Because I place a tiny amount of value on my mental health, I have Darren Rovell blocked on Twitter.
I’ve had him blocked for years. Rovell is a sports business reporter, which is a euphemism for owner apologist, and I don’t need that in my life. I don’t see why anyone would, but I’m not here to judge.
You. I’m not here to judge you. I will spend all day judging Darren Rovell and his shitty tweets when I have cause to. And today, I have cause to. Because yesterday, Rovell uncorked an all-timer:
He deleted it soon afterward, as you can see in the screenshot, but oh boy. This…this is tremendous content.
Let’s take the last part first. In order to get out of claims that he’s racist (apparently), Rovell claims that “some of my closest friends are Black,” which is absolutely phenomenal. First rate, A+ work. He does not have the awareness to know that this is the thing that everyone says in every situation where they are accused of anything in the same zip code as racism. The fact that he thinks this would work is the biggest possible tell that it isn’t really true. A friend would tell you, “No, man, that’s not how it works.” Rovell doesn’t have a friend who will do that, so therefore either he is lying about the relationship or he is wrong about the depth of the relationship.
But we’re not really here for that. We’re here for the first part. “I have one of the largest Martin Luther King Jr. collections in the world,” the man says, expecting the authority he is appealing to to knock you off your feet at any moment. He’s a fan of Black History, he angrily insisted:
“I have over 9 MLK signed items. I’m a humongous fan of what he’s done,” Darren Rovell said about Martin Luther King Jr. He also owns a Rosa Parks-signed NAACP card. So don’t question his bona fides, okay? He’s bona fide.
But this all gets at a bigger, more interesting question: what does this actually mean? Because let’s take Rovell at his word here, that he bought up all this memorabilia relating to African-American history because he likes it and he’s interested in it. Okay. I believe you, Darren.
So what?
Not one thing Darren Rovell does in his professional career advances the causes that MLK or Rosa Parks worked for throughout their lives. Rovell carries water for sports owners, and now he’s apparently into sports betting, memorabilia, and NFTs, none of which have to worry about intersecting with civil rights.
Darren Rovell is interested in Black history in theory. He likes to think about good things that good people did and how things are better now and that’s it. He doesn’t think about how sports gambling will take money from gamblers (many of whom will be poor Black folks) and send it to Caesar’s. He doesn’t think about how the environmental impacts of the energy production for NFTs will disproportionately affect the poor, both here in America and in the developing world. He doesn’t connect the businesses he props up for a living with their harmful effects, which will be felt by those who don’t have the economic or political power to resist them.
Rovell is proud to have a copy of the warden’s log books from Birmingham Jail:
But he doesn’t think that the white moderate MLK described in his letter is Darren Rovell.
Rovell is proud to own artifacts that are important pieces of American history, and would love for them to be displayed in the Smithsonian, but only if they’re still his:
He doesn’t think these things belong to the country. He thinks they belong to him, and the country will be able to see them as long as he magnanimously allows it to. He is a tourist who wants credit for being a local. He wants people to think of him as a refined gentleman of culture, but is outraged at the thought of not having any of his precious, precious stuff that he’s gone to such lengths to own.
Look, I understand this kind of history tourism. A couple weeks ago, I bought a book that’s a general overview of the history of the Ottoman Empire, which is about as on-brand as book purchases get for me. You like things, you’re interested in things. That’s fine. That’s great. But these things do not define you unless you act on them, and Darren Rovell is not acting on them.
I don’t want to come off like Rovell is the only one using MLK’s legacy to launder his own image. At this point, it’s as much of a Martin Luther King Jr Day tradition as mattress sales. As one example, here’s Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and a response to Texas Governor Greg Abbott:
Words are meaningless without action. Words are less than meaningless when they come with negative action, the action that’s the exact opposite of the words. But we don’t really care about that.
It’s easier to quote, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” than it is to quote, “The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism. The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”
One of those statements is nice, agreeable, easy. Hooray for what’s on the inside! That’s what really counts, you know. The other is a core statement of MLK’s beliefs and politics. To him, a lot of what America was doing at the time was immoral and evil, and we’ve continued on that path. You can spend all the time you want saying that only love can drive out hate, but if repeating that quote is the extent of your commitment, then you’re not really committed at all.
Darren Rovell is just a symptom of the problem where we take something thick with meaning, juice it until there’s just a rind left, and then celebrate the rind. It’s easier that way, more comfortable. We’re a materialistic society, after all. You don’t have to engage with ideas if you own nine MLK signed items.