Analyzing White Behavior Part 1: Trying to Understand Why White People Hate Duke and Love Marshall Henderson

A couple of weeks ago, Grantland ran a series of interactive articles in which readers got to vote on the most hated player in college basketball history in an NCAA tournament style bracket (well, since hatred was invented in the 80s). Duke University appropriately got its own region and former Blue Devil Christian Laettner ultimately emerged as the tournament’s winner, defeating UNC ass hole Tyler Hansbrough in the final. This was pretty much the expected result. The winner had to be from the Duke section of the bracket and Laettner is the posterboy for all things Duke. In fact, if you had to pick a flaw in the bracket, it’s that in my mind JJ Redick was Laettner’s biggest competition, but Redick had to bow out in the Elite 8 because the competition limited Dukie final four participants to one.

People hate Duke for a lot of reasons–they win a lot; Coach K is whiny and annoying; the university itself oozes entitlement; and as the Grantland hateable hoopers bracket displays, they have a long history of players who are pricks. The most important reason to hate Duke, and really the only one that matters, is that Duke is white. When I say they’re white, I’m talking about more than the fact that they’re known for having white players. It’s that even their black players seem to have qualities we associate with whiteness. It seems like Coach K recruits exclusively at prep schools and Jack and Jill chapter meetings.

Society’s hatred of whiteness in hoops is not exclusive to Duke though. Three of the final four in the bracket were white, and the fourth is Rick Fox so yeah. Grantland’s readers, as well as the primary consumers of college basketball, are overwhelmingly white. Ask a white hoops fan, or if you are one, ask yourself who your least favorite basketball player of all time is. Despite the pool of black players to choose from being significantly larger, I bet you’ll get a white player as your answer more often than not.

Now let’s flip the script. Enter Marshall Henderson, current Ole Miss white basketball

We not even gonna talk about this hair

star and media darling. Henderson has burst onto the scene this year for essentially being obnoxious on and off the court. He’s cocky, outspoken, is not a team player, and is an professional  amateur troll. He’s also got a rocky past filled with drug charges, not getting along with coaches, and daddy issues. In other words, Marshall Henderson is what suburbia perceives to be the average black athlete. Typically, if a hooper shows out like Henderson he is berated with media criticism and systematically villainized. Instead, Henderson is developing into a cult hero.

White people and sports have a peculiar relationship. Organized sport was created by and for white folks, but a funny thing happened over time. Blacks and other minorities started not only playing, but excelling at them. Something like 3/4^th of the NFL and 4/5^th of the NBA are black, and the ratio when it comes to stars might actually be more skewed. The contrast between the demographics of the players in major athletics and the demographics of fans makes for an interesting dynamic. As “black” and “athlete” became synonymous with each other over time, white people had to redefine the value of a societal role with so much power and influence. See the thing about white people is that they have to be the best at being human. They like to complain about being discriminated against in the college admission process and pickup basketball drafts, but in the back of their minds they know they have world domination to fall back on. Athletes have been pigeonholed into this niche in which they get their money as long as they shut up and do what they’re told. That way, they can serve as dehumanized caricatures for white people to enjoy as pure entertainment.

This brings us back to white college basketball players and Duke and why it’s so easy to hate them. You’d think that, given their history of hating everyone else, it would be the darker teams that got the brunt of the hatred. So why does the whiteness piss other white people off so much? I think it comes down to saltiness, but it’s a type of spite that can ONLY exist with teams and players like Duke. Hardcore Duke Haters (or Tyler Hansbrough haters, or Adam Morrison haters) chastise Duke for getting all the calls, paying off the refs, flopping, cheating, whining and generally being fake good at basketball. Their success is undeserved, the cardinal sin of a capitalist society since it implies that the system is unjust. Duke succeeds at athletics despite not going through the proper channels (being black). All-black teams aren’t exactly cherished, but whitey ain’t dumb. They know the minute shade gets overt, somebody’ll scream racism and if there is one thing I have learned that white people hate, it is being called racist. Hating Christian Laettner is a defense mechanism against having to actually acknowledge the inherent fucked up nature of major sport in this country. The irony is that Duke-ish players are the most similar to the very fan that hates them.

So why make an exception for Marshall Henderson? This is a little more complicated, and my theory is a little convoluted. There are certain decidedly black forms of entertainment that white people enjoy a lot but remain cultural outsiders. By “black forms of entertainment” I mean that that the substantive origin of how it manifests itself is derived from the black community. Off the top of my head, the most notable contemporary examples are basketball, hip-hop, and R&B. When individual white people get access to these black spaces, they serve as vicarious symbols of appropriation for the whole damn crew. Effectively, Marshall Henderson is no different than Adele, Justin Timberlake, or Eminem—all white people who excel at doing black things (hooping, singing, rapping) the black way. I’m sure there is a contingent of classic racists who want Marshall Henderson to get off their lawn, but the overwhelming public support otherwise actually propels Henderson to stardom that is probably unwarranted. It’s less about excelling at playing basketball and more about excelling at being perceived as an athlete, which is what distinguishes him from Duke players (even most of the black ones).

My favorite (slash the saddest) aspect of this whole situation is that the only reason Marshall Henderson even stands out is how censored and watered down the typical athlete is. He’s not really that unique as a PERSON, but because we’ve reduced athletes to walking clichés, Henderson is comparatively entertaining. As a basketball obsessed soul, I’ll take what I can get—I’ve been watching every game and listening to every sound bite. As a black armchair sociologist, I kind of wish every player was afforded the same opportunity to display a personality.

Here’s a handy chart. It’s crude, but I mean, wordpress:

Fan Type	Fan Description	How they feel about Duke	How they feel about Marshall Henderson
Classic Racists/Duke fans	These people think Duke is the only team that plays “the right way”, think college players should have to stay all four years and abhor tattoos and rap music. Also likely to be sympathetic towards BYU and Notre Dame “for some reason”.	“For ‘em!”	“He’s white trash, they should never have let him out of jail”
Mid-Major Basketball Fans	These are people who just root for Bucknell because they are untalented enough at basketball to have to run a boring offense every possession in order to score. Likely despise the NBA because “the players are too good”.	“I don’t really understand the hatred, but it sure was great when Lehigh beat ‘em in the tournament!”	“I don’t know who that is. Is he the high major Bryce Drew?”
Casual College Basketball Fans	These are people who mostly just fill out NCAA tournament brackets.	“I only pay attention to college basketball for four days in March but everyone is already talking about Duke. I’d prefer some variety.”	“Whatever ESPN says!”
Hardcore College Basketball Fans	These are fans of major college basketball teams and college basketball in general. Hating Duke comes with the territory. Most of the hatred is passive, but as soon as their team plays the Blue Devils that shit gets ugly. Marshall Henderson is a welcome addition to the college basketball world.	“Too bad we’re not Duke and we don’t have the rims on payroll”	“That guy is crazy! I don’t care that he’s 8 for 57 from the floor, dude just has no fear! Completely defines the tournament!”
Fans of team who think they are Duke Rivals	Fans of teams like Michigan, Maryland and NC State who swear Duke knows they exist and the pure hatred is mutual. It is not.	“Fuckin Uncle Toms, FabFive4lyfe!”	“Marshall Henderson is great because Coack K would never recruit him”
Duke’s actual rivals	UNC fans.	“Doesn’t Coack K look a little Satan-y to you? I’m just saying it’s not out of the question”	“He’s white? And he’s not Tyler Hansbrough? And he DOESN’T play for Duke? I guess I’m down but I’m bringing my cross just in case”.