The midnight basketball of doom.
The prevailing myth is that in the political media, memories are short. There’s one giant exception, of course, which is that dog whistle-esque grudge terms from wingnuts live in perpetuity. Witness, for instance, this headline from Townhall:
Teen Sex: The New “Midnight Basketball”?
Sometimes I wonder if the objective at Townhall is to shoehorn as many wingnut tropes into headlines (an articles) as possible, so that their readers have heads constantly spinning from the influx of sexualized scare-mongering, racist insinuations, red-baiting, and of course scare quotes. This headline, within the space of 6 words, manages to cram in nearly every trick in the Townhall book. The “teens are having sex while you’re watching reruns of ‘Friends’ and wondering how life passed you by,” technique has been polished to a sheen. Granted, it’s still as obvious as a turd sitting on the middle your carpet, but it’s a smooth, shiny turd, well-worn from use. Almost darling, really, but sane people would still throw it in the garbage.
Wingnuts have ruined the use of scare quotes. As a fan of them, I have to defend them in their place. There’s only one proper use of scare quotes, which is when you’re contesting a propagandistic phrase on the basis that it’s deceitful. The key is that there has to be a genuine controversy over the phrase. “Pro-life” deserves scare quotes because the pro-choice side has successfully argued that there’s nothing “pro-life” about people who want to ban abortion but wouldn’t lift a finger to save a life of a mother or child, and in fact have prioritized banning abortion techniques used primarily to save lives. “Men’s rights activists” deserve scare quotes, because they’re not fighting for men’s rights so much as fighting against women’s rights. If they called themselves anti-feminist activists or anti-woman activists, they wouldn’t call for scare quotes.
But wingnuts use them not to mark the words as contested, but mostly for emphasis with a hint of negativity. It’s mostly for marking phrases that the reader is meant to understand are dog whistles or phrases that are meant to create a knee-jerk angry reaction marked with a general unwillingness to think. A literal meaning of the term “scare quote”, with the quotes denoting that you, the racist, sexist, asshole reader, should see this phrase and feel scared and angry. So, even though there’s no debate over who is a “feminist” or a “radical feminist”—wingnuts don’t seem to begrudge feminists or their enemies the word “feminist”, even if they begrudge feminism’s right to exist—those get scare quotes. On occasion, you’ll “see” a wingnut “get” so “carried away” trying to “freak out” their “audience” that they’ll start “using” scare quotes rather “randomly”. Luckily, we have Sadly, No on that beat, recording the more dada-esque rantings of wingnuts out there.
The use of scare quotes around “midnight basketball” falls outside of the proper usage and right into the category of wingnut usage. Is there anyone who contests the words “midnight” or “basketball” in this phrase? Is Carol Platt Liebau denying the basketball part of the phrase or the midnight part? Neither, I’d say. The use of scare quotes marks the phrase as a dog whistle that every good wingnut should know. For those who don’t know, “midnight basketball” was some program from the early 90s where some federal money was earmarked to create sports programs in poor urban neighborhoods to give young people loitering around something to do. It became a wingnut battle cry against the Clinton administration, because even the most inbred morons could grasp the basic parameters of the dog whistle, basically that money was going towards something that might give pleasure to a non-white person at some point in time. I don’t know much about the program, other than it became this code word that’s still being employed 15 years after it was first used to stir up racist resentment. I suspect the idea was to give young people something to do so they don’t engage in minor criminal acts to have fun, much the way that we rural kids who were in community theater spent a lot less time vandalizing each others’ cars. While you would think that “law and order” Republicans would be fond of crime prevention programs, it turns out that crime itself was just an excuse to reach the main goal of locking people up left and right. A crime prevented is an arrest prevented, and that’s a damn shame.
The article is about the recent research that showed that early sex was not only not linked to delinquency, but kids who had sex at younger ages were even less likely to be delinquent. There’s no reason to think that correlation equals causation, but the wingnuts went into spin mode anyway. Read it if you like; I think her argument is that teen sex is bad because it’s bad for you, and if it turns out to be good for you, it’s bad because it’s good for you for the same reason that midnight basketball was bad: a) pleasure is bad and b) anything that could impede the streamlining of targeted populations into prison is bad. Also, there are STDs and pregnancy out there, which is bad, but that is no reason to think that kids should be taught to prevent these things, because prevention is also bad and the abstinence-only textbook makers (mostly Christian presses) need that money, dammit. It’s all very confusing, but the main thing to remember is that problems are bad, preventing problems is bad, and if there’s a chance that someone else feels good while also preventing a problem that’s double plus bad.
I’m also entranced by the picture used to illustrate this story.
Caption:
A sex worker sporting a tattoo on her foot participates in a protest in central Sydney December 13, 2007. A small group of sex workers rallied outside local government offices to protest against new brothel closure laws.
Translation: They say that teenage sex isn’t as bad as we’re making it out to be, and we say OHMIGOD PROSTITUTES HAVE TATTOOS ON THEIR FEET WHERE EVERYONE CAN SEE THEM BE AFRAID BE VERY AFRAID.
31 Responses to “The dread wingnut fear of balls and baskets”
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On occasion, you’ll “see” a wingnut “get” so “carried away” trying to “freak out” their “audience” that they’ll start “using” scare quotes rather “randomly”.
omg, that is so funny. LOL
Have I mentioned how much I “love” your sense of “humor”?
I’d like to “block quote” that last paragraph before the tattoo picture & caption, but I’d probably get it “wrong.”
And now we have a new euphemism for sex: “playing midnight basketball.”
Roommate #1: Hey, would you mind not being home later on?
Roommate #2: Why? I really wanted to watch the new episode of 24.
Roommate #1: Well, Jane is coming over and I was hoping we could play midnight basketball.
Roommate #2: Ohhhhh… well, I guess I could go to the library or something…
So if we don’t prevent teens (aka teenage girls) from having sex they’ll become uppity sex workers? Ahh…
Actually the fight against Midnight Basketball seems rather quaint now-days. Wiki-pedia says that Midnight Basketball was actually a part of HW’s “A Thousand Points of Light.” It’s awful that I’m reduced to being nostalgic for the former Bush administration.
I don’t even understand what the conservative objection was to midnight basketball in the first place? They wanted more money to go to making arrests instead of trying to prevent crimes? What exactly was the argument?
And as for the article itself… it’s kind of amusing to watch all the shadow-boxing going on in the echo chamber, since the thought process seems to have gone like this: “A study says maybe it’s not uniformly terrible for kids to have sex earlier… next thing you know, those liberals will be touting teen sex as a preventative measure to keep kids out of crime and drugs! Just like that whole ridiculous basketball thing! Quick, better write a column to alert everyone.”
I don’t even understand what the conservative objection was to midnight basketball in the first place? They wanted more money to go to making arrests instead of trying to prevent crimes? What exactly was the argument?
And as for the article itself… it’s kind of amusing to watch all the shadow-boxing going on in the echo chamber, since the thought process seems to have gone like this: “A study says maybe it’s not uniformly terrible for kids to have sex earlier… next thing you know, those liberals will be touting teen sex as a preventative measure to keep kids out of crime and drugs! Just like that whole ridiculous basketball thing! Quick, better write a column to alert everyone.”
That was a pretty “funny” post. I’m particularly “impressed” with your “use” of Newspeak. I “use” that very “same” “phrase” in everyday life sometimes myself.
The objection to midnight basketball is primarily that movement conservatives hate crime reduction measures - the only acceptable response to crime is more police and harsher penalties in their view. It’s of a piece with the worldview that can’t imagine any model of human interaction other than domination or submission. Throw in the fact that the primary beneficiaries are minorities (i.e. born to submit), and the outrage is magnified. The fact that a tiny little bit of taxpayer money was being spent provides some cover in terms of denying the racist aspect, but that’s all it is.
Sometimes I wonder if the objective at Townhall is to shoehorn as many wingnut tropes into headlines (an articles) as possible, so that their readers have heads constantly spinning from the influx of sexualized scare-mongering, racist insinuations, red-baiting, and of course scare quotes.
You know, Amanda, this sounds like fun. We could start a Townhall Bingo game — “Teen Sex: The New ‘Ward Churchill’?” “Midnight Basketball: The New ‘Sanctuary City’?” “Immodest Clothing: The New ‘Fluoride’?”
I don’t even understand what the conservative objection was to midnight basketball in the first place? They wanted more money to go to making arrests instead of trying to prevent crimes? What exactly was the argument?
Conservative philosophy is all stick and no carrot. (Unless you’re rich, of course.) Midnight basketball takes the carrot approach to reducing crime, and is, therefore, anathema.
This is the same mindset behind abstinence-based sex education - scare the little sluts into keeping their legs closed with graphic descriptions of STDs and denying them birth control, but on no account offer actual information to help them mitigate the risks. It’s all control by threat. Offering incentives to people to entice them into doing certain things is considered bribery, and low status people don’t deserve to be bribed.
I don’t even understand what the conservative objection was to midnight basketball in the first place? They wanted more money to go to making arrests instead of trying to prevent crimes? What exactly was the argument?
Conservative philosophy is all stick and no carrot. (Unless you’re rich, of course.) Midnight basketball takes the carrot approach to reducing crime, and is, therefore, anathema.
This is the same mindset behind abstinence-based sex education - scare the little sluts into keeping their legs closed with graphic descriptions of STDs and denying them birth control, but on no account offer actual information to help them mitigate the risks. It’s all control by threat. Offering incentives to people to entice them into doing certain things is considered bribery, and low status people don’t deserve to be bribed.
Wingnut thought process:
There was crime
You gave them money for midnight basketball programs
There was less crime
Therefore : you are bribing them to stop committing crimes
Therefore: they’re gonna do more crimes, because you’re rewarding them for committing crimes!
OMFG! Lieberuls are stoopid!
I think the objection to sports programs for poor kids is also this view that a lot of conservatives (including my dad) have that only bad people commit crimes, so having sports programs is useless because the bad people will commit crimes no matter what.
Pointing out that these programs are effective in reducing crime only leads to a blank stare and a change of subject. It literally does not compute that most petty criminals are not “bad people” the way that, say, serial killers are “bad people,” so you can steer petty criminals away from a life of crime by giving them better alternatives
(I tried to avoid scare quotes, but oh well.)
The objection to midnight basketball is primarily that movement conservatives hate crime reduction measures - the only acceptable response to crime is more police and harsher penalties in their view. It’s of a piece with the worldview that can’t imagine any model of human interaction other than domination or submission. Throw in the fact that the primary beneficiaries are minorities (i.e. born to submit), and the outrage is magnified. The fact that a tiny little bit of taxpayer money was being spent provides some cover in terms of denying the racist aspect, but that’s all it is.
Not only is that correct, but on consideration, it shows why teen sex is the new midnight basketball, after all . . .
That’s weird, I’d only remembered the liberal contempt for midnight basketball, which was a fine program, but risible as something to hang an entire anti-crime strategy on. (You might, for example, want to look into why all those young people had nothing else to occupy them all day and night…) I had no idea the wingnuts had hated it because they thought it was too much rather than too little.
Meanwhile, Amanda, that should be “OHMIGOD PROSTITUTES IN A COUNTRY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD HAVE TATTOOS ON THEIR FEET WHERE EVERYONE CAN SEE THEM BE AFRAID BE VERY AFRAID”
Frankly, I find the idea of roving gangs of predatory homosexual recruiters faaaaaaaaaar less frightening than I do the thought of more basketball and basketball fans.
I remember a lot of clueless, upper-middle class, middle aged parental types being upset at midnight basketball along the lines of “why is the government encouraging kids to stay out late at night instead of being at home in bed where they belong”. Once said people realized that the targetted kids were not going to be at home and in bed anyway (and might not have the kind of homelife where that would be such a good idea), they changed their minds quickly.
About the pic:
Sometimes you wonder where the Repugnapolitan foot fetishists hang out.
Then you realize that they are the ones with the cameras.
This world is indeed a scary place…
So her argument is basically this:
“Girls are stupid and fragile, and screwing will make them go crazy. Not boys though. Girls become dirty if they have sex and will not only regret it for the rest of their lives, but will never be able to love.”
Surely any study by the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis is bound to be scientific and free of bias…
Two other things struck me: 1) why oh why would anyone choose that photo for their headshot? She looks like the bride of Frankenstein died and came back as a zombie (note the dead, dead eyes), and 2) the ad for the t-shirt with a pic of Hillary that reads “Re-defeat Communism 2008.” I literally said “give me a fucking break!!” out loud.
So her argument is basically this:
“Girls are stupid and fragile, and screwing will make them go crazy. Not boys though. Girls become dirty if they have sex and will not only regret it for the rest of their lives, but will never be able to love.”
Close but not quite. Her argument is this:
“Girls who aren’t virgins are sluts. You don’t want to be a slut, do you?”
Midnight basketball may be fun, but I think that teen sex would do a much better job of keeping teenagers off the street and out of trouble.
*de-lurks*
So her argument is basically this:
“Girls are stupid and fragile, and screwing will make them go crazy. Not boys though. Girls become dirty if they have sex and will not only regret it for the rest of their lives, but will never be able to love.”
You hit the nail on the head. Though I don’t understand why they can’t understand that the reason girls who engage in “poor sexual decision-making” … “experience regret, anxiety, shame, a loss in self-esteem, heartbreak, disappointment and a lifelong inability to trust men” is because they’ve been told all their lives that it’s WRONG and BAD to have sex.
It’s really a very simple case of garbage in, garbage out.
Personal aside: Everytime I read an article like this I’m glad my mama took the time to teach her daughters that sex was normal and even (*gaspu*) desirable.
Picking a nit: rightwingers love crime reduction measures that decriminalize things they like to do (deregulation, for example), or defund government entities that would arrest them (SEC, IRS, etc.). It’s sheer xenophobia. People different than themselves commit crimes because they have a bad nature. Rightwingers who commit crimes were merely mistaken.
Right wing philosophy is nothing more than a means for a few fuckers to get their rocks off. There is absolutely nothing intellectually or morally sound about it. The midnight basketball crack (which, as someone above noted, came about under Bush the elder) is a good example of the same.
Hell, it would keep me out of trouble. Where do I sign up?
Oh no no no no no…she couldn’t possibly have argued that early sex can’t reduce delinquency, because…early teenage sex is mostly illegal and all pre-teen sex is illegal. ILLEGAL. WTF? So anyway, sex is itself delinquency.
Lovely.
Hey I registered and everything…where has my post gone, goddamnit?
Grrrrr.
You mean … fundy teens aren’t calling such activities bible study anymore?
@wayward
it’s funny because it’s true
Shell: I loved that aspect of the piece. LOVED it. A wonderful little tautology. I even made up a game about it.
And a nice piece on the “midnight basketball”, Amanda. I agree that correllation isn’t causation, but it’d be a hell of an interesting study trying to figure out what that confounding factor is- almost more useful than what we’re getting from this study itself.
Sorry if this doesn’t quite fit, but I found this too funny and had to share: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/061247.php
Dr HG, exactly - my first thought on seeing the headline was, what sex act is this a metaphor for?