I've tried attacking this topic a few times over the course of the past few days, in light of the comments said to have been made by former NBA head coach George Karl in a soon to be released book, titled Furious George. The comments were made in reference to Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith and retired player, Kenyon Martin and the time they all spent together as members of the Denver Nuggets. Karl said quite few things but he flashpoint comment was this:
"Kenyon and Carmelo carried two big burdens: all that money and no father to show them how to act like a man."
Shots. Fired.
Carmelo basically ignored the comments and took the high road. Kenyon Martin? Not so much. J.R. Smith said his peace but mainly chose to reach out in support of his former teammates, calling them his "brothers". While this has become heavy fodder for beat writers, reporters and sports TV and talk radio pundits, there is one glaring fact that many didn't pick up on, at least from the reactions of 'Melo and J.R.. That fact? Black America is over the white American perspective of who we are.
Now don't get me wrong. This doesn't mean that these comments and others like them are irrelevant to us. Not in the slightest. LeBron James' response to Phil Jackson's "posse" comments, in regards to him and his business partners, who just happen to be his childhood friends, shows that. But the white perspective is no longer relevant, at least in the scope of the accomplishments that we see from people who look like us. And while we are about to enter into a new year that will see Donald Trump elected president, we can look back on the last 8 years of the presidency of our first Black president and the things he was able to accomplish and know that, while we haven't completely "won" when it comes to the issues that continue to face us as Black people, we can stop caring about how white people, who still hold on to the white supremacy structure in this country, perceive us. We already know, and we will continue to fight against it where it is still necessary. But it will no longer hold us down. It will no longer hold us captive.
I chose to blog about this for one important reason. In my last blog I spoke about a Speaking Down Barriers "Healing Us" discussion that focused on how society views Black families. This, ironically taps right into that vein. We've grown accustomed to how white society views us. There have been times when our individuality wasn't encouraged, when we were advised to blend in and not be different. But culturally, we are very different. So for us to blend in, for us not to be different, that would be going against everything inside of us as a people and as individuals. Everything we have become has been based on us embracing the things that make us different. But what, you may ask, does this have to do with what George Karl said about his former players? It's the perceived and assumed rhetoric that upstanding young men have their fathers to guide them. This would be widely associated with what the American family is supposed to be. But in the Black community, where the number of young men who grow up without their fathers are still staggering, unguided young Black men is not a product of that. And "guided" young white men who come from a family where the father is present aren't by products of that environment either. The fact of the matter is, whatever struggles that George Karl had with Anthony, Smith and Martin during their time together had absolutely nothing to do with their fathers not being involved in their lives. Kenyon Martin said that such comments were an insult to his mother, Anthony's mother and single mothers "everywhere". I can't help but agree. To overcome the odds that these men did, not just from being raised by a single parent but also from the places they came from, shouldn't be overlooked. LeBron James often says that he relates to a lot of the youth that are counted out due to where they are from because he was supposed to be counted out, too. But the families that these men had were strengthened by whatever adversity they encountered, real and perceived. And these men grew from literal boys to men under the scope of assumptive white authority figures who had already cast them off just because of they way they looked or the way they responded to the white power structure, in the NBA and in society. Yes, these players didn't have fathers to show them anything, but they had mothers, aunts, cousins, grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles and neighborhood families and mentors to help guide them to a place where they became household names in a sport dominated my men who look like them and come from the same places they did. The ones who last 10+ years are special and there is no disputing that. Carmelo is in his 13th year as a top tier player, J.R. Smith is in his 12th year and just won a championship with LeBron and the Cavs and Kenyon Martin managed to play for 15 years, despite his reputation as a dirty player.
But we're talking about basketball players, here. All parties involved, including George Karl are millionaires and live in somewhat of a bubble. But the white perspective exists outside that bubble as well. When it comes to the issues that we are facing such as police brutality, economic and social injustices, political disparities, mass incarceration and so forth, that white perspective weighs in heavily on all those accounts. We are also looking at a situation where social, economic and racial "battle lines", as it were, are being drawn, as we can see with Trump preparing for his inauguration and the way his supporters show their allegiance to him and his ideals. In the past, the opportunities to close the wealth gap for young Black men laid in music and sports, for the most part. Nowadays, our youth are blazing their own paths and have to continue to do so. Young Black entrepreneurship is on the rise. Those who choose to take the path of music and sports are enhancing their brand and becoming businessmen in the process. Black women are staking their claims in the corporate world, showing that they are just as innovative and creative as their male counterparts, Black and white. Our communities are spawning leaders in activism, awareness and keeping our school age children in the loop for educational opportunities that, otherwise, they would think are not there for them. Where we come from is no longer an obstacle for us, it is our launch pad. We appreciate where we come from for it is our heritage, our legacy. Those individuals who filled in the gaps that may have existed in our lives gave us the faith in ourselves to get to where we want to go. What is perceived as a disadvantage to those who can't understand how we made it from whatever struggles we encountered, we use as strength and we dismiss their perspective. It has no relevance to us, no meaning whatsoever. Their opinions of us hold no weight.
So George Karl, I hope your book and the negative, asinine and misguided comments you made about the men you coached somehow provides motivation to the young Black girl or boy, young Black man or woman who has a coach, teacher, guidance counselor, classmate, boss, professor, neighbor, co-worker, etc. that thinks like you. I hope when they read it, they see how successful the men you spoke so negatively about are. I hope they look you up and research how unsuccessful you were as a coach in building real relationships with the men that played for your teams. I hope they learn of how you tried to bully your way back into coaching and ran into DeMarcus Cousins, arguably the best center in the game right now, who wasn't having any of what you were selling and how you were eventually fired...again. I hope they see all of this and realize how irrelevant the white perspective is these days in accordance to the dreams and goals they have set out from themselves.
“Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.”
-James Baldwin
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