Did He Or Didn't He?
By Keith Boykin, in sports
Monday, July 21 2003, 10:44AM
The news that authorities were pressing charges against LA Lakers star Kobe Bryant seemed to spawn hours of media speculation, thousands of forwarded emails and a countless number of conversations over the weekend. But our fascination with this story says more about us than it does about the two people involved.
Over the weekend, several people asked me if I planned to write about Kobe Bryant this week. I told them no. What would I say? What do I know? What does anyone know? Is this just a "he said, she said" story? Or is there some evidence out there that hasn't come to light? Right now, the truth is we don't know.
We don't know if Kobe did it. We don't know what evidence is out there. We don't know much about the case other than what the media have told us in their effort to fill the airtime and news pages they need to sell. But of course that hasn't stopped us from talking about it.
Shortly after the first reports of the Kobe Bryant rape charge a few weeks ago, I received an email from someone with the subject line "Kobe Bryant Busted." Inside the email I found a copied image of the New York Daily News cover headline: "Busted."
Outraged by the rush to judgment, I fired off a nasty response to the sender of the email. How dare you convict him before he's even be charged with a crime, I said. I never heard back about my message.
Details of the story continued to leak out to the press until the district attorney in Colorado announced on Friday that Bryant would be charged with sexual assault. Bryant's hastily called press conference to defend himself only generated more criticism.
"I'm innocent," Bryant said. Looking worse than I had ever seen him before, the normally attractive Bryant said, "I didn't force her to do anything against her will....I sit here in front of you guys, furious at myself, disgusted at myself for making the mistake of adultery."
But Kobe's strategy didn't work. "I'm a cheat, not a liar," one of the New York tabloids screamed on its cover the next day. At that point, Kobe's credibility was already shot in the eyes of many observers. And it didn't help to hear stories this weekend from the alleged victim's friends who claimed that the woman who filed the charge would never lie.
But wait, there's more. The media still need to sell papers and airtime, so there's always more. The victim may have overdosed on drugs once before. She tried out for a reality TV show. She liked celebrities. That's what the papers are saying now. Does any of this matter? Only in the court of public opinion, but that's exactly where this case is being tried.
In media parlance, we like to say this story has "legs." That means it can run on and on for days. You can imagine the polls on BET.com. "Do you think Kobe Bryant did it?" Vote now. You can almost see the email campaigns starting up. "Help a brotha out. Go to BET.com today and vote for Kobe's innocence."
I got one of those types of emails a few days ago. "The last thing we need is another black male hero in jail," it said. I couldn't agree more, but is Kobe Bryant a hero? Yes and no.
Kobe is a hero because we say he is. We have decided that almost anyone who is spectacularly rich and famous is a hero. Their heroic role is simply to be rich and famous. But Kobe has also accepted that role for himself. He's gotten rich off of endorsements that play into his famously clean cut image. He spoke of that image to defend himself when the charges first came to light.
Maybe Kobe shouldn't be a hero. Maybe we should use better judgment in picking our heroes. Or maybe we should recognize that even our heroes are human. Bill Clinton, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt and many of our heroes have committed adultery. Rape is a different story. But many of us are willing to blind ourselves to reality to maintain our fantasies.
Kobe's wife Vanessa defended him in a statement released by her husband's lawyers. "I know that my husband has made a mistake -- the mistake of adultery," she said. But she added, "He is not a criminal. I know that he did not commit a crime, he did not assault anyone."
I hate to say it, but she doesn't know. No one knows but Kobe Bryant and his accuser. It's understandable, and expected, when a spouse defends her husband, but it's a little less rational for equally uninformed fans and detractors to profess Kobe's innocence or guilt.
But we have to say something, right? Remember, we have airtime to fill. CNN can bring out its legal analysts to tell you how the prosecution may present its case. ESPN can round up Kobe's basketball friends to talk about his reputation. The National Enquirer can dig up juicy gossip about the accused and accuser's sex lives. And the professional pundits, ever eager to be relevant and timely, can use this story to talk about whatever else is already on their minds. That's what I'll do.
When American soldiers are being killed every day in Iraq, 40 million of us don't have health insurance in the U.S. and 9 million of us are unemployed, does the Kobe Bryant case even matter?
It certainly does if you're Kobe Bryant and you could go to prison. It does if you're a real victim and you want justice. It does for the Los Angeles Lakers and the team's prospects. It does for the corporations that write seven-figure checks to get Kobe to say he likes their product. It does for the media corporations that hope to get OJ-size ratings off of this story. And it does for those in the black community who want to exploit this story to show why black people are still oppressed and victimized. (Remember Emmet Till?)
But the story doesn't matter to me. That's why I'm not going to write about. After all, what would I say?
Comments conceal
Jay-T
July 21 2003, 11:53AM
Keith,
Thank you so much for writing this story. I am always kind of curious as to why so many people get preocupied with someone elses life. If Kobe did it, he should pay. If he didn't, he shouldn't. Bottom line. I am not going to judge him because I DON'T KNOW. I don't think we would truly say that we will ever know because we were not there. I feel as though the only person that he is going to have to be held accountable to is his wife and God. Thats it.
G. Sinclair
July 21 2003, 4:39PM
I swear, the bigger they are, the dumber they fall.
Keith, I have to disagree with you; this matter can be evaluated now, and I believe that it should. It provides commentary on how we view sexual violence and the sexual predator, and in many ways Kobe Bryant, the image, is metonymic for the tension betweem public truth and private reality.
It's perhaps informative to note that I've never been a fan, not so much of Kobe: the man (I could care not much less), but of Kobe Bryant: The Experience: the fresh-faced, do-no-wrong, supernally "good-Black" iconography that has cocooned the basketball star since he was a high school hopeful. The vigorous and damn annoying apotheosis of Kobe Bryant into an into a brand, indeed the most saintly of living-brands, always seemed a bit contrived and dreadfully tenuous.
Kobe: He grew up in an outwardly idyllic black family: mom, dad, Huxtable dollars plus some. He entered the NBA right out of high school, whereupon he was instantly separated from his former identity as Kobe, the extraordinarily talented young man, with potentials both negative and positive, to then have that identity cropped and exalted to realms completely outside of his control. I wonder if Kobe even has a grasp of the myth that he'd become; if, when driving up Figueroa Blvd., he ever looked up at one of the towering billboards bearing his likeness, if he caught a chill from the grotesque largeness of the "other him," of Kobe Part Duex : the re-engineered brainbaby of expert marketers, agents and an American public starving for inviolate heroes. Did he realize that, outside of his immediate family and close circle of friends, the original Kobe had been necessarily put to sleep and buried alive, all to make way for an enhanced, widely compatible, simply adorable version 2.0? Is Kobe a victim in all of this? Yes: as a teenager K.B. became a walking death. Growing up in the limelight, Kobe was twinned before he was given the chance to finish making sense of the original copy.
Herodom; stardumber: celebrity is an almost impossible contract to break once you've signed in. I'm sure Kobe was advised by his basketball Hall-of-Famer dad of what he'd be handing over in exchange for fortune, heeded against the Faustian temptations. But understandably, the pros outweigh the Con.
Rest-assured, they said, as long as the old, multi-dimensional Kobe (compelled to silence) doesn't stir up any broo-hoo, if the actual "he" doesn't pop up and prove his doppelganger a lurching fraud, then all can rest in deluded peace.
Reality Check Friday (7-18-03): Kobe-One is hurdled front and center. His shit hits the proverbial fan - the billboard image is splattered thoroughly - 'stinks too. Bryant has been charged with aggravated sexual assault. In a tearful public admittal, he repents for the sin of adultery, but denies rape.
---
I discussed the Bryant scandal with a friend who holds a steadfast disbelief in the idea of Kobe "The Rapist."
Said friend: "He could have any woman he wants: model-types; they throw it at him; why would he need to rape some random girl?"
My cohort isn't the only one who holds such a view, who has tried to rationalize Kobe into innocence. "It doesn't make sense for him to do that." Yes, well, the inclination to rape tends to be an irrational one, that, as far as I know, cannot be detected in the 30-second Nike ads, gleaned in the Daytime-TV interviews, or by the waiters who were handled ohso sweetly and tipped robustly. What we do know, what can be concluded is that we don't know Kobe Bryant; we never did. We don't know what his passions are, what his inner life truly maintains; we don't know about the hidden sides of the young man that would have never been revealed willfully.
As Toronto Sun reporter Steve Simmons puts it, echoing what I wrote last week:
"The incorrect assumption too many of us make in mass media today is believing we know these athletes.
We don't really know Kobe Bryant, and we really should never assume that we do. We know what he can do with a basketball and what he looks like on a TV commercial and now we know how shook up he can appear when his world is about to be taken from him." (Read the full article)
"But even Kobe's teammates say he was never the type to misbehave, especially with women," my friend expostulated. And, I ask, what else would they say? In this instance he's not being charged with public misbehavior. At that I would be surprised; the lad seems very fastidious about maintaining his image. He was charged with committing a crime behind closed doors, with the least possibility of being found out.
The Mind of a Predator: "Kobe has such a beautiful wife; why would he need another woman, especially to rape one." Frankly, I don't know for certain that Kobe is guilty of rape; and, I don't care that he cheated on his wife. It does bother me, and it does matter, that people are so decidedly naive to the human condition, that people are selfishly blinding themselves to the artifice here-involved. What's happening to Kobe now, with the turmoil that's befallen the image he handed over to us, an image we have every right to examine, is a grave matter.
Back to my friend's correlation of rape with access to beauty. I shouldn't even have to mention the term subjective. But I I will (I suppose I already did). Generally, attraction is not all about "pretty," what draws human's to one another, even sexually, cannot be reduced to the capturing of an objective physical harmony, of widely agreed upon beauty; let's not be naive. Sadly, I can throw out names like Bill Clinton, Hugh Grant, Rob Lowe, and Prince Charles, and perhaps some still wouldn't be convinced. Rape is a matter of attraction, but one that is only sexual in its activity; the motivation, the underlining impulse, is always control, about conquering what might not be given away willingly, about the triumph of a crushing, human defeat. The greater strain of sexual predators, the socially well-integrated sort, seek out the victim that is least likely to talk, to put up a fight: the discernibly insecure, adulatory, already-broken spirit: the he or she whose self-worth will likely plead "no contest" to such a defiling offense. If these men were born with marks, if their sadistic longings were easily found out, this would be quite a different world.
To some, Kobe is still an effigy; a 6'6 mirage, indestrucitbly what they need him to be. My point is that the same minds that allowed themselves to imagine him perfect, a mechanical do-gooder, should use those very impressive imaginations to also consider the inverse, to release him from the narrative in which he's unjustly snared. And, not only for the sake of an unnamed young woman, who, at present, is no more than a voice of dissent against an ideal Kobe, (for the truth will never be completely at our disposal) - but in order to use Kobe's twinness - one real, one artificial - and this current situation to propose a better understanding of the rapist, to humanize him or her, just as Kobe has, again, humanized the adulterer. ("I'm human" says Kobe, "...I laugh...I cry..." yadda, yah). The rapist can be anyone; and anyone, "ugly", "normal", "blond" or otherwise can be a victim. It can be Kobe. That's the closest thing to the truth we can claim at this point. Is he guilty? We'll only ever know slightly beyond a reasonable doubt.
Da D.L. Crib
July 21 2003, 8:41PM
Nice article Mr. Boykin. I am fascinated by the hero worship that takes place in this country in general, and I curious to see how this will play itself out.
The one point I would like to make is when Mr. Bryant is described most of the media has used the term "squeaky clean image." My point is since when is a celebrity's "image" reality? The "image" or persona that some celebrities use are for the purpose of selling themselves. It is up to the individual to buy into it or reject it but as I said, since when did image become reality?
Just think of how long it takes to get to know someone well and then compare that to people having an opinion of someone they never met. You can discuss what you see but what you are seeing may or may not be the real person.
As you pointed out there are more important things that the media can cover than this. Sure it has its place but not the smothering coverage it has received so far.
Guest
July 22 2003, 9:45AM
Can you say 'LOSER'? Why all this flub a dub dub about a non-entity. All he could do was play basketball, so what. Now he's a rapist? He hasn't done anything for anybody except himself and now he's being hung out to dry because it's a slow month in the news and hey this blond chasing by a black man needs to stop! WHAT A NON-STORY THIS IS!
Can we talk about things that matter like AIDS, GREED and the U.S. Leaders need for infinite power and money?
alicia banks
July 22 2003, 9:45AM
ditto re his wife claiming that she knows anything
she does not
neither do we yet..
i too will await judgement until jobe and his alleged victim have had their days in ct etc
but
one thing we do all know now:
kobe indeed lied when he initially said he did "NOTHING wrong"
clue:
cheating is wrong
and
once a liar...
i am sick to death of men, especially jocks, behaving badly while their suicidally self sacrificing wives stand by unconditionally
i do not respect human doormats
even when they are wed to celebs
i am certain that kobe would be far less prone to stand by his woman if she stood in his cheating shoes...
as a female this is my question:
if he cheats on his beautiful young thin wife who just gave birth to their new baby now...how secure can she be later whe she is older, less flawless etc...
prison may not be in his future
but infidelity already appears to be a life sentence for mrs. bryant!!!
shame!!!
peace
ab
ej
July 24 2003, 2:55AM
I can't believe how judgmental Americans can be. Even an idiot would realize that these famous entities are subject to slander and all sorts of false allegation. Before you all jump on the band wagon and condemn Mr. Bryant, first consider a few things like...if you were that goodlooking, had all that money, black, and famous. Maybe it is possibility that some attention hungry, crazed, sick, twisted woman could throw the panties at you and scream rape afterwards. My advise to anyone else in a similar situation...always have a camcorder handy.
alicia banks
July 24 2003, 2:23PM
beauty is in the eye of the beholder
there is nothing beautiful about kobe to me
i think he has an alien quality about him..he is gaunt and gangly and his head is peculiarly coned shaped...
i have not judged him...yet
do stand by
my advice is:
married men, especially rich celebs who many may find beautiful, should keep their penises inside their pants and remain faithful to their wives...
additional adivice:
wise husbands who are faithful know - panties tossed should never be caught...real men know which flung panties to evade...
peace
ab
KB
July 24 2003, 6:39PM
PATHETIC
Another blonde fixated black athlete caught with his pants down! So whatelse is new, YAWN?
You've just gotta' love the image of Vanessa and him. She's cuttin' him a look like I'll stay with you through this mess to try and save US a few endorsements, but when this is over, remember this -we live in Cali baby, and I get FN half!
What a LOOOOOOOOOOOOSER, KOBE who?
EarlySpringinNY
July 25 2003, 1:43AM
I have read many posts on did he or didn't he, and I must say these are the best so far.
Thanks for sharing your ideas, candor, and insights.
Well it's said that Mozart never did have a truely adult relationship with a woman, due in part to his early exposure to life as a circus performer basically. Some theorize a personality is stunted when life is always lived in public.
We teach politicians, scientists, musicians, artists, and now athletes, that they are "gods" or "goddesses", pay them
as if they are a hundred times better an smarter
than us, then look the other way when they become human by acts of indiscretion.
We look the other way until everywhere we look
our image of them is cracked an scarred , and then we look for a new image to worship.
Actually , I don't think it's what Mr.Bryant did
that got him in deep doo doo with his image, it was what he didn't do.
He didn't make sure that his oh so "consensual"
partner didn't object to force, and the complaint against him specifies use of force.
While the employee in this pleading did yes , make a complaint, it was the DA who filed the charges and is prosecuting on behalf of the people of Colorado.
He didnt make sure that his wife was protected
from his infidelity.
He didn't make sure his bodyguards were available to protect him from the reportedly hordes of beautiful women who reportedly stalk these helpless an adorable, multi-talented almost perfect athletes.
He didn't make sure his fans could continue to
view him as someone they weren't afraid to have their children emulate.
He didn't step forward until charges were filed,
to declare his innocence , and one expert I read
said that had he faced this before
charges were filed, and declared "with honesty and humility", what his transgressions were, that
would have actually most probably sustained his
credibility even with a guilty verdict.
However, the real problem with being treated as a "god" or "goddess" is
that you begin to believe you really are one.
And while our society allows our "god"or "goddess"to commit
errors of judgement, we cannot decide for other people that a celebrity can violate the legal rights of individuals.
I do not know what happened in that room, but the evidence often speaks for victims who are no longer alive, as well as for the living, and I do not believe anyone or any town would want this kind of publicity. The resort where this occurred is known for it's privacy for high profile guests.
Therefore, I must conclude that the DA acted in the belief that maintaining public safety was his job and took the steps necessary to achieve that in light of the complaint filed.
As to innocent until proven guilty, that is a legal concept , and even if a murderer is watched committing a crime an arrested at the scene with blood on their hands, they are still
considered, innocent until proven guilty, but that doesn't mean they are innocent, only that
the legal requirements of that lack of innocence must be established by legal process.
I do firmly believe that a jury will examine an fairly view the evidence , not because they like or dislike either party, but because by an large we all have consciences, and we do try an abide by the law.
Now the tremendous outpouring of hatred toward women an disrespect toward women that this case
has generated is interesting.
I bet these same people that post these slanderous an often idiotic remarks toe the line in their own lives.
I bet they say "yes maam" alot , huh?
It's a shame that it takes a law suit to get employers to realize that putting female employees in job duties that can lead to these kinds of situations is sort of yea well stupid.
There were security personnel there, why couldn't one have just escorted the employee , and that way the "guest" would have been protected from whatever plot was being conjured up ?
Ah yes, hindsight is perfect , and we live in
a world that is bent on denial of crime, criminals, an acts of violence, unless they happen to the "right people".
Justice has an odd way of smoothing things out, and that would be my hope once the judicial process
begins in earnest.
Justice does not seek to punish, but to compensate an make right in some way , and this is a philosophical idea not a legal definition.
Justice is served in that a complaint was filed,
and then pursued to the degree it was found prosecuteable, and I am pleased to know our system works that well despite everything.
When the case against Mr. Westerfield was tried
here, the attorney that represented him kept saying , he deserves the right to a fair trial,
and his rights need to be protected.
Some said, but what about Danielle's rights, and both sides have a point.
Those accused of crimes do have rights, and those rights should be protected by good legal counsel, and those who are victimized should also have rights , and should also have good legal counsel.
Now is it fair if a person accused has access to the media to plead their case or to introduce witnesses or documents pertaining to credibility when that other person was not a witness to the events in question, well, often a person who is in a
hurry to hide something makes mistakes.
In this case , I believe Justice strode in on her own quiet whim, and what could have been a help is not, and I believe Justice will speak again.
EarlySpringinNy
Dan Barton
July 25 2003, 4:11PM
Kobe did all right thats why he's sweatin and lying at the same time.The question is how long will Kobe's wife stay with him? Just think another black eye for black America.
Schalana
September 23 2003, 8:18PM
I believe whether he did it or not they still will not give him his sentence, just because he plays basketball. i feel that he should be treated as a normal person. by this i am saying that if he did it do not be easy Just because he plays ball.
K O
April 10 2004, 3:00PM
Think about all the trouble he would have avoided if Kobe (innocent or not) had just said NO to temptation (whateva it was Sex or Rape).
Read Psalm 23
lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil
for all the bible haters, whateva u wanna say about the bible, you have to admit, there exists some important words to live by.