racist denizens of the internet underworld

At a recent celebrity flag-football game (proceeds to charity, of course), Dallas Mavericks forward Josh Howard said:

"'The Star-Spangled Banner' is going on. I don't celebrate this shit. I'm black,

Thanks to the magic of camera phones and youtube, Howard has since found himself in a self-made shitstorm for disrespecting our brave troops and how can he ignore their sacrifices to build this country where he can make millions of dollars playing a game and why doesn't he move if he doesn't like America, etc etc.

This is all as expected; the mixed feelings that we should expect an African American (or really, any American) person to have about American history are rarely explored with any intelligence or subtlety in the mass media, and even less so when the talking heads are reporters who generally confine themselves to discussing next week's NFL injury report or NBA trade analysis. J.A. Adande of ESPN is one shining exception. His article condemns Howard for presenting the issue in such an unthinking way (though really - as the youtube video linked above shows - it's not like this was some pre-planned statement or act of protest; it was merely some sideline shit-talking that Howard never expected to reach the wider public) but at the same time Adande is willing to engage the issue in a thoughtful way.

Another expected outcome of Howard's speech is the outpouring of racism on the internet. This is a common occurrence. Just check out the comments on YouTube to virtually any hip hop video and you'll find some stuff that would force pretty much any elected official to resign if they uttered similar words in public. The civil rights movement and political correctness have (thankfully) banned explicit racism from the public arena, but internet anonymity has kept that ban from reaching cyberspace.

What is different about this episode is Mark Cuban. Cuban is the internet-savvy owner of the Mavs, somewhat of a 'Maverick' himself, in fact. After he posted an on-the-whole exculpatory piece about Howard, he decided to publish some of the racist and otherwise inane emails he received, under the heading "Thanks for the advice on Josh":

Josh realizes his comments were wrong, he understands why people are upset. He knows he has made a mistake, has apologized and will work with us . Beyond that, its a private issue.

What about the people who gave me the following advice ?

Author : Barack Obama (IP: 64.12.117.196 , cache-mtc-ah04.proxy.aol.com)
E-mail : Nigga4life@coon.com
URL : http://Watermellon
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=64.12.117.196
Comment:
JOSH HOWARD IS NOTHING BUT A DUMB COON NIGGER. SOMEONE NEEDS TO TEACH HIS MONKEY ASS SOME DAM RESPECT FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM

and

From: “Billy Leto”
To: mark.cuban@dallasmavs.com
Date: 09/18/2008 09:20 AM
Subject: are you kidding me?
MC,
Tell Howard that him and Hussein Obama can go to another country and live if they don’t want to support our symbol of freedom.–
Billy
From: Donald Joy
To: mark.cuban@dallasmavs.com
Date: 09/18/2008 09:20 AM
Subject: Howard’s(and the rest of them) anti-American, thuggish remarks/attitude
These black criminals that you people coddle and cultivate are the reason why I no longer watch/follow professional sports. Sickening.

It's fascinating how easily Obama gets dragged into this. Can we stop pretending racism is dead, please?