Time to Get Real and Start Talking

It’s almost football season.  Are you ready?  I certainly am.  I’ve been reading all the scouting reports while trying to figure out where my two favorite teams (Jags and Bills) are going to end up this year.  For what its worth, put your money on the Bills!

In going through all the random articles, I found one from Fox Sports writer Jason Whitlock.  It was written in response to the recent shooting of Jaguars’ player, Richard Collier.  His story was titled “NFL’s Cycle of Violence Keeps Spinning“ and in writing it, he got down to the root of the problem, which isn’t sports, but the culture of violence our black professional athletes grow up in. 

This is an issue which doesn’t get a lot of attention from white politicians.  They are more interested in proving how tough on crime they can be by showing all the scared white voters that they aren’t afraid to hire more police, build more jails, and lock up anyone that scares them.

Here is Jason’s article:

OK, we’ve reached the point where we no longer care. It’s not even really all that newsworthy.

At approximately 3 a.m. Tuesday, Richard Collier, a third-year tackle for the Jacksonville Jaguars, was shot multiple times while seated in the passenger seat of his Cadillac Escalade.

As of this writing, he’s still fighting for his life inside a Florida hospital.

With so much else going on in the sports world — including the kickoff of the NFL regular season tonight when the Redskins face the Giants — my well-meaning boss wondered why I wanted to write about Collier, a little-known lineman playing in a city that doesn’t matter.

I guess I just haven’t reached that point yet, the place where a senseless, violent attack on a 20-something, professional athlete doesn’t cause me to become outraged and want to vent.

There’s just something about murder — even attempted murder — that sickens me.

Being a sportswriter and former mediocre athlete, the line I’ve drawn in the sand as it relates to America’s culture of random violence is where it touches athletes.

If I wrote about education, I’d rail against the plague of school shootings. If I wrote for Rolling Stone, I’d pen columns ridiculing the “rap wars.” If I covered the police beat in a major city, I’d constantly examine the violence within the drug trade. And if I was a war correspondent, I would most likely go insane.

Instead, I’m a sports columnist trying to do everything in my power to make sure all of us feel miserable and angry every time a black athlete has his life or reputation damaged by violence.

I’m sorry if that sort of realness offends you. Yes, we’re talking about black professional athletes. They are the ones caught in this deadly cycle. When you heard the news that a professional athlete was shot after leaving a nightclub at some obscene hour, you didn’t have to waste time wondering if he was black, white, Mexican or Asian. You knew he was black, and it was safe to assume he played football or basketball.

What’s most troubling is the fact that we’re growing to accept this reality. It’s not man-bites-dog news anymore. It’s rap posse-shoots-rap posse news. It’s Biggie and Tupac all over again. We expect some of our best and brightest athletes to get entangled in deadly violence.

From Darrent Williams to Sean Taylor to Jayson Williams to Jamaal Tinsley to Pacman Jones to Rae Carruth to athletes I can’t remember at the moment, it has become almost common place for black professional athletes to become victims, and in some cases perpetrators, of grossly violent crimes.

Nearly every athlete I know — regardless of color — has a stage in his career when he celebrates his youth and wealth by “kicking it” at nightclubs until the wee hours on a regular basis.

Why do hockey and baseball players make it home without getting shot?

I’m not blaming the victims. I’m asking the question that must be asked.

When we (black men) are young, too much of our cultural identity is caught up in how much danger we survive. It’s the curse of all youth. It’s why some kids do amazing flips on a bike or a skateboard. It’s why some people skydive, climb mountains or join the military. It’s why some married people cheat on their spouses. It’s the lure of a rollercoaster.

We, all of us, court danger in our own special way.

Unfortunately, we (black men) have glamorized surviving gang violence, incarceration and America’s immoral drug war. For us, a portion of the thrill of going to a nightclub is proving we’re tough enough and stereotypically black enough to pop bottles with the boys from our ‘hood who veered into and stayed in the wrong lane.

Plus, when we (black people) socialize we don’t segregate along economic or class lines. It’s nearly impossible. Too many of us are the first members of our families to graduate from college or attain a high-profile job. So the athletes are caught in unavoidable class tension. Imagine truck drivers and golfers partying and competing for women at the same nightclub weekend after weekend. Oh, there would be some bottles broken, the occasional stabbing and a shotgun shooting or two.

Whatever the cause, the violence is maddening and damaging. No one wants to talk about this on the record, but there is an inescapable truth hurting black athletes, particularly NFL players.

They are seen as high risk in comparison to white players for a couple of reasons: 1. Black players are likely to have grown up in a single-parent household without a male authority figure; 2. On average, they’ve demonstrated an inability to avoid trouble.

It’s not a coincidence that in a league that is approximately 70 percent black, the top three players in the 2008 draft were white — Jake Long, Chris Long and Matt Ryan. Keep in mind, Darren McFadden and Glenn Dorsey were widely considered the two “most talented” players in the draft.

Signing bonuses for players taken at the very top of the NFL draft have skyrocketed. When an NFL owner forks over $30 million in cash, he wants to feel confident the player won’t be shot or in some other way damage his career while trying to figure out how to keep a foot in two worlds that are constantly feuding.

I wish I had an easy solution. I don’t. The solution is complex and involves all of us examining and rejecting the forces that make America disgustingly violent.

Aside from the obligatory slam on Jacksonville, I really thought the piece was right on the mark.  It will take frank discussions that include prominent leaders of the black community to solve these issues.  It should not be seen as a badge of courage, or a right of passage to spend time in jail.

Both white and black leaders need to work together to solve these problems.  Our communities need to work more on diversion programs for young black males, to teach them a better way.  We need to stop spending so much money on jails, and start spending that money on social programs that reach this population before the cycle starts.

Our government needs to stop the rhetoric about being tough on crime, and work to eliminate the reasons for it.  Desperation causes crime.  No money, no job, no prospects, no health care, no chance…  NO CHOICE! 

We need to provide choices to all citizens, not just those lucky enough to be born into the privilege of choice.