This story bothers me just as much as the Michael Brown situation. You would have to be engaged in the process of developing, nurturing, and parenting a young star (athletic or entertainer), and knowledgeable of the environment they must navigate, to even have a clue as to what is really going on here. This article frames it so very badly; and worse, advocates for the very thing that should not happen. The alienation and isolation of those from our communities that make it from those who are still struggling to make it is at the heart of the struggle for collective and cooperative economics in our culture. I guarantee this young black man was surrounded by old white gatekeepers. And those gatekeepers come from cultures that value and often demand that their families, communities, and cultures nourish a healthy mentality of loyalty and duty to each other. But when it comes to their rich young black client, their advice is cut that begging and mooching family off so you can be happy with us, your new found friends. New found fiends is more like it, because they will suck their fees like the leeches they are, without giving fair value, and when the well runs dry as it almost always does, these fiends move on to the next victim, and that young black man goes back to the community he was told to abandon. And it doesnt have to be that way. This cycle is created and maintained as intentionally as the cycle of injustice in law enforcement, courts, and prisons. It matters just as much, because our lack of collective economic power can be directly traced to how those of us who achieve a measure of economic success are conditioned and encouraged to distance themselves from the collective. When there is even a hint of a hate crime against Jewish people, there is a line of wealthy Jewish people standing in solidarity with their organizations and their people protesting and engaging in activism on the ground. And that economic backing and power is felt by any who would oppose them. As witness, see how virtually the entire Jewish population all over the world vocally and emphatically supported Israel in their retaliatory retaliate spouse to supposed Palestinian threats against their people. Name the rich Black people who are front and center in the Ferguson struggle? I will wait... People like Everett Glenn, founder of the National Sports Authority, and Dr. Claud Anderson, of the Powernomics Institute, understand what Im saying. Wouldnt it be Revolutionary, if instead of less than 30% of Black collegiate athletes graduating, that number was 90% graduating with gainful education and skills; if instead of 70% of Black professional athletes being broke within three years after they stop playing, 70% of them had been properly guided to substantial and successful business careers like Magic Johnson; and if instead of being constantly held up as irresponsible and incorrigible, the majority of Black athletes had been nurtured in an environment that taught them how to be constructively and progressively socially conscious like Muhammad Ali? Thats what I would call #Gamechanging
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 23:30:27 +0000