“NBA players have been dressing in prison garb”: Phil Jackson’s response to David Stern’s dress code reeks of racism, as Scottie Pippen bluntly puts it

In light of Scottie Pippen calling Phil Jackson a racist, NBA Reddit and Twitter abuzz with some questionable statements by the latter.

Jackson was born in 1945, and he’s been around basketball for all of his adult life. One would think that being around such gifted black individuals would act as a counter to Phil’s racist tendencies.

But a closer look at his life reveals some undeniably racist comments and actions. His book called ‘Maverick’ had some highly questionable content in which he accused black NBA players of pursuing individual glory.

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Scottie Pippen brought in a new perspective to the varying degrees to which the Zen Master’s actions portrayed a racist image of the man. One of the discussions brought up on Reddit was regarding his response to David Stern’s 2005 dress code rules.

There’s some undeniably brazen racism in the way Jackson reacted to the NBA’s new dress code.

What Phil Jackson said in response to David Stern’s imposition of a dress code on NBA players

The year of 2005 saw some sea changes in the way the NBA conducted itself. It was the year following the Malice in the Palace incident, and there was an unmistakably different air to the league.

David Stern was attempting an image clean-up of the league. He instituted a set of rules regarding what players could wear to the arenas before the game. This was an attempt to make the players appear more ‘family-friendly’.

This code mandated that players had to wear collared shirts and slacks or dress jeans to games. Players were also barred from wearing baseball caps or oversized jewelry when engaging in team-related activities.

Phil Jackson had been clamoring for such changes for a while at the time. His statement, as reported by The Sun, really lays out his highly questionable mindset regarding the upbringing of the league’s players – most of whom had made it out of the ‘hood:

“The players have been dressing in prison garb the last five or six years. All the stuff that goes on, it’s like gangster, thuggery stuff. It’s time. It’s been time to do that.”

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“But one must remember where one came from. I was wearing bib overalls when I was a player one time. But I wasn’t going to the games or events in them.”

“To a majority of these young men, the rap stars, hip-hop guys are really kind of like heroes or colleagues . . . We even have some that are owners in the league. And it’s not the same audience. Our audience is corporate businessmen and businesswomen and kids.”