Whitlock: NBA star Russell Westbrook and rapper E-40 identify as weak men

Anything and everything triggers the godless. They live for the approval of man, not God. They seek affirmation from people who don’t know them. They prioritize the perception of worldly respect over pleasing the Most High.

Russell Westbrook embodies the godless celebrity elite. His fragile ego controls him. His identity is divorced from God. He’s an NBA superstar, a fashion and commercial brand. The tiniest thing that infringes on his brand triggers an emotional outrage.

Sunday night, at halftime of his Los Angeles Clippers’ upset of the Phoenix Suns in the first round of the playoffs, Westbrook barged into a floor-level lounge and confronted a fan who apparently had been heckling him for poor shooting throughout the first half.

The confrontation, like everything else in modern America, was captured on cellphone video.

Fans have been heckling athletes for more than 100 years. This is the first time I can remember an athlete charging into a lounge to berate a fan. But it is not surprising. The relationship between athletes and fans has been rapidly deteriorating for at least two decades.

Nineteen years ago, the Indiana Pacers declared war on Detroit Pistons fans inside the Palace. Then-NBA commissioner David Stern sided with his paying customers, issuing harsh suspensions and fines against Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, and several other Pacers for fighting with Pistons fans.

Looking to maintain access to the athletes, many elite media members sided with the players. In the nine years of Adam Silver’s reign as commissioner of the NBA, the divide between basketball players and fans has grown much worse. Silver is petrified of the players. It’s now common for NBA players to have paying customers ejected from an arena for shouting things players used to laugh off or dismiss.

The players dismiss very little today. They’re their own gods. Taunts are blasphemy. Their self-esteem is directly tied to the level of worship they receive.

This weekend, at the inaugural Fearless Army Roll Call Men’s Summit, I ended my speech talking about the importance of men embracing their identities in Christ. I asked the more than 700 assembled men to toss aside the political, sexual, racial, and work identities and identify first, foremost, and only as Christians.

If Russell Westbrook’s sole identity was Christian, he would not be bothered at all by what a fan shouts at him. He would be living a life to win God’s respect and realize the futility and worthlessness of man’s respect.

Westbrook has rabbit ears and is in constant controversies with fans and media because he’s seeking the approval of the wrong people. He has accused Utah Jazz fans of bigotry. He scolded a small child who playfully touched him courtside. For years, Westbrook attempted to bully an Oklahoma sports writer he did not like. Westbrook has threatened TV personality Skip Bayless over the nickname “Westbrick.”

When you seek an identity outside “child of God,” it makes you vulnerable to insecurity and easy to trigger.

The rapper E-40 suffers the same problem. Gold chains, millions of dollars, and fame do not strengthen a man’s self-confidence and cool. On Saturday, E-40, a prominent Golden State Warriors fan, got escorted out of his seat by Sacramento Kings security because he beefed with a female fan who heckled him.

Of course, E-40 said he was tossed because of racism. He said security assumed he was the instigator because he was arguing with a white woman.

“Kings security approached me, assumed I had instigated the encounter and proceeded to kick me out of the arena,” the rapper said in a written statement. “Unfortunately, it was yet another reminder that – despite my success and accolades as a musician and entrepreneur – racial bias remains prevalent. Security saw a disagreement between a black man and a white woman and immediately assumed that I was at fault.”

I guess that’s a possibility. There’s another potential explanation based on assumption. Perhaps Sacramento security saw a large black man who identifies as a commercial rapper. Perhaps that identity made security assume E-40 was at fault. Maybe they’ve heard E-40’s 1993 classic, "Captain Save a Hoe." Maybe they assumed the rapper was burnishing his brand as a denigrator of women.

E-40 claimed the fans were disrespectful in their taunts. Alleged “disrespect” is at the root of much of the animus and violence that occurs between black rappers. If a police officer had to guess who would turn violent in a disrespectful argument among fans, the officer would be justified in assuming it would be the rapper. Rappers flaunt their willingness to be violently disrespectful.

More than likely, elite media will defend E-40. He’s popular across social media. He’s black. He has privilege. He’s a multimillion-dollar victim.

All of this stems from men choosing the wrong identity. Men take pride in being conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat, black, white, brown, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, or whatever. All those surface-level identities give men plenty of room to misbehave. None of those identities compel men to behave righteously.

When you take your identity in God, you care very little about what man thinks about you. You don’t get triggered by the taunts of fans.

Russell Westbrook and E-40 are weak men. They think success in athletics and music grants them a special level of treatment.