Teaching out-and-out presumption as legitimate theory

Would it be grabbing at the low-hanging fruit to say, "I'm guessing that this guy was chronically the last to be picked for gym-class teams"?

University of Rhode Island (URI) professor published a book chapter in September focused entirely on New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and his supposed relationship to white supremacy. 

URI English professor Kyle Kusz also dabbles in gender and race theory, as evidenced in a chapter, a full copy of which was obtained by Campus Reform, that the professor authored in a recently published book titled The Palgrave Handbook of Masculinity and Sport.

Titled “Making American White Men Great Again: Tom Brady, Donald Trump, and the Allure of White Male Omnipotence in Post-Obama America,” the chapter attempts to provide evidence to back up Kusz’s suggestion that, like President Donald Trump, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has gained popularity due to the “latest wave of white rage and white supremacy” that he says developed since the Obama presidency alongside a “disturbing racial reaction among white conservatives in response to the idea that a black man would be [president].”

The professor’s work analyzes Brady in two ways: his representation in the media and his “relationship with Trump,” seeking to determine what these factors can “tell us about the specific ways that white masculinity is being re-coded and re-centered in post-Obama American culture.”

Kusz zeroes in on “the complex racial, gender, and class meanings that have been articulated with Brady’s body and his performances of white masculinity in the context of a backlash against the Obama presidency” and of “Trumpism,” which he claims is also rooted in both race and gender.

In addition to Brady’s representation as the epitome of “omnipotent, white masculinity” in his various media appearances, advertisements, and movie cameos, Kusz also focuses on Brady’s public image as it relates to what he calls “American myths of meritocracy and individualism,” which he says are “commonly used in sporting adverts.”
Among other media appearances, he specifically cites Brady’s appearance in a 2015 Under Armour commercial, which he claims “would not seem out of place in Leni Reifenstahl’s infamous Nazi propaganda film, ‘Triumph des willens,’” because of its military references and red and black colors.

Kusz told Campus Reform that it was this commercial that drove him to investigate Brady’s whiteness further.
“I decided to research Trump and Brady's public performances of their white masculinities and how they connect with broader debates about race and gender politics after a student in one of my classes brought the UnderArmour commercial to my attention and it piqued my interest,” the professor said.
Kusz also took issue in the chapter with a Beautyrest mattress commercial in which the camera angle is pointed upward at Brady so that the “viewer is compelled to see him as superior,” as well as Brady’s partnership with “upscale companies” like UGG and Aston Martin.
“In each of these sites, Brady is figured as an unconflicted and unapologetic embodiment of upper-class white exceptionality and manly omnipotence.”
Kusz also points to the “myths” of meritocracy present in “The Brady 6,” a documentary about the quarterback and his rise to stardom.
“By subtly coding Brady as a version of the 97 lb weakling in ‘The Brady 6,’ his subsequent transformation into Brady—the five-time Super Bowl champion and ‘G.O.A.T’—enables him to be easily read as an athletic variation of the self-made man,” Kusz writes, adding that “the self-made man is [a] seductive and potent ideological figure of American liberalism long used to mask the systemic privileges afforded to, and enjoyed by, white men, especially those with economic means.”
The professor also asserts that Patriots fans who backed Brady during the infamous “Deflategate” scandal were angry with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for “breaking the unspoken bonds of white brotherhood to leverage the NFL’s institutional authority” against Brady.  The “Free Brady” T-shirts sold by barstoolsports.com at the time combined humor with “reverse racism” and “political dissidence,” according to Kusz.
In addition to the media’s representation of Brady being “figured through conventional codes of upper-class elitism that are often exclusively associated with, and embodied by, white men,” Kusz also takes issue with the company Brady chooses to keep, mainly focusing on the quarterback’s relationship with Trump, but also pointing out the fact that Brady often takes “boys only” trips with “white majority groups” to the Kentucky Derby.

In each of the attempts at substantiation for his argument, this Kusz person makes an instant presumption that the connection is obvious without considering other possible explanations and employing rational arguments for rejecting them. Maybe he fleshes this out in his book, but on what basis does he assert the existence of this "white rage"? Has he researched why the marketing people at Under Armor or Beauty Rest constructed their commercials the way they did? And how can somebody articulate complex race, class and gender whatever with his body? And I daresay that scientific polling would indicate that a lot of predominantly white (and I'll bet predominantly black as well) groups of men attend the Kentucky Derby.

But this guy's seething resentment for meritocracy and individualism is the really creepy aspect of this. I think it's safe to say he's a fan of participation trophies. The University of Rhode Island is paying this guy to be an agent of the obliteration of excellence.

And obliteration of masculinity. Kusz is precisely what Christina Hoff Sommers warned us about.

Reduce sovereign individuals to one generic category: the cattle-masses. That's the agenda.