a future that may be pretty dim. Case in point, the NBA has selected Lebron James and Carmelo Anthony as the next big time superstars; the heirs to the Kobe crown. Last week ESPN aired a special feature on Legends Larry Bird and Magic Johnson as they went 2 on 2 with the rookie of the year and his runner up. In a session called Legends and Phenoms, viewers were presented with the idea that Larry Bird felt that "the NBA is a Black man's game now and forever will be." The 2 rookies grinned and downplayed the comments. After all who are these 19 year olds to disagree with a legend. For them this was simply a media opportunity for the country to get a look at them outside of basketball. They want Carmelo or James to be the next Kobe. By now everybody recognizes James face but Anthony is yet to become a household name.

In fact when Carmelo was interviewed on WBLS radio station in New York about a month ago (May 14, 2004), the host Wendy Williams called him by the wrong name several times and was unsure of who he was. Not really aware of who the producers had selected as an in house guest she only knew he was an athlete and was rich. Since she had no idea of how rich (Signed 4Year 15 million contract) she decided to talk to him about his personal life. What next came out of Carmelo's mouth sounded like a self-hating Eugenicist diatribe. Carmelo was asked if he had a girl friend and what type of women he liked. Carmelo said he really only like's light skinned girls, mainly Puerto Rican. The host who is a light skinned Black woman began to stick up for darker skin black woman, so Carmelo tried to rephrase his thoughts. He said that "regular black girls" are okay but they don't all have that "pretty long hair" like Puerto Rican girls. Therefore he preferred Spanish girls with hair down to their asses. Williams co-host a "mixed" black man named Dave put on a laugh track and applauded the comments. The dialogue was pursued further when Carmelo was asked what about "white girls"? Carmelo said, "I won't marry a white woman but I will date one, however my mother told me I better not bring one home". He then said that was ok because he didn't live with mom. Sista's called the show annoyed with such ignorance and Carmelo began back tracking his comments saying that he liked darker women too. Later that day the message board on his website was flooded by disheartened former fans who were through with him.

To understand this miscegenation you have to understand that Carmelo is very young and has grown up on the type of hip hop video images that eschew dark women and are now openly endearing to anything light. Sometimes it is subtle and but it is not covert. On the rapper T.I.'s most recent album on the song "Let's Get Away" which will likely be his next single, he raps "that's why I like chillin' with women who like women, light-skinned, Asians, Jamaicans, and White Woman, Indians, Italians, Haitians, and Puerto Ricans". On the hit single "Blow it Out Ya Ass", Ludacris says "I am the new phenomenon like white women with phat asses", which is interesting since only in rap music did black men publicly discuss white women. The conversation is changing, once a focus of bodily ridicule (since the knocks against white girls was they had no booty,) now artist are claiming them as the new phenomena. The power of the booty has been with us since Sara Baartman. The open dissing of dark-skinned black girls has been with us a long time also, but too often when it comes from somebody within our community we stay silent.

As was the case when DJ Envy of New York's HOT97 dissed American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino immediately after she won the nationwide contest on May 27. He said she deserved to win cause she could sing but he wouldn't support her album when it came out cause she was too dark to be a major recording artist like Beyonce or Ashanti.. This sort of nonsense is going out on the airwaves often and without serious challenge. This conditioning is happening at the hands of established hip-hop personalities. There is no way to know exactly how pervasive it is but that same night of the Carmelo interview my cousin told me he had just left a restaurant where he saw Carmelo Anthony hanging with another Hot 97 personality, called DJ Clue. DJ Envy grew up on the same block as Clue and idolized him. Let us hope that this "preference" is not being passed down from generation to generation. Let us halt the next NBA, NFL superstar from being turned out by radio host when they are 5, by not feeding into the hype. 

Thanks to YAAMS we know "The truth of the matter is that the overwhelmingly majority of African-American married NBA players are married to African-American women. But most people believe that the majority of African-American NBA players are married to non-African-Americans. Why? Because the media highlights and shows the African-American player's wife who is not African-American five times more than showing the African-American wife. This biased or selective coverage gives people this false impression. Other examples of how the media distorts perceptions were illustrated during the 2000 NBA playoffs. When  Los Angeles Laker superstar, Shaquille O'Neal announced his engagement to an African-American woman,  the media did not cover the engagement. When fellow, LA-Laker Kobe Bryant announced his engagement to a non-African-American, all the media was abuzz with the story.

All the Stars of the Detroit Pistons like Rasheed Wallace and Ben Wallace have black wives that the media rarely pans the camera on, they prefer to do features on these stars mothers for some reason. Ben Wallace wife decides if he will wear his hair in braids or an Afro before each game although she is such a force in his life the media treats her like she is invisible. Ben Wallace follows in the tradition of Charles Oakley and graduated from Historically Black, Virginia Union University, which limited his contact with Caucasian females during his most testosterone, influenced years (18-22). During those years beautiful Black women surrounded Ben. It was almost guaranteed that he would marry a beautiful black woman. The NBA is approximately 90% African American and about 95% of those players went to schools where African Americans are the minority. It's no surprise that you have some who "get away". The majority are arriving on the collegiate scene during the "testosterone years." They are thinking with the other head, and getting socialized into other women fast, and these "other", more aggressive women are still not landing them like the media would have us believe. 

We are also constantly exposed to the biracial athletes wife selection. Many in the black community identify with the bi-racial athletes (Shane Battier, Jason Kidd) because we realize white people don't accept them as white and since one of their parents is black we figure, "they're with us. However bi-racial athletes almost never marry black women.

In general Black athletes who marry white and "other" women have usually made the decision long before they tie the knot. However, I doubt very seriously that Kobe is one of them. His track record suggest differently but he is being lumped in with those like Marcus Allen who exclusively dated white women. It is not true of Kobe but even if it were it would probably be a waste of time trying to get him to change his "preference". We need to focus on the causes of the conditioning and accept the fact that the "Marcus Allen ilk" are few and have passed the point where they are interested in women who look like their mothers. They simply can't appreciate a sista even if she is "near perfect" physically, possessing an hourglass figure, flawless and blemish free skin, nipples like pencil erasers, perfect pearly whites and a smile that lights up the room like sunshine. She could be wise as your mother, have the brainpower of Albert Einstein, dress like a million bucks on a welfare budget and truly be down for a brotha's "dirty drawers", and will still place second to the fairer and longer haired women of other ethnicities in the eyes of those athletes.

If our community does not halt the onslaught of  these miscegenistic images and radio coonin' we will continue to see young Black male athletes covet the lightest of us, but it will increase due to the new socialization through music which eventually leads to the coveting of the ultimate in "fair" attributes, the white woman.

African American athletes are not much different from the average African American man, except in terms of their bank accounts. The truth is that what they call preference is really "conditioned miscegenation", which runs deep in the black community. Rooted in slavery and sustained by Hollywood images, pop culture magazines, media personalities and Rap videos there are many in our communities that have this problem. They have been brainwashed for so long about what is beautiful that they harbor negative ideas and sentiment about the physical appearance of Black women and do not even realize it. It's impossible to compete with white women using a beauty standard set up by her parents. It's hypocritical for Black women to hate Kobe and challenge his innocence and never challenge their brothers, sons and lovers who go crazy over Anglo-Saxon features. 

District Court Judge, Terry Ruckriegel has made 1 favorable ruling for Kobe & said that the prosecution cannot refer to Faber as a victim, but she has also made several rulings that go against Kobe's defense team. Kobe's defense team is trying to go back in time by subpoenaing the text messages from the cell phone records of Faber that they think will ultimately vindicate him. While the media focuses, O.J. like attention on this case, let us hope that our sistas take a chill pill on the Kobe hate. Don't create an atmosphere for Kobe to be a sacrificial lamb. Let's simply hope justice is served.

Released: June 13th, 2004

The views and opinions expressed herein by the author do not necessarily represent the opinions or position of Playahata.com.