By Walter L. Hilliard III
Black people can never stick together. (The more honest among us know exactly what I’m talking about so we’ll move on.)
So it was of no surprise that the NBA players finally gave in to their plantation owners and punk, House Negro owner Michael Jordan. Just read Jordan’s record and history of “No’s” when he has been asked to do something on behalf of Black people concerning sports or beyond sports.
The owner bullies got over on the players once again – even though Jordan wanted even more money than the $3 billion the owners robbed the players of.
What really happened here was that the runaway basketball slaves ran so far away from the NBA plantation that some of them started to get scared, particularly those who think like one of the leagues top House Negro slaves, Kobe Bryant, who always looks out for “self,” just like he was doing when he squealed on Shaq as a womanizer after he got busted for banging, or allegedly raping, the hotel help.
What it all came down to was the NBA players union head Billy Hunter and NBA ironman Derrick Fisher saw the handwriting on the walls: most of the NBA slaves were used to the plantation and when freedom was in sight, freedom that would require some sacrifice, some missed paychecks, the scared slaves started revolting and demanded they all go back to the plantation.
And not only were the NBA team plantation owners participating in the hunt, so were the fans and NBA ancillary Business Hounds. Yup, it was too scary, cold, dark and dirty out in the woods, and the fans and Business Hounds were fast approaching the NBA slaves with “barks of criticism,” trying to scare them into returning to the NBA plantation. But let’s be real, these Business Hounds were mainly composed of the predominantly White business owners, including food stand owners, contractors, etc., that make money off of the players, just as was the case during slavery when everyone made money, including poor Whites, off of the slaves responsible for picking the cotton. You see it’s the players talent who draws in the fans, the huge TV contracts, endorsement deals, coaches, and so on. It’s also the players that do the traveling, the practicing, and take the mainstream media ridicule, including being racially profiled as dumb, overpaid jocks.
Hunter and the players “were” modern day business role models for Black people, Black people who are always taken advantage of in a society built on institutional racism, just for standing up and fighting for what they believe in. No, they are not heroes on the level of single mothers and fathers or those fighting for justice, and definitely not on the level of Bill Russell, Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos, who all confronted overt racism in the 1960s on behalf of the well-being of all Black people.
The NBA players came down from the 57 percent of the league revenues that they get to 50 percent, with the seven percent going to owners who were getting 43 percent since the previous collective bargaining agreement all agreed to. These players and Billy Hunter showed they have no heart . . . well, they showed some heart by fighting back a little bit, until, again, they were going to start missing checks. But the owners knew all along they would win.
I mean, if you have a collective bargaining agreement in place that gives you 57 percent of the revenues and you allow the owners to void the contract and force you to give up $3 billion bucks over 10 years, you’re a coward. To hell with the blabber mouths like Stephen A. Smith and all the jobs that could be lost because Black people are frozen out of most of these jobs anyway, and the owners are the ones that should be held accountable.
Uncle Toms like Stephen A. Smith have no vision for Black people and he served as one of the clueless mouthpieces constantly trotted out by the White sports media to bad mouth the mostly Black NBA players that the sports media racially profiles on a daily basis and hates to see these young Black players making more money than them anyway.
The funny thing is that the White sports media labeled the NBA lockout as millionaires (players; mostly Black) versus billionaires (all White, except Jordan), but they never said that about the White coaches who make millions or the young White guys on Wall Street – at least until those morons wrecked the American economy. And most NBA players don’t make the money the stars make, and their careers will be over in about three years. Sports Illustrated, who has a long checkered history of racially profiling Black athletes (see their stories on Black athletes and how many kids they have), reports that about 65 percent of NBA players are broke three years after retiring.
Maybe the hardest thing in life for a Black man to do is address racism publicly in America because you will be crucified by the media and the people, in general. And although the players didn’t really get into blaming racism regarding their issues, they knew it and felt it.
A few players were vocal. But there’s nothing like playin’ with somebody’s money to get them to start speaking up and standing up, huh?
Most people in the United States and the world criticize Black people for not standing up enough against racism since the Civil Rights Movement, easily our greatest shining moment in the last century or possibly ever. And in the case of Black professional athletes, as I’ve touched on, the media has cast them as dumb, only concerned about spending their money, and undeserving. David Stern, feeding off of these negative stereotypes and coddling what he believes to be his overly important White fan base, even came up with stipulations and age limits so high school and some college players couldn’t go directly to the NBA, something unheard of in sports dominated by Whites, like professional tennis, hockey, golf, and baseball.
Next move, for all of us – get involved with the occupy Wall Street Movement. You know things are bad when White folks are complaining. But just imagine how upset they’d be if they had to live life as Black people?
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