My Thoughts on ESPN’s “The Announcement” documentary on Magic Johnson
If you weren’t able to check out The Announcement last night on ESPN make sure you check the listings and try to see it. The documentary chronicles Magic Johnson’s life starting a bit before he found out he was H.I.V positive. Most of the documentary centers around the ensuing controversies after Magic tells the world about his illness: the decision to retire, other players’ being worried about any risk of catching the disease—with the most vocal critic being Utah Jazz’ Karl Malone, and how the NBA wrestled with whether or not to “align” itself with Magic when it came to the All star game and his presence on the 1992 Dream Team.
Those who are my age (30) and older you’ll remember much of this in real time, but in retrospect Magic’s handling of his diagnosis is even more phenomenal than it seemed at the time. I especially reminded of this when Magic talks about the transition from being essentially one of the most beloved athletes to people being afraid to shake his hand. Only now, am I acutely aware of the level of ostracizing Magic experienced. And if a beloved athlete can be isolated like that you can imagine what happened to regular folks with the disease at that time.
As I watched the documentary, I remembered my own thinking at the time. I grew up in a very small town and even then we had been taught that the potential to spread HIV was extremely low in casual contact. I remember being very confused as to why Magic had to retire if he wasn’t too sick to play or why players didn’t want to play with him. I just remember being very angry and confused about what was happening and also happy when Magic returned but feeling that part of his career had been unfairly wasted.
And the ensuing weirdness in the league over small scrapes and cuts where games would be stopped and uniforms changed felt all the more silly. All of it looks even sillier in retrospect.
I realize that the country wasn’t quite as informed about HIV as we are now (and even now I’d question how informed we are beyond HIV isn’t a death sentence), but much of the information that was available was ignored in favor of appeasing the uninformed (under the guise of “playing it safe.” And that should be made clear—people weren’t just ignorant they were willfully ignorant.
**in walks Karl Malone**
[To read the rest of this post including my thoughts on Cookie Johnson click the Read More tab below]
I do give Karl Malone lots of credit for being willing to participate in the documentary and admit to his behavior back then. Beyond that, Malone remains the same shady dude who got a 13 year old girl pregnant and denied three of his children for most of their lives. And THIS is the guy we allowed to lead the charge against Magic playing. Incredible.
As is common now, I watched the documentary while on twitter (where Karl Malone was appropriately skewered) and one of the biggest things that annoyed me was the reaction many people—especially those of the male douchebag variety—had about Cookie Johnson’s decision to stay with Magic despite his diagnosis. For some, Cookie Johnson is now the example of what women (particularly black women) should be doing since between Tyrese, Steve Harvey, and any other number of blog sites, books and other tripe written by men we don’t have enough people telling us how deficient we are on a daily basis.
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