@drgnslayr
The image of the extensively tattooed Nuggets player raises a fascinating issue about the phenomenon of tattoos; that the tattoos may not necessarily be related to a player's racial culture, or to a proclivity to wear war paint to compete, so to speak, so much as indicating allegiance to some kind of deep organization that players choose to belong to in order to achieve more certain access and protection, regardless of color.
His ethnicity stands out, because there are at most a small minority of NBA and D1 players that are Caucasian American at this time.
Given that tattoos are so frequently observed on African American players, it has predisposed some to see tattoos as indicative of an African American cultural predisposition, or idiosyncrasy.
And yet gangs, and more honorable organizations, of all races and ethnicities have to my limited knowledge evidenced the wearing of colors and symbols exclusionary in their meanings.
Basketball teams of universities wear their own colors, have their own unique logos, and so on.
Social fraternities on a campus are rigorously exclusionary and some times the exclusionary criterion includes race and ethnicity and at other times not. They all have their colors and symbols.
Public service and economic organizations ranging from Shriners and Masons, to Rotary and Sertoma, and so on, have their colors and symbols.
The various military organizations are big on colors and symbols.
Religious groups are huge on colors and symbols.
So, of course, are the political parties.
And when we look at prisons, we find inmates wearing lots of ink, as basketball players now do, so that we can be confident that we can infer that different races engage in wearing tattoos. African American inmates and Caucasian American inmates both wear ink. The question is: what gang are they with? Or is it just a rebellious expression of independence?
Among prison inmates, one reputedly wears ink of differing styles to indicate association with a differing prison gang culture that provides support and security during time served. And reputedly many of these memberships on the inside carry over into membership in the gang organization on the outside.
African American inmates reputedly tend to belong to one gang.
Caucasian American inmates tend to belong to others.
It is not clear to me whether some gangs are racially mixed, but they might be, if group strategy dictated such.
Certainly not all gang cultures hinge on racial homogeneity.
Mafias are reputedly largely Irish, Jewish, Russian, or Italian, respectively in reputed membership.
But large drug and/or arms trafficking organizations reputedly may be quite eclectic in their racial and ethnic compositions.
And certainly gangs that start out narrowly based on race, or ethnicity, for membership can evolve into organizations with more diversity.
Homogeneity versus heterogeneity over the longer term most often hinges on what is most strategically beneficial to the group and individuals involved.
A question arises about this Nugget player. Is he a loner, an outlier, or is wearing ink to be part of an organization that ensures his access and security, while playing basketball for a career?
Might it be the same organization that so many African American basketball players sporting tattoos perhaps belong to?
Or is there no organization?
Why might basketball players, starting in high school, or before, then during college and the pros, need security provided them by a deep organization in basketball? Would they?
Is there anything going on in college basketball that players need protection from, or need to be recruited for after they leave the game?
Are players that do not join such a deep organization at risk for not joining?
We know there are secret organizations that are NOT conspiracies at all, just exclusionary and employ secrecy to achieve exclusivity.
We know there are other secret organizations, that may, or may not be conspiratorial, but that are, in any case, up to no good.
If you google basketball players with tattoos, you will find an impressive array of players wearing ink.
The question remains: for whom and for what reason are reputedly poor players wearing these expensive forms of expression? How are they affording them? Is is just a fad of self expression that became a normalized into a convention, as we are encouraged to assume? Or is their an organization in the background that requires members to get them?
Fascinating situation either way.
