Jason Whitlock is the True Buffoon

I was browsing online tonight when I stumbled across another slanted article on Fox Sports from the "Honorable Jason Whitlock." In his article he basically talks about how the black athlete is destroying sports and how they are buffoons because they, as he likes to call it, shuck and jive on the field. He is of the opinion that football should be played as if these professional athletes are in corporate America wearing a suit and tie with little or no emotion. In the same breath he talks about the guys being payed to play a game. I pose this question to Mr. Whitlock, if they are playing a game are they not to have fun? What is wrong with a little playful teasing as long as there is no malice or intent to show someone up individually? He goes on to make the argument that the Colts and Patriots are the most successful teams in the NFL because they not coincidentally have more white players than any other teams in the NFL; as if to imply that in order for a team to play well or be successful, one must have more whites or non-black athletes as he so cleverly tries to put it, to makeup for the incompetencies of the undisciplined, heartless and ignorant black player. He is falling right into the trap from the 60's where it was universally accepted that the black quarterback and athletes in general lack discipline, heart and intelligence, and were only able to function when being directed by their white counterparts. Now I truly understand why there are so few Black Head coaches in college and professional athletics even though blacks or non-whites make up close to 70% of the athletes.

What enrages me the most about his article, besides the choice of words that he chooses to use such as buffoonery, bojangling etc, is the sheer ignorance and venom that he speaks with. He is looking at the end results without understanding or addressing the true problem.

Let me state for the Record that I am Not going to make excuses for bad behaviour as we all have to understand right from wrong, but lets put this in perspective. Imagine if you grew up your whole life dirt poor, the family next door was dirt poor, the family down the street, also dirt poor. Daily you are surrounded by drugs, unemployment, domestic violence, murder, robbery, dilapidated buildings as you grow up. Now imagine waking up one morning at the age of 21-24 with $250 thousand to $2 million dollars in your bank account. What kind of person would you be? Wisdom at 40 or 44 years old is easy, life has a way of helping you gain understanding and retrospect, but at the age of 21 or 23 just how much retrospect and life experiences do you have to draw from? Can you really talk to someone from your old neighborhood about how to handle your new found wealth when you could very easily gather all the people from your old neighborhood together and would not be able to accumulate or have over time accumulated at any point in their combined lives, half the wealth these athletes are gaining overnight.

Imagine growing up seeing your mother work two to three jobs and still having the power cut off, no cable, having to eat cereal with water instead of milk. That "hood life" can be a double edged sword when you wake up rich overnight. One side of you will never want to be poor again so you will do any and everything you can possibly do to protect your riches. There will still be that other side that will want to enjoy all the things that in your wildest dreams would have never been available to someone from your background.

We need to quit being naive and foolish enough to think that once someone gets money all the problems and past experiences that has driven these individuals to succeed and fail will just disappear. If anything the money makes it worse as the problems are never truly addressed, but overlooked by the money as it relates to the athletes, and the talent as it relates to the NFL organizations and fans. I challenge Whitlock and any other person that thinks like him to actually get down on the ground level to help fix the problem instead of talking about it and blaming hip hop from the friendly confines of his office desk as he sips on his tall Starbucks Latte. One thing Pac Man Jones, Mike Vick, Tank Johnson, and all the other athletes he loves to bash and label as buffoons, have in common is that they have overcame personal tragedy and lived in some of the worst environments and family lives that one could ever imagine. Drug abuse, death, and prison, all things these "troublemakers" grew up with impacting and shaping their mentality. Instead of reveling in the trials and tribulations and scolding them, get out there and teach.

Here is the article for those interested: http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/7343980

Allow myself to introduce...myself

As we all know, the last few months have provided more than enough subject matter to provoke discussion on any number of social topics. Quite frankly, I'm a bit weary of discussing or even thinking about it all. Perhaps as a result of working through Labor Day weekend, (how ironic) my attention span is shorter than usual. So, as a result, I'll keep my thoughts short and fairly random, in an effort to give you an idea who I am, and what kind of things you can expect hear from me. Without further delay, here's a few things that come to mind now.

- "Quite frankly," isn't a good way to start a sentence. If I have to tell you I'm being frank, are you to assume that everything else I've said was less than "frank?"

- Perhaps this is a false "back in the day" perception, but it seems black people were more driven and focused when opportunities for success were more limited. Now that we have more access to the opportunity structure in our society, we appear to be apathetic and distracted. Our collective attitude seems to parallel what many of us have experienced in personal relationships. When the relationship is new, and the extent to which you will win the affections of the person you're interested in is uncertain, your thoughts and energies are focused on that "special" someone. When the relationship has reached a point of stabilty, and you've become comfortable in your knowledge of the level of emotional attachment and commitment of your "significant" other, it's easy to become complacent, disinterested, and unappreciative of the person whose affections you once made great efforts to attain.

- Yes, I went off on a personal tangent. But what's the fun of reading a blog if you don't get a look into the everyday, personal things that we all spend a lot (some of us too much) time trying to figure out about ourselves?

- I'll wrap up this first post with a thought that perhaps may lead to further discussion. I think we have too much black culture in our community. As a matter of fact, there's too much community in our community. I think we all should have an understanding and appreciation for the history of people of African descent in this country, and, by identifying with our shared history, feel a strong sense of love and kinship for each other. But I think our sense of culture should pretty much stop there. As an individual, the way I think and act should have everything to do with what I know to be right, based on whatever system of values I have, not anyone's definition of black culture. I try to do the right thing in everything I do, not because I want to be a good black man, but because I want to be a good man. If we, as individuals, do the best we can for ourselves and our families, then many of the problems we face collectively we be alleviated. I'm not saying that the larger social structure is perfect - we must continute to push for equitable opportunities for social mobility for people of all socioeconomic backgrounds - but I do know that, just as in personal relationships, if we can't appreciate what we have now, we will eventually lose it.

Somewhere We Went Wrong- Part 3

This will be my final post on the topic of "Somewhere We Went Wrong." By no means do I feel that I have touched on all that is needed to be touched, but I fear that this blog will come off sounding preachy and self-righteous to the point that it loses its' effectiveness. Let me further clarify that I myself am part of the problem, being that I have a child born out of wedlock and her mother and I still have not married. Yet I still feel that it has to start somewhere and why not with me.

I know many will say that we already have our "Black Leaders," I have a major problem with that statement. First of all, can anyone tell me when we had a Black Election and voted on who our leaders would be and what our "National Agenda" would be? What platform did these guys run on? Did they come to your church or local community center like candidates for any other political races and explain to you what their credentials were or what they can do for your community to make things better? Why do we as blacks feel that we have to have these leaders in the first place? Who is the leader for all Whites? Who is the leader for all Mexicans? Why aren't we raising our children to be leaders and to take control of their on destiny? Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson do they really speak for you and what you need in your communities? We have to stop accepting the status quo and truly question the motives and agendas of the people that claim to be our leaders. What makes them qualified to be leaders anyway? Just because someone walked with Martin Luther King does not automatically entitle them to be a leader.

Too many times our communites have accepted the loudest, boldest, most outrageous voice in the crowd and with open arms, accepted them to be our unofficial leaders instead of choosing leaders off of their body of work. I do not want to discredit the work that Jesse and Al have done over the years and they have brought attention to cases that would slip under the radar and have been instrumental on some of the more publicized cases, but it is easy to lead when the spotlight and glory is to be had, what type of leader are you in the trenches when all you have is everyday people saying thank you? Why wait until an injustice has been done, a waiter does not serve you at Denny's or the new movement to stamp out vulgar rap lyrics? Do we not think these modern day artist are just reflecting what is going on at this time and what they see in their environments?

If they truly are the leaders that we profess them to be, why haven't anyone called for their resignations? Are we better off today than we were 20 years ago? If you look around our communities there are four common denominators in every "hood": drugs, crime, poverty and despair. We continue to suffer while they fly around giving "token" speeches on any and every hot button topic they can. Jesse Jackson and Rainbow Push got bus loads of people to go back to New Orleans to vote for the Mayoral election after Katrina, but don't you think we would have been better served organizing and working with "The Habitat for Humanity" on getting bus loads of people to rebuild the Lower 9th Ward and East New Orleans? We need to recognize who the real enemy is, we have said time and time again how the system is stacked against us and how the government does not care about what happens to us. I ask you this question; if we know this and it has been constantly proven, why do we feel the need to wait for the government to handle issues that we can do as a community? Why haven't our so called leaders addressed this. Stop waiting for others to do what we can do for ourselves and lets get it done! Everyone is not fit to be a leader and I understand and accept this, but at some point and time we all have to take account for our own actions and make sure that we take care of our best interests.