#and just like decades later when he made a fake attempt at reconciliation

[thewalkingsnapplecap]

Misunderstood in America

Misunderstood in America By Prathap Nair In 2005, when the infectious tunes of M.I.A’s breakout hit “Galang” from her debut dance album Arular made their way to America, it seemed like a natural progression for any artist from London to make. “M.I.A is making a concerted effort to crack America,” the Guardian declared. At the time, the blossoming Sri Lankan–British hip-hop artist, whose homemade album showed promise by marrying dancehall music with native (Tamil) beats, needed America, the quintessential pop-culture mecca, to launch her career that would eventually result in global fame. The Village Voice singled out the album for its “nursery rhyme tunefulness [that] breathed female principle.” But what’s even more intriguing about the review is that the writer, Robert Christgau, provided a lowdown on the Sri Lankan civil war between the minority Tamils and majority Sinhalese, to put some context into why there were lyrics like “I got the bombs to make you blow” in the song. M.I.A’s backstory — a radical Sri Lankan refugee artist with zero qualms singing about bombs — made her immediately noteworthy. Her political baggage arrived in America right alongside her music. Soon as it did, her troubles began. The video for “Sunshowers,” a single off Arular, was banned by MTV owing to its provocative lyrics ("You wanna go? You wanna winna war? Like PLO, I don’t surrendo,” PLO being the Palestine Liberation Organization) and her refusal to remove them from the video. Not long after, in 2006, she was refused a US work visa. In a way, her relationship with America soured before it even started. Naturally, things grew increasingly fraught: her unfettered outspokenness and politicized lyrics alluding to the civil war in Sri Lanka, an island most Americans are unfamiliar with (much less in 2005), were always in direct conflict with the commercial goals of the music industry. Besides, in the eyes of the industry, M.I.A’s politics were simply unmarketable. They provided no impetus to the success of her albums, a crucial benchmark in the industry; they sold on the power of their inventive rhythms and catchy beats, much more than for their lyrics. But M.I.A, whose full name is Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam, wanted to be more than just a chart-topping artist, and she wanted nothing to interfere with her advocacy. She repeatedly steered interviews toward politics in her early career, keen to outplay her standing as a mere entertainer to make a case about the war crimes against civilians in Sri Lanka. She beseeched Oprah on her MySpace blog, after meeting her at the 2009 Time 100 party, to speak about the refugee camps in Sri Lanka for war-displaced Tamils. In all caps, it said: “OPRAH CAN YOU DO SOMETHING BOUT THESE CAMPS PLEEEEEEEEEEASE?” If none of these actions were provocative enough, her decision to further amplify her activism with the video for “Born Free” in 2010 proved to be a pivotal moment. Its fake execution of ginger-haired children, modeled after the real executions of Tamil children in Sri Lanka (the horrific videos of which, she claimed, were freely circulating on the Internet), alluded to ethnic cleansing. Blowback to the video, directed by Romain Gavras, was swift, forcing YouTube to ban it briefly. Again, her message was lost in the din, and the shocking video only brought her more infamy. It’s little surprise, then, that a documentary that provides critical insight into her life is all but needed to unpack her complicated relationship with the world, mainly America. Directed by her longtime friend Steve Loveridge and sifted from taped vignettes (700 hours’ worth) often captured by M.I.A herself, it holds a mirror up to her rocky childhood, shaped by an absent militant father and a family upended by civil war. MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A is a character study that goes into all the previously unscrutinized nooks and crannies of her life. She still seems to have a pressing need to tell the world her side of the story. “You want to see my story? I’m gonna show you my fucking story,” she declared with rightful contempt, looking into the camera at the opening of the documentary. Of all the moments in her life the documentary attempts to unpack, one thing stands out: her immigrant’s sense of rootlessness. Back in 2001, when the war was at its peak, M.I.A as an awkward youngster went back to the conflict zone in the north of Sri Lanka, armed with a video camera to record the lives of her relatives. By then a British citizen living in London, she received only patronizing dismissal from them. “You never had the war-zone experience,” says one of her relatives to her, perhaps refusing to make sense of her urge to connect with her roots. While she viewed the world’s apathy as unbothered complicity, her sense of rootlessness coupled with her need for belonging further fueled her need for activism. (See her refusal to dismiss her sense of identity inherited from her Tamil revolutionary father, who was once associated with training soldiers and building bombs to fight in the war.) When her father makes a rare appearance in the documentary while visiting his family in London, the siblings are conflicted. Dismissing her brother’s less-than-favorable view of her father, Arular, she says: “He’s made us damn interesting. He’s given us a bloody background!” Indeed. It might appear she desperately wanted her father’s wartime baggage to carry her personality forward and perhaps to inform her work as an artist — without which she may have believed and even feared that her life and work would lack the seriousness they needed and be reduced to the work of just another brown immigrant. In another revealing scene from the documentary, she says: “If I shut up and not talk, I’ll become a drug addict.” It's just one of those self-recorded-video moments, of which there are numerous instances in the film, that show a rare glimpse into her personality and her pressing need to articulate her strong notions without being fearful of consequences. Today, the Sri Lankan war that strongly informed her work is effectively over. At the face of it, perhaps the symbiosis that existed between her political activism and her music is over, too. But there are still other wars to be fought. When asked by the London Evening Standard about Black Lives Matter, she replied acerbically: “Is Beyoncé or Kendrick Lamar going to say Muslim Lives Matter? Or Syrian Lives Matter? Or this kid in Pakistan matters? That’s a more interesting question.” The statement was loaded and her way of stressing the need for inclusive activism, but it cost her a headlining act at the Afropunk festival in 2016. The same year, she announced that her politically subdued fifth album, AIM, will be her final one. She has been ambivalent about whether her activism helped initiate better understanding between the Tamil minorities and the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, admitting that “meaningful reconciliation between Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka is not happening.” In response to a question about whether she cared to win the Mercury Prize for Arular, way back in 2005, she said: “What happens to an artist if they are relevant, if they do bridge the gap between England and America and the rest of the world, if they do explore new music? What happens to that artist?” She didn’t win the prize. In saying that, she revealed the vision of her music career: to bridge the gap between England and America. More than a decade and several albums later, overtly colored by her politics, that vision may have wavered off course. But doubtlessly, she stayed relevant in speaking out on issues like immigrant rights and open borders. That perhaps is a proof to the extent of her success. To study M.I.A’s life, purged of her political background, is to undermine her firebrand activism. But is it possible for her music career to exist, uncolored by her political activism, at least in some parts of the world? A Polish-German graphic-designer fan who watched her documentary at the Berlinale screening told me: “I had no idea her career was so controversial, much less about the conflict in Sri Lanka. I feel a little embarrassed for not knowing it.” For the rest of us, it’s the knowing that makes M.I.A one of the most important contemporary cultural forces to reckon with. Prathap Nair is a freelance writer based in Stuttgart, Germany. @thesunlitwindow MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A debuts in theaters September 21 (UK) and September 28 (USA).

[junker-town]

Charges are evening the playing field for NBA defenders

And stars are sacrificing the body as much as role players

On November 3, in a game that will be best remembered for LeBron James scorching the Washington Wizards for a career-high 57 points, the Wizards’ Tim Frazier suffered what has become an everyday malady for players of his ilk. In an attempt to take a charge against Kay Felder — who is now on the Bulls — Frazier hit the deck and sprained his left wrist.

The charge rule, although its criticisms operate a decibel level lower than that of intentional fouling or lottery reform, has always been controversial. Charging calls often invalidate the most entertaining plays: dunks, high-octane layups and dimes in transition. There’s nothing quite as mystifying (or frustrating) as seeing a poster dunk get waived off because it’s deemed an offensive foul.

How many great plays have been waived off as offensive fouls? How many wrist injuries could be prevented if this simple rule didn’t exist? These questions lead to the big question: Why do we have charges at all? After all, there is nothing about the charge that is fundamental to the sport.

And reckless attempts to draw charges can be downright dangerous. When a defender undercuts a guy who is jumping full-throttle to the basket, bodies are inevitably going to crash to floor. And that, the argument goes, does not even touch on the damage it can inflict on the defender.

But recklessness — Russell Westbrook notwithstanding — doesn’t, in the long view, serve professional basketball players very well. The NBA’s best charge-drawers insist that with some experience and discretion, the most dangerous attempts to draw charges can be phased out of the game.

See it from Frazier’s 6’1” view, and things change. Charges aren’t a mere brutish holdover from a bygone sports era. They actually democratize the ability of the game’s smaller, less athletic players to play effective defense. As long as they’re willing to rotate hard, read the scouting report, and understand positioning, guards who would otherwise have no business thwarting the opposition can become defensive stoppers in the paint. In that regard, charges are distinctly modern. It can’t be understated how much drawing offensive fouls has paved the way for the modernization, and eventual normalization, of help defense.

“That gives us an advantage,” Frazier says. “The bigs have advantages as well. I think it's needed.”

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images

At one point in time, drawing charges was the domain of the hustle guy; the rotation guard who was forced to add it into his acumen in order to balance out his putrid one-on-one defense, or the undersized big man who thrived on his motor.

But nowadays, stars are taking charges too. Kyle Lowry has made an All-Star career out of maximizing his strong, if less explosive, 6’0” frame. He currently leads the league in charges drawn, at nineteen. “It's a game-changer when the smallest guy takes a charge on the biggest guy on the floor,” he says. “I think it's a momentum changer, also.”

DeMarcus Cousins, defense or no defense, would demand a maximum contract by way of silky smooth scoring and the defensive advantage of being seven feet tall and merely existing in the paint. But he does have defensive acumen, at least when it comes to taking a hit; the three-time All Star ranks second in the NBA in drawn charges.

He sees it as a tactile way to even the playing field against guards who create contact mid-air against big men. “I don't jump. I just take it in the chest. It's easy for a guard to sell a call against a big, so you just try to use, I guess you could say, their momentum, or their advantage, against them.” For a player who has always squabbled with referees, it’s Cousins’ way of trying to control his fortunes.

And, you know, “I'm just not the most athletic guy, so I use my brains.”

Charges do come with a cost. Quincy Acy, whose place on the leaderboard of drawn charges has helped him stay on the floor in his five-year NBA career, has progressively gotten better at picking his spots. “If I see somebody's already taking off, I usually won't go. I don't ever wanna undercut anybody. I like to take them when people are driving to pass, because they can't always stop. They just drive, dish it out, they're not really looking.”

Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

He know the consequences, too. When Acy played for the Knicks in the 2014-2015 season, he sprained his wrist taking a charge. “It's really just about absorbing the contact. I try to put my arms in front of my chest, so my chest isn't taking the majority of the contact.”

He reserves most of his attempts to draw offensive fouls close to the basket where, according to him, any player wandering in with the ball in their hands is already bracing for contact. Nobody ventures into the paint and expects not to get hit, he explains.

“It's good that they added the [restricted circle],” he says, “because a lot of guys aren't jumping from way out to do a lay up. The restricted circle, in the age of Giannis [Antetokounmpo] and LeBron [James], might need to be extended further into the paint.”

But Acy didn’t hurt his wrist because of the initial contact. He fell back hard, and his wrist endured most of the blow. “It’s just working on falling,” he says, but at the same time, he admits it’s hard to work against the innate self-preservation instinct to protect your head at the expense of another joint. “I still don’t do it every time.”

“It’s just a feel,” he continues. “Sometimes, it’s the wrong feel.”

As for the inevitable dust-ups? The injuries that happen despite experience, discretion and practice, as a result of the fact that, no matter how many safeguards are implemented, chiseled 200-pound bodies aren’t meant to be knocked together at full speed?

Frazier, who played two nights later against the Raptors, put it simply. “I don't think they should change anything about it. If you don't wanna get hurt, don't take the charge.”

A Sideline Story

Situations in which Russell Westbrook just *had* to play like that to get his team the win:

Alongside Kevin Durant, with Scott Brooks as head coach

Alongside Kevin Durant, with Billy Donovan as head coach

Without Kevin Durant

Alongside Paul George and Carmelo Anthony

Situations in which Carmelo Anthony has ever deferred to anyone else:

Team USA 2008

I say this not to paint a one-sided portrait of two stars (although, yes) but to illustrate a key point in the discussion surrounding the Thunder's struggles. Over and over again, you hear the same refrains:

“They'll eventually figure it out.”

“Super teams don't always gel right away.”

But those are blanket statements that don't necessarily apply to every team, and there is very little in Westbrook or Anthony's track record to suggest that eventually, things will come together. There are personnel issues. Westbrook has been an effective off-ball player. Carmelo, even when he is set up, often defers to instinct and pump-fakes, dribbles, and pulls up for a worse shot. He is also a poor defender that's clearly on the tail-end of his career, and doesn't seem to have any designs on aging gracefully.

Now compare him to Dwyane Wade, who is thriving in a sixth man role in Cleveland, and you’ll see just how important mentality and the right personnel is.

Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

My two cents: Wade is incomparable, in mindset and ability, to nearly any superstar in the NBA. He was never supposed to age gracefully. He's not a very good shooter, after all, and so much of his game relied on athleticism. But over time, he built a strong mid-range game, and has always been one of the smartest players in the NBA. He's an adept passer, and his craftiness still allows him to produce within the confines of a reasonable offensive role.

Wade won his first championship, and Finals MVP, in his third season. For over a decade, they called it Miami-Wade County. He has always struck me, whether it was a result of early success or a lifelong mindset, as one of the most secure superstars in the NBA. That allowed him, in his prime, to defer to LeBron and later, to Jimmy Butler and LeBron again now. Even as he declines, Wade oozes levity.

All of which is to say: Not every super team is built the same, and not every clash of egos merely needs a reconciliation. Westbrook and Melo, like anyone else, are capable of change. But I'm not going to start thinking they will until they actually give me a reason to.