[OC] The Celtics are dead set on being a modern organization that takes the moral high ground

In a year when Bill Russell passed away, it’s impossible to avoid frequent reminders about Boston’s problematic past when it comes to racism.

What Bill endured in the 50s/60s was horrible. I’ve seen the story repeated constantly on Reddit about Bill buying a house in a white neighborhood and “Celtic fans” breaking in. The story was also used to paint the Celtics as an evil organization in the “Winning Time” Laker propaganda show.

The sad reality of that story is that many white neighborhoods around the country were preventing blacks from owning homes out of fear it would ruin their neighborhoods or tank their property values. In rare instances where a black family was able to move into one, they were often met with hostility and violence. Wilt Chamberlain also faced heavy racism when playing in Philadelphia and briefly retired from the NBA because of it. Later, when Wilt tried buying a house in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Heights neighborhood, the developer refused to sell to him saying, “I feel interracial mixing of neighborhoods devalues property. Negroes tend not to have enough money… Frankly, as a group, I can’t say I like them very much. But individually, I like them.”

In Los Angeles in 1963, black students protested their inability to buy a house in LA’s white-only South Bay neighborhood and were met with white counter protesters wearing KKK hoods and nazi flags.

Years later, in 1974 when Bill was coaching the Sonics, he settled on Mercer Island, Washington. Had he tried buying a house there a decade earlier, he would have run into the issue of whites-only property restrictions there. When Bill participated in the March on Washington in 1963, one of the main issues they were marching for was removing these types of whites-only restrictions. Mercer Island didn’t outlaw it until 1968 and remained 97% white until well into the 1980s.

We hear about Bill’s struggle the most, because the Celtics were the most progressive team in the league. First black player, first black starting lineup, first black coach… and in the case of Bill, the first black superstar in the NBA during a really troubling time in American history.

It would be nice to say this kind of thing is all in the past, but as recently as 2017, someone spray painted the N-Word on LeBron’s Brentwood Los Angeles home. That neighborhood is almost entirely white. Sad shit. Despite everything Bill fought for and struggled through 60 years ago, there’s still a lot of work to do.

With full context, it undermines the actual history to just classify what Bill went through as “that’s just racist Celtic fans”. Still, the team has struggled to shed the “problematic” label.

Unquestionably, racism is still an issue in Boston. In 2020, [Marcus Smart detailed his experience being called an N-Word by a Celtic fan](https://www.complex.com/sports/2020/10/marcus-smart-details-incident-called-n-word-celtic-fan).

In 2021, Kyrie Irving forced this narrative by calling out Boston as racist. LeBron later backed this up by calling Boston “racist as fuck” and shared that he’d been on the receiving end of racist taunts for years.

In late May 2021, Danny Ainge responded to Kyrie’s comments by saying, “I never heard any of that, from any player that I’ve ever played with in my 26 years in Boston. I never heard that before from Kyrie, and I talked to him quite a bit. So, I don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter. We’re just playing basketball. Players can say what they want.” In light of the social movement happening in the Country at the time, Danny’s comments were **extremely** tone deaf at best. Later, Danny’s 2019 comments started making the rounds. Said Danny in regards to players going against Trump, “just like Hollywood,” and “the last people on earth I would ask their opinions, their political views.” “There’s not very many players that I really care what they have to say.”

Less than a week later, Ainge had “stepped down”.

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Consider this all from the perspective of Wyc Grousbeck and the Celtics ownership. In 2020, at the height of the BLM movement, Wyc publicly declared support for the movement commenting, “Black Lives Matter. It’s time for us to get together and get rid of racism once and for all.” At the time, Grousbeck commented that he realized he wasn’t doing enough and had a lot to learn. He went on to say, ““We’ve talked at the league ownership level; we’ve talked at the team level,” Grousbeck said. “Every call has focused on action. Action not words. But words come first because the thinking and learning come first. I feel more knowledgeable than last Friday, but we can do something serious and effective. The Celtic pride and the Celtic legacy will accept no less than actually doing something.” The team went on to pledge $25 million to combat racial injustice.

Also consider how one of the cornerstones of the franchise, Jaylen Brown, recent support of a Nazi-sympathizer aside, has built a reputation for standing against social injustice. What message would it send Jaylen if the org did nothing in response to Danny’s dismissive comments?

In my opinion, it seems abundantly clear that Ainge “stepping down” was less about basketball and more about the franchise taking a strong stance. Wyc using action instead of words. I will always love Ainge for what he accomplished, but his tone deaf comments could not coexist with a franchise that had promised to take a stand. Perhaps on some level it was mutual, but judging by the fact Ainge’s “retirement” lasted less than a year, it seems pretty clear Danny’s departure was about Boston taking a moral high ground.

The shake-up lead to Boston deliberately hiring a black coach, Ime Udoka (the 6th black coach in Celtic history) as a direct reaction to the controversy.

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Here’s the thing. I don’t think the Celtic org’s “wokeness” starts or ends at taking a stand against racism. It’s clear Wyc and the team want to be at the forefront of all social issues. That includes blatant sexism in the workplace.

We’re a month removed from Ime Udoka being “suspended” and thus far, details remain scarce. Fairly respectable publications have shared that Udoka had a consensual affair with the “travel planner”, which countless internet sources have identified as the team service manager, a married/mormon mother of three whose husband did some consultant work for the team (rumors of her being married to a VP seem to be false). While lots of effort has been spent trying to discover darker details, it seems that might be the entire story. Udoka had an affair with an employee, the team found out about it, and put their foot down. That’s it. A report mentioned “unwanted comments”, but truthfully some would define any sexual advance, whether reciprocated or not, as sexual harassment in this context.

Coincidentally at the same time as the Udoka situation, a very similar controversy was happening with the popular YouTube channel “Try Guys”. One of the “Try Guys”, Ned Fulmer, had an affair with one of the female employees. The rest of the Try Guys reacted by removing him from the company, removing him from all future videos, and doing an extensive apology to the fans. SNL did a [parody of the situation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS7HXxy3_2c) and came under heat from Try Guy fans who felt they were downplaying the severity of what happened. They strongly felt that what Ned Fulmer did was a horrible abuse of power and he deserved to have his career ended as a result.

It was interesting to me to see how Celtic fans reacted to Udoka compared to how Try Guys fans reacted to Ned Fulmer. As someone who had literally never heard of Try Guys until that SNL sketch, I was puzzled by this disparity. Then, I looked into the demographics of that channel and had a realization. Apparently 80% of Try Guy fans are female and their audience skews teen to early 20s. On the flip side, the majority of vocal Celtic fans are middle age men. That seems to explain why Celtic fans reacted to Udoka with a “wtf… it’s just a consensual affair”, while Try Guys fans reacted to Fulmer with, “That’s an abuse of power! He put the company at jeopardy by opening them up to harassment lawsuits!”

Another tangent here. I have tickets to see Arcade Fire later this month and just learned that Beck dropped out as the opener, because of sexual misconduct allegations against the leader singer. I looked up these allegations and read, “According to a report published by Pitchfork, three female Arcade Fire fans and a fourth person who is a gender-fluid individual who uses they/them pronouns claimed that they had had sexual interactions with Butler when they were between the ages of 18 and 23 that they deemed inappropriate due to an age gap and “power dynamics” between them and the singer”. My initial reaction was honestly, “wait… you can get cancelled for having a consensual relationship with a legal-age fan? What?! If that’s the case cancel Dicaprio. Cancel 95% of professional athletes for hooking up with young instagram thots!” My mother grew up in 1970s Los Angeles as a low level rock groupie. She and her friends would hook up with rock stars and wear it as a badge of honor. My mom claims Iggy Pop as one of her conquests, which is all kinds of disturbing. Anyways, I told her about the Arcade Fire guy and she thought it sounded insane. On the flip side, my wife feels very strongly that it absolutely is an abuse of power and that these young women are being taken advantage of even if it was consensual. She likened it to a priest having sex with a parishioner suggesting that these women idolize the figure who holds power over them and it’s extremely problematic. I’ve tried explaining to my mom that she was an impressionable young woman when Iggy Pop swayed his power over her, but she laughed it off like I was crazy. Opinions will differ.

So look, in corporate america, it’s always frowned on when a superior has an affair with a lower level employee. People get fired for it frequently. But also, recognize there’s a movement going on in this country regarding the power dynamics of those types of relationships. The idea that it can never be consensual, is always sexual harassment, and morally deplorable.

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My overall point here is that you might not have a problem with what Ainge said. You might not have a problem with what Udoka did. In both instances, Boston gave up a widely respected and talented individual who was arguably one of the best in the world with what they did. But since 2020, and really since the inception of this franchise, the Boston Celtics are an organization that intends to be on the right side of relevant social issues.

**Tl;DR: With both the Ainge and Udoka situations, it seems clear that Wyc Grousbeck and the ownership group are keeping the proud tradition alive of the Boston Celtics being on the right side of social issues**

by LarBrd33