This is clearly not about basketball.
Let’s talk about a land use decision that the Seattle City Council made yesterday. In a 5-4 vote, the members of the City Council—two of whom represent the entire city, the other seven who represent districts throughout the city—decided not to vacate a city street, which would have essentially sold it to a private citizen for the purposes of building a potential sports stadium for two teams which, as of yet, do not exist.
The decision was, to be sure, a blow to the plans for the arena; in all likelihood, rich dude Chris Hansen will need to find another place for it, rather than moving ahead with development in the hopes of courting teams with the new facility.
However, it’s neither the end of the conversation—a conversation that has spanned the terms of three mayors and numerous City Councilmembers—nor the final blow to the hopes of ever bringing an NBA or NHL team to the city.
it’s just not that simple, because in politics, nothing ever is.
At play were any number of issues—labor, land use, traffic, competition, taxes, the value of public/private partnerships—many of which received quite a bit of consideration in the months leading up to and during the meeting.
But little of that nuance is present in much of the blowback following the decision. Instead, there’s this:
What do racism, sexism, and threats of violence have to do with basketball? Or with land use? Or even with politics? And where did this come from?
Regardless of your feelings about a potential stadium—and there are compelling arguments to be made on both sides—this is unacceptable.
It’s unacceptable to throw out literally all valid reasons a person might vote against a street vacation because she’s a girl and she must hate sports.
It’s unacceptable to threaten physical violence because you’re not happy with a vote.
It’s unacceptable to, when upset, immediately turn to coded (and not-so-coded!) language. It’s unacceptable that that kind of sexism so clearly lives in the hearts of our neighbors.
It’s frightening and it is exhausting and it should not be tolerated.
Arena fans, come collect your people.
Let me also say that while we are disappointed in the result of today’s vote, I am also disappointed by the misogynistic language coming from some supporters of the Sonics Arena. As a father, brother, son, and husband, I know that these attacks have no place in our civic discourse.
From an email from CM Johnson yesterday, who voted in favor of the arena. Thank you, sir.
… is how you lose support. By allowing this kind of repulsive dialog to simply exist, unchecked—or worse, by intrinsically encouraging it by denying that it exists.
Also, by allowing misinformation (or just active non-information) to persist.
It’s clear that MANY of the arena supporters have a solid understanding of the politics at play and that is extremely important and we’d advise y’all to spread that around. A lot of the people pulling for this are folks we’ve stood next to at rallies and in chambers and at Young Democrat meetings and LD endorsement parties and on Wonksmas Eve.
We know you’re involved and we know you just deeply care about this issue.
But then…there are the others. The ones who are just absolutely positive that this decision is surely a marker of corruption (”bought and paid for!” is a common charge being lobbed in comment threads) and certainly a fireable offense. The ones who believe that this is the final nail in the Sonics coffin (btw, Seattle doesn’t even own the rights to the name SuperSonics anymore! That window of time is over!). The ones who are calling to recall elected officials voted in six months ago by, in some cases, wide margins.
Gosh, the line at your mailbox must be really long, since Seattle hasn’t had polling locations in years.
Which brings us to another issue, which is the concerning lack of context that voters (we assume?) seem to have—and whose fault that may be.
The gross misinformation demonstrated in the responses is upsetting; voters (again, we assume) who may not have been able to name their City Councilmembers before are suddenly spitting those names with venom and, in many cases, outright misogyny. They seem unclear who they even are able to vote for—again, only one of the “no” votes came from an at-large Councilmember—or who to blame (many individuals seem to be holding the Mayor accountable, though, since his election, he has become a big booster for the arena).
Whose failing is this? Who do we look to to educate voters about the absolute most basic structures of decision-making in our city?
Media members using dog-whistle language (I’m looking at you, Chris Daniels)? Or news channels who only seem to cover City Council activity when it’s especially juicy, and not so much when it’s actually beneficial to their viewers?
We, at Seattlish, love sports. We support sports as an economic driver (particularly when stadium workers are paid a living wage).
This isn’t about sports, though. At least, not for a lot of people. Not anymore.
This demonstrates a failing of the local media—pieces like this, which speculate unreasonably wildly about what a Councilmember may or may not have intended to do, are, we would say, fairly irresponsible and clearly designed to get the masses frothing and sharing and name-calling—and a failing of those involved with the issue to firmly address their peers.
Which is to say: If you are a person who supports this arena decision and you are not actively calling for some modicum of respect—or, even better, encouraging your peers to actually bother to look up which councilmember represents them—you are doing a bad job of getting this thing done.
It is highly unlikely that, after the treatment the women of the City Council have received in the last 24 hours that they (or anyone!) will be more likely to listen to your ideas in the future, or to support this cause in general. Because that is how politics works.
If you want to get something done that requires the cooperation of elected officials, the best thing you can do is show up correct. Show up informed about the context and the laws and the elections and the allegiances. Show up with respect and empathy and an open ear.
Show up without this fucking misogyny in your mouth.
A note: We blocked out exactly no names from the Facebook messages, Twitter messages, or the email we received from City Council. These are all matters of public record—yes, even your emails to City Councilmembers can be FOIAed—and we believe in holding people accountable. Including Jason M. Feldman, who felt the need to write not one but three letters to the City Council today.
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