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The "Blood in the Sun" trilogy
In a wild, exuberant trilogy, Africa's greatest novelist sets out on a warping exploration of Somalian life and consciousness.
By Anderson Tepper
[09/14/99]

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The author of "Birds of America" selects five favorite novels about the future.
By Lorrie Moore
[09/13/99]

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"The Great Shame; and the Triumph of the Irish in the English-Speaking World"
A writer of Irish extraction explores Australia and North America in a quest to uncover Ireland's history.
By Mary Elizabeth Williams
[09/13/99]

Ivory Tower
One mean Renaissance man
As Machiavelli becomes the poster prince for a new kind of power-hungry self-help genre, scholars are using the 16th century political philosopher as a litmus test for human behavior.
By Annie M. Paul
[09/13/99]

Interview
Grumpy old archetypes
James Hillman, bestselling author and gadfly to the therapy movement, talks about the fine art of aging gracefully.
By Steve Perry
[09/10/99]

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But while Jordan came in for criticism, no one was peppering tennis star Pete Sampras, another Nike endorser, with political questions. Nor were any pundits demanding that Bill Gates endorse candidates for public office. Was it Jordan's skin color that singled him out for spokesman status? The assumption that Jordan would support Gantt because both are black told more about how the pundits viewed African-Americans -- as a monolithic voting bloc -- than it did about Jordan.

The demand that Jordan be an Ali-like spokesman for his people grows out of a civil rights-era mind-set, and Jordan is part of a post-civil rights generation, the first to attain a modicum of power from within the establishment. In this cultural moment, Jordan doesn't matter so much for what he says as for what he's done. He has undermined countless stereotypes, the very caricatures that underpin the racism decried by his liberal critics. After all, he is not lazy, unintelligent, inarticulate or, most important, incapable of handling money. In fact, Jordan has become the walking embodiment of onetime Ali mentor Malcolm X's dream -- he is a black-run business unto himself.

"Ali's politics grew out of the times," says Todd Boyd, professor of critical studies at the University of Southern California and author of the 1997 book "Am I Black Enough for You?" "But Jordan's presence assumes a political stance. The fact that he exists has political significance."

Jesse Jackson is fond of saying, "There are tree shakers, and there are jelly makers." Until Jordan, however, black athletes opted exclusively for the shake. From Ali to Tommy Smith and John Carlos at the '68 Olympics to Charles Barkley's pledge to be a "'90s nigga -- we do what we want to do," the socially conscious black athlete's role was to publicly rail against injustice. But then along came Jordan, who was more interested in making the jelly, in accumulating power by parlaying his athletic talent into a business empire now valued at some $500 million. Today, his true legacy lies in a new generation of black jocks who see that they can leverage their sports careers into economic empowerment.

"I wouldn't have started these businesses if I hadn't watched Michael these last few years," says Chris Webber, star forward for the Sacramento Kings and owner of a Gold's Gym franchise and a recording label that employs black people in his hometown of Detroit. "He's showed me that I could be more than just an athlete." Webber is not an aberration. Athletes evolving into business entities, seeing themselves as entrepreneurs, has become the norm now. Basketball star Grant Hill has dumped his management company and taken his career into his own hands. "Michael's led the way for what I'm doing now," he says. Similarly, basketball's Allen Iverson fired Jordan's longtime agent, David Falk, and now has his own line of hip-hop clothing about to debut. Football star Keyshawn Johnson -- in the NFL for all of three years -- just opened Reign, a trendy Los Angeles restaurant. And do you believe for a moment that, before each and every business decision, Tiger Woods doesn't ask himself, "What would Mike do?"

For all his visibility, Ali never had such impact. In fact, Ali went broke, as did Joe Louis and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Single-handedly, Jordan made himself into a refutation of the "nigger-rich" stereotype long fostered by the business failings of other athletes.

Ali had media cachet, but lacked the power even to stand up to Don King, the scourge of his own sport. Yes, Ali's rhetoric was enchanting, but he was never able to flex his muscles as Jordan did recently when he walked away from buying into the Charlotte Hornets because he wasn't being given enough control (and thereby forever sealed the reputation of that team's owner as the guy who stood in the way of the hometown savior rescuing the franchise).

Next page | Meanwhile, the macho sports press disses Rodman