(ThyBlackMan.com) There’s been a really ridiculous debate going on between the 30 and 40 somethings and older athletes/entertainers from the civil rights generation. First, there was the weird spat between Jay-Z and Harry Belafonte, where Harry basically said that Jay-Z owes something to the black community, but Jay wants to believe that he doesn’t owe anything to anyone but himself. Now, there is the little thing between Jim Brown and Kobe Bryant.
Jim thinks that Kobe could do more when it comes to speaking up and out for the black community, while Kobe has been convinced to do his talking with a basketball in his hand. I’m not sure how original it is for black men to think that they are doing something special by defining themselves as brainless bucks who dribble for white people to make a living, but that’s where we are. Much of this, unfortunately, is due to the way ineffective
public school systems and universities work on killing all independent brain cells of athletic black men before they ever get a chance to have any real power (you ever seen how the basketball star gets pushed from one grade to the next and has their grades changed in college? I’m a college professor, so I’ve seen this up close).
Then, by the time these men become truly powerful and have the ability to change the world, they are psychologically neutered like bad dogs at the kennel….afraid of their own shadow and rendered almost entirely ineffective in the pursuit of black equality. Like thirty-dollar prostitutes who’ve been hooked on crack cocaine, our most powerful black men are trained to stand on the corner and dance for money without daring to take a second to think and act for themselves. Money is the drug that keeps them high and the one that is used to keep them under control.
Like a father doing an intervention on his dope-addicted son, Jim Brown spoke directly to the Kobe Bryants of the world, letting them know that there are a plethora of options for professional athletes to do something more meaningful than dunk a basketball. He points to the men of his generation, who held Black Athlete summits, held up their fists at the Olympics and spoke directly about the way they could use their athletic prowess to help the people they care about the most. Jim delivers tough love because he is not a soft and quiet guy and it might hurt Kobe’s feelings. But Kobe might want to pay attention, since Jim knows what he’s talking about.
Here are a few reasons why Kobe Bryant might want to listen to Jim Brown.
1) Because Jim was just as good of an athlete as Kobe is (maybe better): Jim Brown was a man among men. He was the greatest athlete in the history of Syracuse University (where I teach), dominating three different sports to the point that rules were changed in order to find a way to stop him. In the NFL, he set a rushing record that wasn’t broken for decades and did it with a shorter career than most. Jim Brown, in my opinion, makes a serious case for being the greatest athlete of all-time. When you consider what he achieved off the field, the comparison between he and Kobe Bryant is virtually non-existent.
2) Because racism is real and black people are catching hell: Black people are going to prison so much that fathers in the household have practically disappeared and our children are growing up traumatized. Black people have an unemployment rate that would be a national crisis if we were white. Black children are not learning how to read in horrible inner city schools. Black teens are getting their heads blown off in the street because no one cares enough to try and stop the violence. If a respected athlete like Kobe Bryant were to even SPEAK on these matters, it would make a HUGE difference and make my job a lot easier (I noticed how the White House listened when we got Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Brad Pitt and other celebs to join us in our fight against the prison industrial complex). But the degree to which so many of our athletes are indifferent to black suffering is nothing short of unconscionable. Many of them come from communities where the struggles are greatest, so it amazes me that, similar to chickens fattened and plucked on the farm, they’ve become psychologically immune to all that is occurring around them.
3) Because your success doesn’t just belong to you: The idea that athletes can just get rich and famous without owing anything to the black community is like a man never thanking his mother for giving him life. The black community has elevated and supported Kobe, so it makes no sense for him not to give back and fight. The same hoods that love him need him the most, so why in the world would he or any other athlete sit silently and quietly while there is so much suffering that they can help to alleviate? It just doesn’t make any sense.
4) Because Jim can educate him: By challenging Kobe Bryant, Jim is teaching him that he doesn’t have to be a puppet for money. He is teaching him that there is more to being a black man than showing a white man how high you can jump. He is teaching him that other people don’t have to control his decisions, he can make strong decisions on his own. He is also helping him to realize that he wasn’t the first great black athlete to have ever lived, there have been better ones in the past.
5) Because Jim has earned his stripes: Jim Brown has put it on the line when it counted. He made a lot of money, but didn’t live for money. He and other athletes of his era took stands that made it possible for us to live with the freedoms that we have today. To use west coast vernacular, Jim Brown is Kobe’s “OG” and he needs to shut the hell up and show Jim the respect he deserves. You don’t piss all over the words of your grandfather, which is what Bryant is doing by trying to brush Jim Brown off.
6) Without Jim, there would be no Kobe: If Jim Brown were as selfish as Kobe Bryant, there would be no Kobe Bryant. Brown could have “kicked it” with money, fame and women up to his elbows, like a lot of athletes today. Instead, he stood up to white people in ways that would make Kobe’s testicles shrivel up and fall off. Any athlete who truly wants to make a difference in the world needs to study the life of the amazing Jim Brown to get a peek into what true athletic manhood is really all about.
Kobe Bryant, give that man the respect he deserves. Jim is trying to help you grow from being just another high-jumping negro to becoming a real man who has an impact on the world. I hope Kobe Bryant chooses to listen but he probably won’t. As a Finance professor, I’ve always known how money can clog up our ear drums and turn off our brains. It’s sad that so many athletes choose to be brain dead, when the fact is that, by coming together, they could truly change the world.
Staff Writer; Dr. Boyce Watkins
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. For more information, please visit http://BoyceWatkins.com.