The Undefeated debuts

If they want a story that speaks to the intersection or race, culture etc etc ... spend a month in Trenton. That's the story, as told through Tony Mack.

 

I think you're certain free to ignore it. Whatever cross-cultural appeal it has will be viewed as a bonus, I believe. One thing that makes me laugh is white media journalisits dudes who seems be obsessed with this idea of how The Undefeated will appeal to people like them, because they view themselves as the cultural gatekeepers. They are missing the point. The audience/advertising for this content exists, and I can show you studies to prove it. ESPN is currently getting almost none of it. You don't have to get very much of it (especially the ad money) for it to be a success.

 

Are all those people listed writers? The roster seems huge.

 

This is nonsense of the highest order.

I just want to read some fucking stories while also being cognizant of who is writing the stories, and for whom.

 

I'd believe that. Most businesses are better locking in on the 10-20 percent they can reach than trying to pluck off a few from the general-interest 100 percent.

I do wonder how far that "forget about it, this isn't about you" is going to go at the times when The Undefeated believes it's being dismissed in the larger conversation.

 

This is a pretty good video with Kobe and Catchings.

Italian Imports

 

This is very good, a short movie on Jackie Robinson's son who lives in Africa.

Of the Father and of the Son

I was probably also a bit harsh a few posts up and will temper the post by saying I've always been interested, as an observer, in what The Undefeated is hoping to achieve.

 

I appreciate that.

I'd counter: The site will absolutely attract a sizable white audience - at least initially. Call it "cultural appropriation" if you want, but a lot of popular sports are played by, well, black Americans, and a lot of popular sports fans are white. So are a lot of rap music fans. So are a lot of Beyonce fans. I'd argue too, that young white Americans are, more than any other moment in American history, trying to be sincere about understanding the black American identity. (Perhaps for appropriation!)

At any rate, the ESPN platform guarantees a wider audience. And the topic at hand - race, as told from a black perspective - is more interesting to some white people than anything Grantland ever wrote about. I'm certainly more interested in it.

 

You mean you don't have a bookshelf of tastefully appointed Grantland Quarterlys?

 

I got enough literary journals from the 1980s, thanks. More Quarterly Wests in the basement than you'd ever want.

 

Thought I was up on my Pushcart Prize-type journals, but had never heard of Quarterly West till now.

 

It's one of the better ones. Or, at least, it was once. "Writing of the American West" was a big deal in the 1980s and 1990s. McCarthy, Carver, Proulx, Harrison, Haruf, Alexie, etc. A lot of "West" movies made over those two decades. Not so much today.