I thought this was going to be about Clayton Bigsby.
Posted on 02/22/2007 1:04:36 PM PST by Tirian
Time to Stop Looking Past Black KKK: Denial Only Empowers Negative Forces in Community -------------------------------------------
Could you imagine the level of denial had my column not been written?
We would still be running around pretending that NBA All-Star Weekend was some sort of glorious black holiday, and anyone who dared mention the nasty elements of what transpired in Vegas would be shouted down as a racist.
Denial is a problem's No. 1 enabler.
We have a problem in the black community, and it didn't make its debut at All-Star Weekend Vegas. What was impossible to ignore in Vegas was on display in Houston, Atlanta and previous All-Star locations.
With the exception of Louis Farrakhan's 1995 Million Man March, it's been on display nearly every time we've gathered in large groups to socialize in the past 15 or so years.
The Black Ku Klux Klan shows up in full force and does its best to ruin our good time. Instead of wearing white robes and white hoods, the new KKK has now taken to wearing white Ts and calling themselves gangsta rappers, gangbangers and posse members.
Just like the White KKK of the 1940s and '50s, we fear them, keep our eyes lowered, shut our mouths and pray they don't bother us.
Our fear makes them stronger. Our silence empowers them. Our lack of courage lets them define who we are. Our excuse-making for their behavior increases their influence and enables them to recruit more freely.
We sing their racist songs, gleefully call ourselves the N-word, hype their celebrity and get upset when white people whisper concerns about our sanity.
And whenever someone publicly states that the Black KKK is terrorizing black people, black neighborhoods, black social events and glorifying a negative, self-destructive lifestyle, we deny and blame the Man.
I don't want to do it anymore.
This must be the way Rosa Parks felt on that bus. She was just tired of eating white racist (spit). I'm tired of eating black racist (spit).
I'd like to kick it with my friends without worrying about the Black KKK opening fire in the parking lot. I'm tired of reading the about the drive-bys (modern-day lynchings). It gets old waking up and hearing about the Darrent Williamses, the Tupac Shakurs getting cut down in a hail of gunfire.
I'm tired of the lack of respect, the random violence, the celebration of drug dealers and the insinuation that education is anti-black.
Wednesday I received a troubling e-mail from a fan, someone who writes me frequently. She was upset by my All-Star Weekend column.
"Why are you hating so much these days and why do you sound so bitter," she wrote. "As I always say to you, you are my favorite. I am always looking for your articles, but lately you are just hating. I still love you though!"
The whole All-Star Weekend just put me on edge; it left me in a sour mood. I can't deny what I saw.
When I arrived at the Vegas airport Tuesday afternoon, All-Star Weekend gave me one final kick in the stomach, and I'm not talking about the long lines at the Southwest baggage check-in.
I stood in line for 75 minutes in the Southwest A boarding group. I was fourth in line behind three elderly white people (ages 60 to 75). They beat me in line by three or four minutes. The A, B and C groups were all filled an hour before the flight's scheduled departure.
Twenty feet away from where we all waited in line, a middle-aged black woman (45 to 55), what appeared to be her two sons (22 to 30) and an elderly black man (60s) all sat together and randomly slept, ate and talked.
When it was time to board the flight, the group of four stood, approached the elderly white woman standing in front of me and told her, "We're second in line. That's my bag on the floor."
The elderly white people were obviously intimidated. I wasn't and told the group they were crazy, and they needed to head to the back of the A boarding group and get in line behind all the people who stood for an hour.
Of course, they disagreed. I walked over and told the Southwest boarding agent to fix the problem. He witnessed the whole thing and came over and told the group they needed to move to the back of the A group. Words were exchanged between the agent and the group.
Eventually, and I'm not making this up, one of the young men told the agent that this was racism and they were being to asked to move because they were black. The other young man said that people like me were the reason black people couldn't get ahead.
The rest of the story is boring. I bring the story up to illustrate the mindset that has infected some of us in the black community.
Rosa Parks is a hero because she got tired of white people feeling a sense of entitlement to a seat on a bus wherever they wanted it. They didn't have to respect us. It didn't matter if we were there first and were just as tired. They took what they wanted from us and dared us to do anything about it.
Forty years after Parks' bravery, why would any of us think to heap this kind of disrespect on anyone else?
Why would we fight the white KKK and forty years later embrace the black KKK?
Man is he going to be receiving some hate mail.
I read the original column about the thuggery of the All-Star event and thought the same! Maybe, just maybe, the tide is turning. The Jason Whitlocks and Bill Cosbys of the world are taking back their community.....and ours!
Good article.
Once as a lark, there was a KKK rally north of Frederick MD and I went to see what it looked like. There were probably more gawkers like myself than actual Klan members, admittedly, but I didn't feel the slightest bit in danger, even though I'm Catholic and was there with a Latina friend.
On the other hand, for several years (ending in 1998, I believe) my city played host to "Da Greek" which was a gathering of Black Fraternities (read: young black people with nothing to do). THAT was scary! Fighting in the streets, store windows broken, people jumping up and down on cars, shootings, stabbings, public urination.
Long story, but in 97 or 98, I was caught in a car after dark in Center City and after not moving a block in an hour and a half, pulled the car up onto the sidewalk and abandoned it until it could be picked up the next morning.
I can only imagine what Vegas must have been like.
Owl_EagleIf what I just wrote made you sad or angry,
it was probably just a joke.
Wow. Great column.
The old joke is "90% of the lawyers are giving the rest a bad name"
This guy is basically saying the same thing about other members of his skin pigmentation group.
I have to say, there are a lot of blacks who are giving the good ones a bad name and it is really too bad.
I thought this was going to be about Clayton Bigsby.
Amen.. Great article..
I wish it would be reprinted in every newspaper in the country..
Owl, I'm another Philly poster (read your bio) and I agree..the "Greek" has been much better since the City finally cracked down on the violent aspects of it. I used to make sure that I was out of town on that weekend. It was the same with the white kids at our impromptu "Mardi Gras" riots that sprung up a few years ago...didn't hear any news about that yesterday.
I work at Phillies games, and we have a group that hangs out in the lot after weekend games, tailgating and the like. One of my black friends, after a few beers, was talking to me and said "You white guys know how to throw a party without guns!"
He doesn't care. I heard Jason Whitlock on the radio this morning and he was like a breath of fresh air. Having the all-star game within driving distance of LA was a bad idea to begin with.
I'm speechless.
The winds of change are blowing. Who knows what it will stir up and where we'll be when it settles. But blowing powerfully, they are.
Bill Cosby 2
Ping. Good column on the Vegas riots after the all-star game. Hope he keeps hammering away as do you.
I used to make sure that I was out of town on that weekend.
Amen to that! Unfortunately, we started doing that after the disastrous one in 98 (I think I've got that time line right?)
It's funny, I was walking to work by 5th and South Tuesday and thinking about that Mardi Gras 4 or 5 years ago, when we had the really warm day and someone ended up ramming his car through a crowd. It seems like the Philly PD is really good at reacting AFTER a disaster, but terrible at being pro-active. I think the Mardi Gras fiasco happened on John Street's watch, but the reacting after seems to be a key strategy in the D playbook. (See Snow Removal, I 78/80/81, Rendell, Ed, 2007)
Freepmail me with your neighborhood if you like. I think there's only a couple of inside the lines of the city FReepers at the moment.
Owl_EagleIf what I just wrote made you sad or angry,
it was probably just a joke.
It was excellent too.
Talk about a non event that has become.
Because black opportunists use our white guilt and PC attitudes against us. It's all right there in the article with the one kid crying racism at the drop of a hat. I recently was flipping throught the channels and came across BET's top 25 events that misshaped black America. Some of the things were OUTRAGEOUS like Elvis, the Supreme Court, etc. Number one was slavery. I don't remember owning any slaves, so I'm not apologizing.
This would make a good episode of CSI.
Bravo!
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