More on the NBA dress code...

John McWhorter on the NBA dress code.

Of course, there is the racism angle. Apparently Mr. Stern is denying "part of our culture," as Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics has it. Here comes the perniciously seductive notion that for black nonfemale persons under 45, "thug" is the blackest thing to be. Hence Mr. Camby can suggest with a straight face that the NBA should provide a clothing budget for the sport jackets--when he makes $8 million a year. Only a sense that even as a multimillionaire he remains, on some level, "poor" like "real" black people could have allowed this to fall out of his mouth.

But since when is playing a thug--even if only on television--the essence of black authenticity? Neither players in the grand old Negro Leagues nor even black Major League players as late as the '80s were dressing like this when the cameras were rolling.

Young men all over the world enjoy playing tough, sure. But there's something else that young men, as well as everyone else, do all over the world, and that is to dress differently for work than they do at home or at a bar.

The fact that black people have suffered so much in this country does not exempt black men in athletics from this--nor even does the fact that racism is not utterly unknown now. Nor should it. We did not fight for our freedom to be rebels. We fought for our freedom to be normal.

The idea that poverty, violence and rebellion are the heart of being black is not normal, nor is it deep. It is outdated, counterproductive and self-indulgent. The NBA players might even find that wearing jackets on camera enlarges their "culture," which will add to their repertoire of dress styles. Call it a new kind of multiculturalism--or maybe we can just call it civility.