The author discusses the racial politics of Allen Iverson and his image as a thug.

In other words, the idea that Iverson is a thug is a fictive reality conjured up in the racialized imagination of a society that remains fearful of young black men in spite of electing a black man president. To the extent that Iverson’s image resonates with a set of racialized metaphors we live by, he never had the agency to truly be understood.