July 16, 2020
(Thursday)
7:30 Eastern — 6:30 Central
The Sad Saga of DeSean Jackson: Why It Is Important That Black Men Understand Who The Real Powerbrokers Are in Professional Sports and Society In General
Anyone possessing decent observation skills can attest to the volatile nature of Race and politics. It is a minefield that only a fool would rush into. In fact, one of the most reliable signs of an absence of wisdom is reckless entry into discussions of Race and politics.
In his poem An Essay on Criticism (1711), Alexander Pope wrote the following. “Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.” The above quote is a cautionary warning for people to avoid some arenas at all costs. Only the unwise among us will foolishly rush into such environs.
From all indications, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson is that type of fool.
Just in case you missed it, DeSean Jackson decided to delve into matters far above his intellectual capacity via a Instagram post. The referenced post was a Adolph Hitler quote that Jackson alleged stated that white Jews “will blackmail America. [They] will extort America, their plan for world domination won’t work if the Negroes know who they were.” In a move that signals his desperation to make matters even worse for himself, Jackson doubled-down on his anti-Semitism by expressing admiration for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. It would be a gross understatement to state that powerful groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center have identified Farrakhan as a controversial figure. Most groups consider him to be America’s foremost anti-Semite.
Now, I do not want you to think that I am seeking to curtail Jackson’s 1st Amendment rights, that is not my intention, however, I still wonder what the NFL wide receiver was thinking. A better question is why didn’t he consider the inevitable fallout from his controversial post. To truly understand why Jackson’s post was so unwise, one must understand that the Philadelphia Eagles, the team that employs Jackson, are owned by Jeffrey Lurie, a person of Jewish descent, and headed by general manager Howie Roseman, another person of Jewish descent. Were it not for the obvious opportunity that DeSean Jackson provided to Jewish America to usher anti-Semitism into the robust discussion that groups such as Black Lives Matter have ignited, he would have already been released from his contract and rendered a pariah to other teams. He would be similar to Colin Kaepernick.
I pity DeSean Jackson for his inability to understand that there is a gap between what black folk talk about privately and what they express publicly before “mixed company.” Anyone who has spent time in the private spaces that Blacks are able to speak candidly, will tell you that many of the things vocalized in barbershops, civic organizations, and even street corners are expressions of unbridled hatred; an essential ingredient in our desperate attempt to maintain some semblance of sanity while being victimized by racial bigotry and institutional racism. It is not a stretch to consider such venting sessions one of Black America’s grandest traditions. Trust me when I say that there is no topic nor population above being discussed during such sessions; truthfully, not even black males are immune to harsh criticism. Yes, it is common for Black men to harshly criticize and denounce the foolishness of other Black men behind closed doors. However, there is an unspoken rule all who are allowed to enter this safe space are expected to adhere to, that rule is what is discussed in these sacred spaces remains private. Apparently, no one told DeSean Jackson about this mandate.
To DeSean Jackson’s chagrin, a series of African-American sports commentators have publicly denounced his Instagram post as if they are appalled by its message. Rest assured that these same figures have either expressed or failed to contradict much of the anti-social phrase-mongering that organically occurs in these “safe spaces” for black men. The reason for their hypocrisy is their understanding that the espousal of anti-Semitism promises dire consequences for the fool who dares to articulate it in front of “mixed company.”
DeSean Jackson’s rapid backpedaling is an obvious sign that he has swiftly learned that there is not a single member of Black America, regardless of their fortune, renown, or so-called influence that can help him escape his current predicament. Yes, even the most powerful and mighty black people — Oprah Winfrey, Maxine Waters, Nick Cannon, Bob Johnson, Jay-Z, etc. — realizes that DeSean Jackson has foolishly rushed into turbulent waters that will consume all that enter them. I am sure that if the embattled wide receiver were to receive much-needed counsel from any of the above figures that their advice would amount to little more than a private statement of “Brother, you are on your own.”
As a black man, I consider it disgraceful to see DeSean Jackson issuing statements promising to “do better” as if he is a five-year-old being scolded by his parents. Apparently, Jackson now understands the cavernous gap between black folk venting about Jews and a host of other groups in private and how little power Black America possesses. Consider Jackson’s apology for a moment.
I want to apologize to the Jewish community, Jeffrey Lurie, Howie Roseman, Doug Pederson, the Eagles organization and our fans for the insensitive and ill-informed posts that I shared on my social media. My intention was to uplift, unite and encourage our culture with positivity and light. Unfortunately, that did not happen. I unintentionally hurt the Jewish community in the process and for that I am sorry! Now more than ever we must work together to end discrimination of all types and against all people and communities.
This apology is more than just words — it is a promise to do better. I will fully educate myself and work with local and national organizations to be more informed and make a difference in our community. I will consider my words and actions going forward. I will seek out voices from other communities and listen to their words, thoughts and beliefs. In a time of division, I am committed to doing my part in making this world a better place for our children.
DeSean Jackson is only at the beginning of an important lesson regarding where the actual seats of power rest in this nation. It is a lesson that notable blacks learn on the road to success.
If reduced to its simplest form, the lesson is as follows. There are some issues and populations that Blacks are never to address negatively in the public arena. This inflexible rule is a consequence of Black America’s uncanny penchant for political disorganization, in-fighting, and self-hatred. Unfortunately, DeSean Jackson is only the most recent example of what occurs to those hailing from socioeconomically disassembled communities devoid of capable political leaders.
In light of DeSean Jackson’s predicament I am offering him a suitable definition of power.
Power: The capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.
I am sure that if team owner Jeffrey Lurie and general manager Howie Roseman choose to allow Jackson to continue his NFL career, DeSean Jackson will have learned two important lessons: (a) that there is not a single African-American possessing enough power and clout to save you from such a grievous issue and (b) the trouble that he now finds himself in is the reason that what is articulated in the safe spaces where black men assemble should never be shared with the outside world. These are hard lessons, yet one that may very well save his, your, and my professional career.
Dr. James Thomas Jones III
© Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2020.
$4,000,000 Wenches: Why Kelly Loeffler’s Attempt to Silence WNBA Players Has Been Largely Ignored by Americans
One of the best writers parked at the bustling intersection of Race and sports is William Rhoden. To be honest with you, Rhoden has built an impressive career offering insightful commentary at this increasingly busy thoroughfare his entire career. Although it seems to be decades ago when Rhoden delivered the classic book Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete to a nation that has been embattled by racial problems since the initial Africans arrived in the Jamestown colony.
The shocking title of Rhoden’s book, Forty Million Dollar Slaves, was a recalling of a public insult that a white fan shouted in the public arena at a black player in Madison Square Garden during a New York Knicks game. The insinuation that black athletes are nothing more than commodities whose lone use is to entertain whites was neither new nor subtle.
Unfortunately for black women, one of the primary consequences of Black Liberation being conceptualized and frequently articulated as gender specific is that the population that Malcolm X cited as “the most disrespected person on the planet,” has been an after-thought in robust discussions of Black liberation. Make no mistake about it, Black liberation has historically been very BLACK and very MALE. Most “race men” behave as if it were a given that if black men were saved, black women would also be saved; there is little in the recent historical record that supports such assertions. Make no mistake about it, black women have been the mules of every liberation struggle as they have had to simultaneously fight on multiple identity politic battlefields that involved some combination of race, class, gender, and sexuality.
Put simply; it is difficult being a black woman in America. They are expected to aid others in their liberation fights while remaining silent when their opportunistic allies simultaneously enjoy the fruits of the labor of black women while passively viewing their never-ending struggles.
This understanding that black women alone are solely responsible for improving their plight sits at the center of others silence when Kelly Loeffler, a Senator (R) from Georgia and co-owner of the WNBA franchise the Atlanta Dream, delivered a relatively rudimentary attack. According to Loeffler, WNBA players, the black one’s in particular, need to mute themselves regarding this nation’s pressing racial matters. According to Loeffler,
The truth is, we need less — not more politics in sports. In a time when polarizing politics is as divisive as ever, sports has the power to be a unifying antidote. And now more than ever, we should be united in our goal to remove politics from sports.
It is no stretch to say analogize that if the black NBA players that William Rhoden wrote about are “40 million dollar slaves” then Loeffler considers WNBA players “4 million dollar wenches” that need to be taught to shut-up and dribble.
Were it not so sad, Kelly Loeffler’s political tone-deafness would be somewhat hilarious. At this unprecedented moment of social activism and racial progressivism, she wants American Flags stitched on the warm-up suits of WNBA players instead of Black Lives Matter or “Say Her Name”, a reverberating tribute to Prairie View A & M University’s Sandra Bland.
Unfortunately for Loeffler, today’s athletes are too savvy to remain voiceless on substantive political issues. Current activism flowing from the sports world harkens back to the 1960s when athletes such as Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, and Bill Russell took on pressing racial matters. If the co-owner of the Atlanta Dream were not blinded by a desperate attempt to earn political currency via her resistance to progressive movements, she would realize that a veritable dream team of WNBA stars such as Sue Bird, Natasha Cloud, Skylar Diggins-Smith, and Alysha Clark oppose her.
It is ironic that Loeffler, a political figure steeped in a special election to replace Johnny Isakson in the U.S. Senate has chosen to use her prominent position in the WNBA to rally potential supporters by opposing racial progressivism and politics in the sports world. Her hypocrisy is startling, yet predictable. Only time will tell if this well-timed gamble to trade in her partial ownership of the Atlanta Dream for a U.S. Senate seat will payoff for Loeffler.
The world watches while WNBA players are seeking to remove Loeffler from their environs. The fact that players are now wielding so much power leads one to muse “My how things have changed.” However, if Loeffler is able to stave off calls for her to sell her stake in the Atlanta Dream and win her bid to become a U.S. Senator, one will be forced to question if things have changed at all?
Dr. James Thomas Jones III
© Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2020.
Why The Destruction of Frederick Douglass’ Statue in Rochester, NY is a Meaningful Sign for Freedom Loving Americans
It never fails that at least one of my student’s response to Frederick Douglass’ infamous speech What to the Slave is the Fourth of July with a question of “How in the world did Douglass escape the building after those harsh words?”
The referenced speech delivered on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, at Corinthian Hall during an address to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society is the Abolitionist leader’s most remembered moment for a host of reasons. Just consider for a moment that the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society invited Douglass, an enslaved person, we must never forget that the nation’s leading Abolitionist was never freed by a vengeful owner who informed all callers that they didn’t have the kind of money needed to free Douglass, to offer comments regarding the Founding Fathers decision to no longer be “slaves to Britain.” What follows is an excerpt from Douglass’s message.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.
There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival . . .
I do not know of a single living Black leader who would stand in front of an audience full of whites and deliver such a daunting speech. There is no room to debate against the assertion that Black America certainly needs more American leaders like Frederick Douglass.
It is the respect that Douglass is due that makes recent reports that a statue honoring him in Rochester, New York, was ripped from its location at Maplewood Park; a former station on the Underground Railroad. The damaged statue was found approximately 50 feet away at the edge of the Genesee River.
As a writer and historian, my soul cringes when I learn that a morsel of Black America’s contributions to this nation has been erased by racial bigots or institutionalized racism. Nonetheless, the damaging of Douglass’ statue speaks volumes regarding the unknown perpetrators’ historical illiteracy and worldview. Make no mistake about it, historical illiteracy is the gateway for foolish thoughts resting on a vast sea of nothingness.
As you well know, the present moment is contextualized by raging culture wars that have led many whites to feel that their cultural heritage and ancestry are being assailed in some manner. Making this inexplicable situation more volatile are the daily dispatches from “45” that stoke the flames of racial animosity. It is the illogical nature of many of our countrymen that best explains the attack on Douglass’ statue in of all places Rochester, New York, a city that used to be as distant from the Confederacy as one could imagine.
However, the rising of racial bigotry in what used to be a haven for freedom loving Americans is a notable marker regarding the anger, frustration, disappointment, and fear rumbling in the hearts of a significant segment of White America.
Contemporary opponents of societal progress remind me of predecessors who also resisted the rising tide of change during the identity politic driven 1960s. While women pursued equal footing in American society, an old-guard conservative element pushed back. When Black citizens pursued the exercise of the theoretical equality found in the 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights Acts, many whites longed for a time when “Negras” knew their place. When the LGBTQ community rose in an unprecedented manner, the alluded to populace fought against their desperate pleas for recognition. When Brown activists rallied under a banner of “Chicano power” frightened whites behaved as if it were the end of American civilization.
The descendants of such backwards thinking people can still be found at political events issuing tone-deaf pleas to Make America Great Again. Such is the lament of a sad group who fear that the inclusion of others jeopardizes their privileged status and politico-economic monopolies. Unfortunately for this aging aggrieved populace, the political whirlwind is encouraging an irrestible Black Panther like “All Power to the People” moment; it would not be a stretch to consider this shift in the same vein as a rising tide constructed by Mother Nature. Try as they might, those opposing change will lose, it is impossible to retard, let alone reverse, this rising tide of change.
In many ways, it is ironic that the damaging of a statue constructed to honor Frederick Douglass validates the very thoughts that he spoke nearly two centuries ago. If he were alive, I am sure that Douglass would direct his commentary at a particular segment of White America and tell them that when it comes to “revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, y’all reign without a rival.” Fortunately for the soul of this nation, in the words of Sam Cooke, a change is gonna come and it is occurring much sooner than many of us ever expected.
Dr. James Thomas Jones III
© Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2020.
PLEASE JOIN US IN WELCOMING ADRIENNE CAIN’S PRESENTATION OVER WHY BLACK WOMEN ARE THE MOST DISRESPECTED PERSON ON THE PLANET: A DISCUSSION OF THE DANGERS OF BEING BLACK AND FEMALE IN TODAY’S WORLD
July 16, 2020
(Thursday)
7:30 Eastern — 6:30 Central
Click to gain access to presentation
