By Walter L. Hilliard III
So I’m watching NBA analyst Stephen A. Smith doing an interview about the Philadelphia 76ers pulling a Black female R&B singer named Sevyn Streeter from singing the National Anthem minutes before she was set to step on the court. Why? Because they happened to notice she was wearing a shirt that said “We Matter.”
Maybe you don’t know this but Philadelphia has a racist history, despite the fact that nearly half of the city’s population is Black (44 percent, to be exact). The city is very segregated.
Sevyn went on social media to tell her story in a video, saying: “I was angry, extremely, extremely angry, and disappointed and honestly brought to tears by all of it. It broke my heart,” Streeter said. “Honestly, I was very excited about being able to perform the national anthem. I was really looking forward to that.” The Sixer players only discovered what happened later.
During his interview, Smith rambled on about how the Sixer organization has a “right” to do whatever in the hell they want to and that if the players want some of the billions of dollars coming down the pike from the TV contract, they will, and I’m paraphrasing here, shut the hell up so they can just collect their checks. This “Negroes need to be quiet when the White man is paying them a lot of money” routine is an ongoing theme with Smith, depending on the day because other times he’s talking about the freedom of speech.
Coon Smith needs to realize that this is 2016, not 1816, slavery’s over, and not all Black people are willing to “stay in their place” because the White people who are paying them might get upset. Seventy-five percent of NBA players are Black and if LeBron James and the rest of the brothas in the league decide they’re unhappy, they can go find new owners for a new league they can form together. I’m sure new domestic and foreign owners will line up to step in, work out a new TV contract with the player’s approval — and all other NBA-related businesses will follow them to the new league. The players are the stars, the driving force behind the NBA and sports media, not the NFL’s owners or the ESPN owners Smith “shucks and jives” for.
I remember Mr. Big Mouth wasn’t so tough when he was made to apologize to America for a comment he made about women not provoking men to commit domestic violence. The comment was taken out of context by a White female analyst on another show, Michelle Beadle of Sports Nation Beadle went on Social Media and twisted Smith’s words, leading to a firestorm of criticism against Smith. You should have seen Mr. Tough Guy Smith whimpering and apologizing like a little bitty puppy dog. But you better believe that if someone Black had twisted his words and got him in trouble, he would have went ballistic. And the powers that be at ESPN wouldn’t have cared.
When Smith realizes that slavery is over and stops kissing his White bosses asses, he’ll realize that Black people like Nat Turner, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jim Brown, and others spoke up or took action to make things better for the rest of us. And they absolutely expect us to continue doing the same for those that will follow us.
Remember Mr. Stephen A. Smith, you can run from responsibility, but you can’t hide forever.
