There are so many different routes I can go through with the title of this post being all encompassing, but I’ll try to keep it short and simple. Well short and simple for me, most likely the average length of one of my posts.
Reading up on my NBA news (no I don’t hate athletics if you guessed this) I saw something about how Elton Brand (an NBA player) was receiving some criticism from his former organization (team) because he signed with another team with a deal in place that had already been prearranged. For those who don’t follow sports, it would be like if I tried to sell someone a bike for 100 dollars and everything had been prearranged, but they couldn’t buy the bike until their next paycheck. Then another person offers me 140 dollars for that same bike, and I sold it to the highest bidder turning my back on the first prospective buyer. As long as no contracts were signed, it is perfectly legal for someone to commit such an act. But whenever something like this happens then idiots and douchebags (99% of the time it is fans of the sport) come along with the same arguments about how they make too much money, athletes aren’t grateful, when you give poor Black people money it’s bound to happen, athletes are just greedy thugs, etc. Suddenly the floodgates open up about athletes from the supposedly diehard fans.
All I say to that is…racism!
Yes there are some athletes that fit the criteria. But I would have to say a lot of athletes don’t. From the people you here these things from, you almost always hear the critics of athletes criticize NFL players and NBA players. One might ask. “Why not MLB, NHL and MLS?” The answer to that is simple. Major League Baseball has about as many Black people in it as Laguna Beach. NHL has even less than that. And MLS isn’t a real sport…it’s on par with the Arena Football League (Soccer is a real sport, but in the United States it is bummish. Middle schoolers in Italy could hold their own with most high schoolers here). But back on topic…most of the criticism falls upon Black athletes. When Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones ‘makes it rain’ in the club it’s not only on ESPN, but CNN, FOX News and MSNBC 24-7. When Brad Miller lights up a blunt or Chris Anderson (en…who knows?) takes some X then it’s barely even touched upon. People aren’t bothered by the fact that young Black men not only have millions of dollars (I think White people can handle that better than they let on), or that these athletes are false idols to the WASP spawn (as I friend Koba elegantly put it about three years ago). It’s the fact that many of these men are rich, handsome (I ain’t gay, this is hearsay, no homo lol that phrase is funny…no homo, homo no, lolmo, gnomo…okay, I’ll stop) and have a tendency to sew their royal oats in a field of snowbunnies (nickname for White females). So they try to use every trick in the book to disgrace these rich, Black men in order to protect their wives, daughters, sisters and other female family members from the criminalblackman. Which I don’t take offense to very much. I don’t really care; they’re just athletes, better them than the smart ones like me. But if you want to rob power away from these Black men then do the following:
- stop buying your son(s) and or daughter(s) thousands of dollars worth of team/player/athlete paraphernalia and merchandise
- don’t worship athletics more than you do the deity of your faith
- don’t emphasize how you sucked in high school and rode the bench while trying to live through your son or daughter to be great when you sucked…that way they won’t grow up crap and regretting the fact that they couldn’t play sports
- don’t be hypocrites, you can’t expect athletes to make billions of dollars of revenue for the owners of sports franchises and get paid as much as you do down at ‘the plant’. They already don’t get paid crap compared to what they bring into the organization.
But, I do have a problem with athletics as well. While I see why they get paid millions of dollars for playing a game (because fools spend way too much money on crap…who cares if you have a LeBron jersey. Authentics are out of style anyway), and while I do enjoy watching a good game (any Duke men or women’s basketball game, Lakers’ game, Eagles’ game, or any female college volleyball game *drools in delight*) people place waaaaaaaay too much emphasis on athletics. I used to be like that (not crazy like some people…after all, I am cheap). I wanted all my kids to be superstar athletes (not realizing that I didn’t have the dedication to commit to a single sports team I joined in high school other than tennis and my kids would most likely be no different than me…stupid genetics). Of course, I’ll make my children play sports or be active, but I won’t care if they suck in athletics, just as long as they have fun, stick to it and get exercise. But some people are horrid. As soon as the child can walk they throw a football in his hand or a softball in her hand…instead of reading them books as soon as they learn to talk. The big problem I have is that the more than athletics are emphasized (by most families), the less academics are emphasized. This might not present that big of a problem to a White child. But to minority children (especially Black children), they are already going to be pushed into athletics by their peers outside of the home. So it is the responsibility of the parents (or guardian figure) to drive home the importance of academics over athletics. It’s a dang shame that someone has to opt out of college to go play ball in Europe because he can’t do well enough on the ACT to get into college after his third time. Yes this has happened…very recently.
