Katherine Kersten's Korner

It's time for yet another Katherine Kersten's Korner. Today, it's on a topic of little importance but lots of media hot air: the NBA dress code. Wow. So the NBA is going to require it's players to wear business attire. Some people decry this as an attack against basketball culture, and, by extension, an attack against black culture. Others, like Kersten, thinks this is a smashing idea and may very well turn around the decline of Western Civilization. Me, I don't give a damn. Requiring employees to adhere to a dress code is nothing new; even McDonald's has one. If NBA players think that wearing a suit is too large a sacrifice to make in order to be paid millions of dollars a year, they can find a new job.

I frankly don't understand why anybody would comment on something so mundane, Kersten included, but I suppose it is just a way for her to write the same old, finger-wagging, "tsk tsk"-ing column that conservatives love so much. There is nothing new in her writing; the same thing could have been printed two generations ago decrying the hips of Elvis. It's the same old hand-wringing every time the latest fad comes around, and frankly, it's worn out. Yes, we get it! What the kids are doing today is so awful, this isn't "culture," this isn't "music," blah blah blah.

It's also a way to fight the ultimate enemy in many conservatives' eyes: the individual. She doesn't even hide it: the coach she approvingly quotes says, "To combat this tendency, he bars his players from wearing anything distinctive -- flashy bow ties or vests -- that calls attention to them as individuals." Yes, it would be awful for people to be individuals. There are no individuals, just the collective. Do you work for the collective, be it your place of employment, church, or whatnot, and don't be unique.

In the end, that's the world that conservatives like Kersten want. A world where they aren't challenged at all, where there aren't any individuals rocking the board. They can't wrap their minds around why people would find rap music or NBA players to be entertaining and popular. Neither can I in many respects, but where I just don't care about these things, Kersten and others want to eliminate it so they don't have to think about it at all. They want to cling to a mythical time when everybody did as they were told, an idea that according to Ned Flanders, "only exists in the minds of us Republicans." I sure hope Kersten doesn't lose too much sleep over the thought of people wearing "baseball caps, chains and oversized jerseys."