Professor Kyle Kusz, who teaches a kinesiology professor at the University of Rhode Island, has declared yet another example of the culture of white supremacy in America: Tom Brady. Kusz concludes that it is white supremacy that explains the popularity of Brady in his book “Making American White Men Great Again: Tom Brady, Donald Trump, and the Allure of White Male Omnipotence in Post-Obama America.” It is a bizarre theory since, as I have patiently explained in the past, Brady’s success is only explained by the fact that he sold his soul to the Devil decades ago and he is watched over by a barely disguised Cerberus in the form of Bill Belichick.
Kusz does not appear to think that six Super Bowls and three MVP awards would make Kim Kardashian a football icon. Instead, according to Kusz, it is all about his race. Kusz insists that Brady became popular with the rise of “white rage and white supremacy.” He further criticizes Brady for not denouncing Trump and argues that both Trump and Brady illustrate “how they represent the cultural (re-) emergence and valorization of a white masculinity that unapologetically desires a manly omnipotence ….”
Kusz even compares the “visual aesthetic” of Brady’s Under Armour commercial starring Brady to the Nazi propaganda film “Triumph des Willens.”
My favorite point is Kusz arguing that Brady’s famously restricted diet shows how his “white masculinity is repeatedly constructed.”
This is what passes for academic work today.