Jason Collins stuck his neck out and became a pioneer. The Philippines could use a Jason Collins.
I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.
Jason Collins current NBA free agent
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Ilda told me last week (via FB ) that I should bend while the metal is hot. The challenge of course knowing if your “metal” is hot or what hot really is or what your metal is or what bending means to you “metal”. Nobody said this was easy.
Earlier this year NBA player Jason Collins came out of the closet. Some local politicians probably shudder at the thought although they could learn from his example. Most pinoys still believe the NBA is not only the most popular sport but the only sport in America. For the sake of this point just know the National Football League is the most popular sport in a place that already has the best basketball, baseball and hockey on the planet.
Now that the first ” active” athlete of the four major team sports has come out of the closet there is speculation when that will happen in the most popular sport (and arguably the most macho) which is NFL Football. Although Collins still did a very admirable thing the impact is a bit muffled because there is no guarantee he will be on an NBA roster next year. Jason Collins is far from his prime so for what its worth this sent shock waves but could still reverberate further still.
A few months before the Collins announcement speculation began when ( and not if) an active NFL player would ‘come out”. A current Minnesota Viking who is an outspoken marriage equality advocate speculated that an openly gay NFL player would be privy to incomprehensible endorsement opportunities. Chris Kluwe in the gay news website The Pink News likened this future pioneer to Jackie Robinson who became the first major league baseball player who happened to be black in 1947. Another fact of the era was despite the existence of the other professional sports ( football, basketball and hockey ) nothing came close to the consciousness of the national sports fan as baseball did. What many do know is that as recently as the early 80s the NBA Finals were on tape delay in the US. Played after the late news. The NBA has come a long way even from those days.
A market opportunity that has yet to be untapped. Graph from pointbcommunications.com
Jim Rohn once likened the marketplace to reality. The reality is that this hypothetical player as of now would be addressing a market that many companies would want a strong foothold on. According to this article from Business Insider the estimated buying power of the LGBT community is over $800 billion annually.
I am sure a lot of you would want Hans Gruber to be quizzing Napoles right now.
In my Everywhere There’s Lot Of Piggies Living Piggy Lives post I talked about going to Luneta a week ago and my perceptions of the pork barrel story: 1) the scandal goes wider than most people think. 2) the scandal goes higher and deeper than most people think. Janet Napoles is just the poster girl and the scapegoat as my fellow GRP writer Paul Farol will state much more eloquently than I ever could. I personally doubt she has a monopoly on the truth. I believe that there are other people among us that can do a pretty good job answering the same fill in blanks (thanks Hans Gruber) test most of us want to give Ms. Napoles after we have her force swallow two buckets of truth serum.
Will one of the Senators go through a St.Paul’s experience?
Just like Chavitt did with Erap in 2001 you just need one. There is this perception that Ms. Napoles is the only one but a scam of this magnitude is not confined to her. It will not be easy of course. This person will have to be like St.Paul and somehow have their Road to Damascus moment. Who is to say that a goofball writer like me does not give a little push in that direction?
Let’s say that person is now motivated there will be danger. That rules Noynoy Aquino out. I never said it was going to be easy. The person who does this will be a celebrity beyond comprehension. They will be able to win future elections with minimal use of epal. They may never have to pay for dinner. They might get their own talk show. Their fate might be similar to the fantasy Dexter has at the end of season 1 of a ticker tape parade but only real . They will allegedly have that all in their disposal. The kicker is, it would be the right thing to do.
The first openly gay NFL player will allegedly have enormous endorsements to look forward to. The first breakout Senator (or whatever position it ends up being) in the context of the Pork Barrel outrage would have a lot to look forward to it seems. The country is looking for answers and imagine the hero that person would be. They would be showered with enough positive attention to overload a thousand KSPs. Opportunity awaits!
Putting a very sharp needle into the balloon known as Pinoy Pride since 2012.
So lets get real about the population of gays and their influence. We are talking about a very small percentage of the population. More people like peanut butter on their pizza than there are gays. If you want to learn anything from the gay movement it should be the marketing aspect not the cultural. There is so far no proof the people are “born gay” it is a personal choice of life style. Here are some statistics. In the USA “Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics reveals that only 2.3% of the population considers themselves homosexual. ” Columbia put the number between 1.5% and 2%, US military about 1.7%. Canadians “Among Canadians aged 18 to 59, 1.0% reported that they consider themselves to be homosexual and 0.7% considered themselves bisexual.
About 1.3% of men considered themselves homosexual, about twice the proportion of 0.7% among women. However, 0.9% of women reported being bisexual, slightly higher than the proportion of 0.6% among men.” UK “The London Daily Mail released last week what it calls `the most exhaustive survey ever conducted into British sexual habits.’ The most stunning finding was that only 1.1 percent of British men said they were active homosexuals, a figure similar to the most recent American polls”
Is there some point to the previous comment?
Sure is if you actually read it. Try to connect the dots.
You can’t be serious! That is your thesis? “Might Makes Right”…even an elementary student of history could debunk that. See Justice Del Castillo decision re: ANG LAD LAD LGBT Party List vs. COMELEC: ” One unavoidable consequence of everyone having the freedom to choose is that others may make different choices- choices we would not make for ourselves, choices we may disapprove of, even choices choices that may shock or offend or anger us. However, choices are not to be legally prohibited merely because they are different…”
What….ever
You have obviously never been to The Philippines where it seems about 20% of the male population is gay.
What on earth does a gay (American) basketball player coming out have to do with the Pork Barrel scam here anyway?
I am glad you pointed out that football is far more popular than basketball in the US.
http://gaylife.about.com/od/comingout/a/population.htm
the stats you listed can be found at the above link.
an explanation of why it is considered to be a ‘low-estimate’ are also given.4% is mentioned as more ‘probable’ and it could be as high as 10% due to people not wanting to be truthful about such a personal ‘none of anyone’s business’ attitude, which is understandable..
Thanks for the compliment Gogs!
Appreciate your work.
The most popular Sport, attendance wise, in the USA is NASCAR auto racing. The second is Major-League Baseball(162 regular season games per team is a lot of people).
Not a lot of people in the USA give a shit that the guy is ‘openly gay’, they just don’t. I am not in the Philippines at the moment but from the little I have heard, outside of Metro-Manila the people are not expecting the current investigations to accomplish much, if anything at all. This is apparently due to a long list of past failures concerning these types of scandals. BTW, My info is limited.
The Philippines , due to it being an archipelago, is in a strange position. Entire islands could revolt, and the seat of Gov’t. would be hard pressed to do much about it. Just look at Southern Mindanao. The idiots in power forgot to have an army/navy/air-force capable of suppressing insurrection as they were too busy stealing the funds that would have paid for it. So ,now, if it were to happen, WTF is anyone in NCR gonna do? PRAY? IK IK, they’d call the USA, just sayin!
So, best case scenario… a Filipino politician who is sexually straight but ethically crooked suddenly comes out as gay and morally upright and becomes the greatest Philippine hero ever.
It is all in the marketing or branding of an individual or movement. A point I tried to make (some can’t get) that a small group population wise can redirect an entire culture or people simply by branding themselves as something they are not or are limited in.