My dog’s better than
your dog/My dog’s better than yours/My dog’s better ‘cause he
eats Ken-L-Ration/My dogs better than yours.”
Many of you won't
remember the lyrics above, but as you can guess, they had to do with
selling dog food. And it worked. They used kids' voices to sing the
little theme, and they added, “Ken-L-Ration has real lean meat/and
lots of other good things/When my mother goes to the store/she buys a
million cans or more.”
Now you're going to ask,
what does a dog food commercial have to do with Michael Jordan and
Kobe Bryant? One of the signs of genius is to make things that are
dissimilar, similar. The commercial promotes a product that gets
people to buy into it because they actually believe that there is a
special food for dogs. Why? Because if it's on TV, it must be true.
This is how I believe American fans view Jordan and Kobe: as being
beyond reproach and criticism and as a result, everything they do is
approved and sanctioned. I'm a black man and I have different
standards. I'm not going to fall for the okey-doke and believe that
because “they” say it, that makes it so. Ken-L-Ration was peddled
to the American public as “model dog food” in the same way that
Jordan and Bryant are peddled as “role models” (as in “I wanna
be like Mike,” remember that?)
The question is what has
“Mike” done for US lately and for that matter, what about “the
Black Mamba” (that's about the only thing other than his skin color
that's black that he seems to associate with).
When people attempt to
make it appear as if human relations in this country are improving,
those of us with an IQ have to laugh. And when those human relations
become more specific and we interject the variable of race, the
situation goes beyond the laughable to the pitiful.
Black people have to
start thinking as if they care about black people who are not their
relatives or close friends. We have to realize that our oppression is
collective and, as a result, so too should be our response to it. Our
numbers are dwindling and anyone who is watching can tell that what
we think is “black political empowerment” is really nothing more
than “influence pedding.” Look at it: what do we control?
Nothing. BET is sold to the Japanese, as was Essence magazine. We
have some alright smaller stations (probably the best is Bounce TV),
but none of them addresses critical issues. As soon as a black anchor
receives some fame, he or she is off to a major white station.
We can do better and we
can be better. But the best among us has to set the pace and the
standard. True, many of them are idiots. But they still have the kind
of visibility that could be transferred into action that would
upgrade black communities and make up for the fact that these former
slaveowners are never going to pay reparations.
But I digress.
Back
during the days of enslavement, the plantations would often pit their
“strongest buck” against another, a precursor to what I view as
the modern day tendency to pit black men who have achieved on the
national plantation, called America, against one another. Richard
Pryor vs. Eddie Murphy, Denzel vs. Samuel L., Whitney vs. Aretha, and
so on. Sports is no exception and the one competitive comparison that
continues year after year is the one that asks, “Who’s the best:
Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant.” Let me settle the argument for you
once and for all: ain’t neither one of them worth a shit.
Within the sphere of
basketball the argument is moot. I never saw Michael Jordan or Kobe
Bryant make a single shot or move on an NBA court that I haven’t
saw a kid make on the playgrounds or during pickup in college. Black
men are black men and are creative, period. Both Jordan and Bryant
have scored numerous points, won numerous championships and made a
whole lot of money for themselves, but even more for the corporations
that they represent – mostly selling shoes that black kids and
their families can’t afford. In some cases, that black and Latino
kids will kill for.
But these men are more
than athletes and before you can talk about “who’s the best” on
the court you have to ask why an answer would be so important – and
to whom. In the greater context, does it matter? But you know what
DOES matter? What these black men who have tens of millions of
dollars are doing for black people. I’m not talking about their
bullshit charities and/or contributions to the master pimp known as
the United Way. I’m talking about an impact on communities where
their people are powerless in a nation where power is valued above
all else.
Here’s seven (7) reasons why I
came to the conclusion that I came to above.
First,
neither one of them seems to care enough about black women to marry
and stay with one. Jordan screwed around behind Juanita’s back,
paid off white women to keep quiet and has now finally married one.
That’s his business. Kobe, out of high school, married this
fine-ass Latina and then put his entire career on the line for some
booty in a Colorado hotel.
Secondly,
neither of them seems to have a political opinion to save their
lives. When black people face a major disaster like Katrina, the most
you can see them do is have their managers make a small donation –
if that. If these two men called a press
conference and asked their
corporate contacts to contribute money for housing, that disaster
would have been quelled in months. Instead, Brad Pitt, Morgan
Freeman, Harry Connick, Jr., and Wynton Marsalis had to do it.
Third,
neither misses a chance to kiss some white man’s ass. In the case
of Kobe, it’s Phil Jackson and Duke’s Mike Krzyewski (another
thing they have in common is that neither one of them can spell it) .
With Michael it’s the same two along with Warren Buffett. These men
do nothing for people of color other than pimp them. Michael and Kobe
could do more to culturally sensitize these men to start some kind
legal fund to help defend and develop college athletes. Do they? No.
Fourth,
neither one has done a damn thing to try to get those ticket prices
dropped so that young black kids can get into those games. When these
kids are invited in, they have to sit up in the nosebleed sections of
the Staples Center or Chicago Stadium. They could do more but simply
will not.
Fifth,
because I have such low regard for them as bruthas, maybe they could
make up for their hedonistic transgressions by creating the
Jordan-Bryant National Fundraising Initiative. What white
segregationist millionaire wouldn’t pay $10,000 per ticket to
attend a lecture by Jordan, Kobe or one of their NBA cohorts? That
money could be placed in an account at a “negro” bank and then
used to fund innovative projects in black communities, especially
housing programs since Community Development Block Grants are
dwindling thanks to the thievery of white mayors. They could also
contribute to various AIDS projects around the nation because 40% of
all new AIDS cases are black women – most likely infected by former
inmates.
Sixth,
in regard to those inmates. How are you going to do commercials for
the United Way and these other poverty pimps when you won’t help
the one group that is most in need of help: black men who are locked
up? How can you read the newspaper to check box scores every morning
(if you can read) and not know that black men are disproportionately
represented in the nations lockups, even in states like Wyoming,
Utah, Montana and Idaho? The creation of the Jordan-Bryant Prison
Project, where at least they could get funding provided for those who
are recently released (and therefore reduce the recidivism rates).
A
seventh reason for why I say that neither
Jordan or Bryant amounts to shit is because they won’t do more to
support African-American studies at the universities they attended.
Kobe didn’t go to college, but could surely make a contribution to
places like Temple, which is in Philadelphia. Every NBA team has a
major college nearby that at least has a Black Studies program. Black
people, like Jordan and Bryant, suffer from an identity crisis
spawned by 400 years of white oppression. You can’t liberate the
body until you liberate the mind. National funding for our
departments, matched by the National Humanities Council, would go a
long way toward raising the consciousness of future generations of
Black and white kids.
I could continue, but as
the Muslim brothers say, “the hour has been well-spent.” An
argument about who is “better” between Kobe and Michael is
specious because neither of them is worth a dime when it comes to
their role in helping those who were there for them before white
folks “discovered” them. They can do more than buy mansions and
Mercedes’ for their parents and relatives. And they can get Nike to
get up off their chopstick wielding asses and do more as well.
Until then, “My dogs
faster, 'cause he eats Ken-L-Ration, my dog's faster than yours! I
have spoken. Don’t like it? Tough.
No comments:
Post a Comment