Whites Cheer Black Male Athletes and Loathe Them At the Same Time

by Gus T. Renegade

In 2016, USA Today asked Baltimore Orioles’ center fielder Adam Jones why no Black baseball players mimicked football player Colin Kaepernick’s protest of the national anthem. 

Jones declared that Black players “already have two strikes against us.” Compared to basketball and football, Black Major League Baseball players constitute a miniscule number. “They don’t need us,” the Baltimore outfielder said. “Baseball is a white man’s sport.”

One year later and 70 years after World War II veteran Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, Boston, Mass., spectators confirmed Jones’ assessment and wasted a bag of peanuts in the process.

During a May 1 contest between the Orioles and the Red Sox, Jones reported being “called the n-word a handful of times” and having a bag of nuts thrown at him.

An assortment of athletes, including Jason Heyward of the Chicago Cubs and Golden State Warriors teammates Draymond Green and Stephen Curry, immediately disclosed that they’ve endured similar abuse from racist sports fans. 

The fact that the Cubs and Warriors have each hoisted recent championships in their respective leagues suggests the pinnacle of athletic achievement fails to shield Black athletes from anti-Black racism. 

During the 1950s and ’60s, Bill Russell secured 11 titles for the Boston Celtics while describing the town as “a flea market of racism.” Chris Yuscavage writes that the hoops legend was conflicted about “how he was supposed to feel when he was routinely cheered by some of those same” white New Englanders who expressed unadulterated contempt for Black life before and after Celtics victories.

It’s likely that Jones’s verbal assailants badgered him while simultaneously reveling in the current playoff run of the overwhelmingly Black Celtics team.  

University of Texas professor John Hoberman authored “Darwin’s Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race” in part to explore the contradiction of racist sports fans patronage of Black-dominated athletics. 

Hoberman reminds readers that historically, white culture declared white women and men intellectually and athletically supreme. Hoberman explains how the “emotional stake” in maintaining the lie of white superiority demanded that generations of Jackie Robinsons be barred from competing with white students or athletes.

What began with “Black firsts” like boxing champion Jack Johnson and tennis prodigy Althea Gibson, has, according to Hoberman, swelled to the point that, “A lot of whites, if they’re sports fans, they are going to have to consume a lot of sports entertainment that is going to feature people who do not look like them, who do not have white skins.”

The billion-dollar global sports conglomerate verifies the insatiable appetite and market for Black athletes. Hoberman submits that stale racial stereotypes helped a number of whites digest the never ending serving of Black athletic triumph. 

Hoberman writes, “The myth of Black hardiness and supernormal vitality has been the crucible of our thinking about” Black bodies and often a leading justification for their enslavement.

The antebellum delusions about Black endurance and pain tolerance that made people with melanin ideal candidates to be shackled conveniently explained the athletic brilliance of Black people. Laboring in white-owned fields with a ball or bail of cotton is our genetically predetermined destiny and limited range of expertise.

However, for multitudes of white sport fans, thinking of Black male athletes as mutli-million-dollar slaves has made it no easier to stomach a sports world where Black ballers reign.

In “The History of White People Hating LeBron James,” Chris Osterndorf writes that whites “are able to appreciate [Black athletes], to rely on them, but we’re not necessarily able to separate that from the belief that they work for us.”

Black athletes aren’t role models or human beings, they’re white folks’ servants. Osterndorf says this mentality explains how racists hail the accomplishments of Black players on their favorite sporting teams, “all while calling him a ‘n—-r’ in the same conversation.”

During a NPR 2014 interview, U.S. Congressman James Clyburn used his daughter’s college homecoming football game to explain how devotion to the system of white supremacy is compartmentalized during heated sporting events. 

Representative Clyburn’s daughter, Mignon Clyburn, observed a white motorist with a bumper sticker promoting University of South Carolina football player George Rogers’ Heisman trophy campaign. She doubted the driver would sport a bumper sticker endorsing her father for Congress. 

Ms. Clyburn recalled that during the ballgame, the white fans who jeered and heckled the Black homecoming queen loudest were the most vocal in praising every yard gained by Rogers. She synthesized those events into a succinct conclusion: “It’s all right for us to entertain, but they don’t want us to represent them.”

Many Black people, including athletes like Hall of Fame football player Kellen Winslow, erroneously assumed white consumption of Black sports figures signified the wane of racism and the power of interracial athletics to lessen racial hostilities. Winslow has since publicly acknowledged his error.

When he was a physically gifted star on the gridiron, he was “treated and viewed differently than most African-American men in this country.” His Black life mattered. Racism was not a problem. 

“Then, reality came calling,” writes Winslow in the forward for the 1996 book In Black and White: Race and Sports in America by Kenneth L. Shropshire “After a nine-year career in the National Football League filled with honors and praises, I stepped into the real world and realized, in the words of Muhammad Ali, that I was ‘just another n—-r.’”

Blacks and Shame-Based Living

by Kenny Anderson

Two years ago this month (June 16, 2015) 9 Blacks were massacred in a church in Charleston, South Carolina by a racist white terrorist Dylan Roof.

As Black folks we must constantly remember this date like we must constantly remember the date September 15, 1963 when 4 Black girls were murdered in a church in Birmingham, Alabama by a white supremacist bombing attack.

Recently, a Black man Kiese Laymon wrote an article based on a conversation he had with his grandmother reflecting back on the Charleston murders.

Laymon said his grandmother who had never talked about the racism she experienced growing-up in the South mentioned about all the work we did to forgive white supremacy, hoping then to be chosen by them and by God. That Black churches have taught us to 'forgive' white people but we learned to 'shame' ourselves. In Laymon's article conversation with his grandmother he stated:

“We will lament the numbers of folks killed in mass murders in the United States. There’s a number for that. We will talk about the numbers of people killed in black-on-black murder. There’s a number for that. We will never talk about the number of unemployed and underemployed hard-working black folks living in poverty. We will never talk about the numbers of black folk in prison for the kinds of nonviolent drug-related offenses my white students commit every weekend. We will never talk about the number of human beings killed by young American military men and women draped in camouflage, or the number of human beings murdered by drones across the world. We will never talk about the specific amount of money this country really owes Grandma and her friends for their decades of unpaid labor. We will never talk about the moral and monetary debt accrued by the architects of this Empire. There are shameful numbers for all of that, too.”

Indeed, from my perspective I fully agree with Brother Laymon that we as Black folks for the most part don’t want to see, hear, or talk about the atrocities of the slavery ‘Black Holocaust’ and the continued racist oppression we face.

Yes, we feel ashamed when Black enslavement is discussed, in a distorted self-blaming sense we don't want to talk about slavery as though we enslaved ourselves; that we are our own worst enemy, we just want to forget what we've done to ourselves - don't bring it up!

Not only were we told to 'forgive' whites for our enslavement without 'reparations', we want to 'forget' about slavery too. Too many Blacks view our enslavement suffering in America as an embarrassment 'ashamed of it', yet Jews 'honor their suffering' under Hitler's Nazism vowing 'never again' - they are 'empowered' by its remembrance. Unfortunately too many of us feel 'powerless' about our enslaved memory to the point that most of us don't even observe Black History Month.

When the movie 12 Years of a Slave was out in theaters I asked many Black folks that I know had they saw the movie, some said they didn’t want to see it because it would make them angry, but most who said they didn’t want to see it did not give a reason, for me the unspoken reason was shame!

Long before Brother Laymon’s talk with his Grandmother and long before the movie 12 Years of a Slave, I grew up in the 1960’s (Detroit, MI) around adult Black southern migrants - parents, relatives, and their friends who never discussed their experiences growing up in the racist ‘Jim Crow’ south. I learned about their lives in the South through the Civil Rights struggle exposed on television news coverage.

Like my parents generation who covered-up their Black experiences, most folks of my generation that I know admit they haven't talked to their children and grandchildren about their Black experiences; have not really discussed racism, thus 'shame non-communication' socialization continues which often leaves our children 'racially ambivalent'.

Often today when I visit family, relatives, and friends and bring up any discussion of racist Black oppression, folks get immediately uncomfortable and defensive, some will even say I don’t want to talk about ‘that Black stuff’, some are even harsher saying I don’t want to hear that ‘Black shit’.

I told them that you won’t hear white people say I don’t want to hear that 'white stuff' when it comes to their issues; you won’t hear Middle Easterners say I don’t want to hear that ‘Arab shit’.

This attitude of 'not trying to hear no Black stuff' is shameful; shame in the sense of not addressing the varied problematic socioeconomic issues that we face due to racism; shame of not being responsible to ourselves; shame of not doing what we should be doing.

Unconsciously, Black folks are ashamed ‘covering up' - avoiding discussing their experiences with racism in the past and present; the roots of the word shame derives from a word that means ‘to cover’.

Black shame is similar to wanting to hide our faces behind our hands, wearing a mask desperately trying to 'escape' from dealing with racism or 'pretending' that everything is okay. The more powerful our experiences of shame are, the more we need to hide those aspects from others and even from ourselves.

A part of who we are as a Black person or how I feel must now be disowned, silenced, or hidden at all cost, and I essentially become estranged from a part of myself.

At the heart of Black shame is a feeling that we are exposed either to others or to ourselves. No other feeling is more disturbing or destructive to the self. Black shame is stressful, it's 'inner-enslaving' and toxic!

Black Shame

Black enslavement in America was dehumanizing leaving a legacy of an internal sense of inferiority, inadequacy, and unworthiness. This shameful legacy has led us to feel as though our whole self is flawed, bad, and subject to exclusion.

Malcolm X once said the greatest crime of slavery was the white man taught Negroes to hate themselves; this self-hatred caused the ‘toxic shame syndrome’, he expounded on this hate induced shame:

"In hating Africa and in hating the Africans, we ended up hating ourselves, without even realizing it. Because you can't hate the roots of a tree, and not hate the tree. You can't hate your origin and not end up hating yourself. You can't hate Africa and not hate yourself. You show me one of these people over here who has been thoroughly brainwashed and has a negative attitude toward Africa, and I'll show you one who has a negative attitude toward himself. You can't have a positive attitude toward yourself and a negative attitude toward Africa at the same time. To the same degree that your understanding of and attitude toward yourself become positive, you'll find that your understanding of and your attitude toward yourself will also become positive. And this is what the white man knows. So they very skillfully make you and me hate our African identity, our African characteristics. You know yourself that we have been a people who hated our African characteristics. We hated our heads, we hated the shape of our nose, we wanted one of those long doglike noses, you know; we hated the color of our skin, hated the blood of Africa that was in our veins. And in hating our features and our skin and our blood, why, we had to end up hating ourselves. And we hated ourselves. Our color became to us a chain - we felt that it was holding us back; our color became to us like a prison which we felt was keeping us confined, not letting us go this way or that way. We felt all of these restrictions were based solely upon our color, and the psychological reaction to that would have to be that as long as we felt imprisoned or chained or trapped by Black skin, Black features, and Black blood, that skin and those features and that blood holding us back automatically had to become hateful to us. And it became hateful to us. It made us feel inferior; it made us feel inadequate made us feel helpless.”

You won’t find 'disorders of shame' as a category in the DSM-5 (the official American manual for mental health diagnoses), and yet shame is probably the biggest single driving cause of most Black psychological problems - an ongoing source influence of 'internalize oppression'.

Excessive feelings of shame are at the heart of much Black psychopathology. It is concealed behind guilt; it fosters low self-esteem; it lurks behind anger; it fuels Black-on-Black violence; it can be disguised as despair and depression; its demoralizing and breeds apathy; it influences addictions and suicides.

As Black people we rarely talk about shame experiences; shame is a difficult emotion to detect, especially as it comes in so many disguises.

Many Black people with shame develop an obsession with becoming someone other than who they are - 'wanting to be white' in some form or fashion. Their entire life becomes a flight from self and a desire to merge with the ideal white image standard by altering themselves. They want to be free from Blackness and embarrassing traits, but can only hope to achieve this by cutting off a part of who they are.

Unfortunately, the distancing solution they are seeking - the problem they are trying to escape are two sides of the same coin. The more they pursue to become other than their Black self, the more they increase their judgment on who they really are. Shame and the pursuit of overcoming shame are thus often one and the same.

The problem is of course that we cannot run away from our past, nor can we heal the wounds of shame by simply trying to run away from our self. Shame will always follow us as our shadow unless we attend to it and address its root cause.

Moreover, Black shame may lead a Black person to make negative attributions about other Blacks that are disguised attempts to restore a positive self-view or hide negative self-perceptions in order to escape shame's self-diminishing effects. Thus a Black person attempts to bolster their own view of themselves by finding flaws in others so that they become the ones who are shameful.

This view of flaws in other Blacks also has collective self-sabotaging consequences; it fosters doubt and distrust that undermines racial 'Unity' preventing us from uniting to struggle for 'political self-determination' and 'economic self-reliance'.

We can continue to choose to be injured victims of our Black 'shame wound' or try to defeat it through a courageous battle that includes psycho-healing: improving our sense of self-esteem, increasing our feelings of worthiness and belonging; fostering greater self-acceptance; and reducing unhealthy reactions to shame such as avoidance, defensiveness, and attacking.

Countering Black shame-based living is the process of transforming daily who one is and how one feels about oneself; it doesn’t come from changing who one is, but rather from truly embracing, knowing, becoming, developing, actualizing, and honoring who one is.

Few Black Male Teachers

by Stanley G. Buford

"Of all the teachers in the U.S., only 2 percent are Black and male. That news is bad enough. But it gets worse: Many of these men are leaving the profession. A new study found that the number of Black teachers in the public schools of nine cities dropped between 2002 and 2012. In Washington, D.C., Black teachers' share of the workforce dropped from 77 percent to 49 percent." – Elissa Nardworny

Think back to your K-12 educational experience…Now answer this: How many of your teachers were African American male? If you had to think about it too long you probably had few; if any. That’s because less than 2% of American teachers are Black males according to the U S Department of Education.

It is not unusual to see a group of smartly dressed, articulate African-American male professors walking across the campus of Morehouse College  the only all-male historically Black college in the country - the school attended by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

One would think, “Look how far we have come.” Still, faced with the startling fact that Black males represent six percent of the U.S. population, 45 percent of the prison population, and less than two percent of teachers, one cannot help but think, “How far have we yet to go?”

So many cases abound where young African-American boys want to be rappers, athletes, or entertainers, typically because that is what they are exposed to through television and social media.

Study after study has proven that if more Black male teachers were in our Nation’s classrooms, it would dramatically alter children’s aspirations and quite possibly, address the abhorrent connections to crime and disruptive behavior.

According to recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly 82 percent of public school teachers in school year 2011-2012 were Caucasian.

When African-American men first enter the classroom, there is a high likelihood that they may be only one of two or three black males on the staff, even in some predominantly Black school districts. On a personal note; as a teacher by day and entrepreneur by night, this writer knows all too well the disadvantages of “teaching while Black.”

Number one, the pay, which is not commensurate with most other professions requiring a degree. Two, the disrespect from a small sediment of colleagues and administrators that see Black male teachers as part of the problem because they’re male (believe it or not). 

I can well remember as a new teacher starting out as a day-to-day sub; being told that I could not fulfill a position in a kindergarten classroom because it required principal approval. There seems to be an unwritten code among some well meaning, yet, misguided school personnel that says Black men need not apply!

When a school makes hiring decisions, they largely depend on “fit.” Will this person fit in at our school, and how well? Adding an African-American man to the staff will automatically change a school’s dynamics.

Parents, students, and fellow teachers may watch the Black male employee more closely because of the rarity of the situation. The educator, as well as the school community, must be prepared for this. It takes a certain amount of character to accept and live up to this reality and the expectations that come with diversity.

It is of great importance that African-American students see caring, responsible, and honest Black men in positions of authority, because it helps them to recognize what is possible. Unfortunately, not enough of these positive images are visible to today’s youth.

The need for Black male teachers is the greatest in elementary and middle schools; for the most part grades 3, 4, and 5, as noted by Black psychologist and author; Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu writer of 38 books specific to the Black experience, including: Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys.

A deficiency of Black males in the classroom obviously leads directly to a lack of them in school leadership roles, such as principal and assistant principal. Educators have long said that mentoring is a key to success for many new teachers. In fact, many districts have mandatory orientation/mentoring programs for new teachers.

Part of the teacher mentoring experience, specific to Black males, needs to be revisited across urban America including the pairing of new teachers with an administrator or teacher who will observe, discuss research, and share experiences in an effort to promote the novice’s growth as an education professional.

The expectation is that new educators will have mentors who have their best interests and professional growth at heart. It is a challenge for Black men to find someone in their school willing to level with them and be honest about the great responsibility that comes not only with being an educator, but a black male educator at that.

This writer’s latest literary work is titled: Role Model by Default: Teaching At-Risk Kids in Urban America. It’s the story of a young Black man who decides to become a teacher; in spite of the odds and the horror stories that follow his decision.

While the book is fictional; the reality is that we, as a nation, must become better acquainted with the idea of providing Black males with teachers that look like them.

Every single conversation about education today must begin with the need to increase diversity in the teaching force. A conversation about standards, teacher quality, or graduation rates cannot begin without a vigorous effort and commitment to this cause.

Poor achievement among our neediest students is the result, at least in part, of a lack of strong, positive black educators in our classrooms. The United States needs to move swiftly to engage more African-American men in teaching.

No longer can we simply be “okay” with Black men representing less than two percent of our teacher workforce. It is simply unethical and unacceptable in this day and age. 

4 Troubling Truths About Black Boys and the U.S. Educational System

by Matthew Lynch

Most people like to think that American K-12 schools, workplaces and courthouses are pillars of fairness, but statistic after statistic all point to a crisis among the young, Black men of the nation. This crisis begins in homes, stretches to K-12 educational experiences, and leads straight to the cycle of incarceration in increasingly high numbers.

In America's prison systems, black citizens are incarcerated at six times the rates of white ones - and the NAACP predicts that one in three of this generation of Black men will spend some time locked up.

Decreasing the rates of incarceration for black men may actually be a matter of improving educational outcomes for black boys in America. In his piece "A Broken Windows Approach to Education Reform," Forbes writer James Marshall Crotty makes a direct connection between drop-out and crime rates. He argues that if educators will simply take a highly organized approach to keeping kids in school, it will make a difference in the crime statistics of the future.

While there are many areas of improvement that we could look at changing for more successful outcomes for black men, I will discuss just four indicators that illustrate the current situation for black boys in the U.S., with the hope of starting a conversation about what we can do to produce a stronger generation of Black young men in our society.

1. Black boys are more likely to be placed in special education.
While it is true that Black boys often arrive in Kindergarten classrooms with inherent disadvantages, they continue to experience a "behind the 8-ball" mentality as their school careers progress. Black boys are more likely than any other group to be placed in special education classes, with 80 percent of all special education students being Black or Hispanic males.

Learning disabilities are just a part of the whole picture. Black students (and particularly boys) experience disconnection when it comes to the authority figures in their classrooms. The K-12 teaching profession is dominated by white women, many of whom are very qualified and very interested in helping all their students succeed but lack the first-hand experience needed to connect with their Black male students.

2. Black boys are more likely to attend schools without the adequate resources to educate them.
Schools with majority Black students tend to have lower numbers of teachers who are certified in their degree areas. A U.S. Department of Education report found that in schools with at least 50 percent Black students, only 48 percent were certified in the subject, compared with 65 percent in majority white schools. In English, the numbers were 59 and 68 percent, respectively and in science, they were 57 percent and 73 percent.

3. Black boys are not reading at an adequate level.
In 2014, the Black Star Project published findings that just 10 percent of eighth-grade Black boys in the U.S. are considered "proficient" in reading. In urban areas like Chicago and Detroit, that number was even lower. By contrast, the 2013 National Assessment of Education Progress found that 46 percent of white students are adequate readers by eighth grade, and 17 percent of Black students as a whole are too. The achievement gap between the two races is startling, but the difference between the NAEP report on Black students as a whole and the Black Star findings of just Black boys is troubling too. It is not simply Black children in general who appear to be failing in the basics - like literacy; it is the boys.

Reading is only one piece of the school puzzle, of course, but it is a foundational one. If the eighth graders in our schools cannot read, how will they ever learn other subjects and make it to a college education (or, in reality, to a high school diploma)? Reading scores tell us so much more than the confines of their statistics. I believe these numbers are key to understanding the plight of young Black men in our society as a whole.

4. Punishment for black boys is harsher than for any other demographic.
Punishment for Black boys - even first-time offenders - in schools is harsher than any other demographic. Consider these facts:

*Black students make up just 18 percent of children in U.S. preschools, but make up half of those youngsters who are suspended.

*Black boys receive two-thirds of all school suspensions nationwide - all demographics and both genders considered.

*In Chicago, 75 percent of all students arrested in public schools are Black

What's most troubling is that not all of the Black boys taken from their schools in handcuffs are violent, or even criminals. Increasingly, school-assigned law enforcement officers are leading these students from their schools hallways for minor offenses, including class disruption, tardiness and even non-violent arguments with other students. It seems that it is easier to remove these students from class through the stigma of suspension or arrest than to look for in-school solutions.

School suspension, and certainly arrest, is just the beginning of a life considered on the wrong side of the law for many Black boys. By 18 years of age, 30 percent of Black males have been arrested at least once, compared to just 22 percent of white males. Those numbers rise to 49 percent for Black men by the age of 23, and 38 percent of white males. Researchers from several universities concluded earlier this year that arrests early in life often set the course for more crimes and incarceration throughout the rest of the offender's lifetime.

No wonder young black men aren't in college!

These trends are not conducive to improving the numbers of young black men who are able to attend college. In fact, the numbers are dismal when it comes to black young men who attend and graduate from colleges in the U.S. Statistically speaking, black men have the lowest test scores, the worst grades and the highest dropout rates - in K-12 education, and in college too. The recognition of this educational crisis has led to some strong initiatives targeted at young black men with the intention of guiding them through the college years and to successful, productive lives that follow.

This is why college motivation within and outside the black community is so vital for these young men. At this point in the nation's history, they are in the greatest need for the lifestyle change that higher education can provide, and not just for individual growth, but also for the benefit of the entire nation. But in order to get there, black boys must experience the motivation to succeed well before college. 

A Black Mother’s Painful Letter to Her 8-Year-old Son: How to Behave in a World That Will Hate and Fear You

by Celia K. Dale

To my beautiful boy,

It is with profound sadness that I sit here writing this letter to you. You are only 8-years old and your world revolves around your friends and your family. You are oblivious to the ways of the world and what’s in store for you as you learn and mature and leave the safety of my arms. I wish that I could guarantee this safety for the rest of your life; but I can’t. I am no longer able to pretend that raising you right is all you’ll need.

Son, you, no, we live in a country built on hate, fear, and oppression. We live in a country that will judge you, NOT by whom you are and what you stand for, but for what some random person with the same skin color does. We are a part of a race of people that are looked at collectively. You are an African American and you’re a male and being those two things can be deadly.

Where is this coming from? I woke up this morning after watching coverage of the happenings in Ferguson, MO, last night and I knew that it was time for me to rethink the ways in which I’m raising you and the things that I am teaching you. I thought that all I had to do was make sure that you understood the importance of being honest, fair, and law-abiding and that it would be enough. I thought that if I taught you to have respect for authority and to work hard at everything you set out to do that I was doing enough. I realize now that it’s not enough.

Your father is a big man, about 6 ft., 2 in tall and well over 250 lbs. He’s an imposing figure and when he walks into a room it seems as though he fills it up. While I don’t know what your stature will be, I know that you’ll be bigger than you are now. You may be considered a deadly weapon just by virtue of your size and you’ll need to know how to be less imposing when confronted by a lesser man.

I wish I could tell you that the police are there to protect and serve and in some communities perhaps they are. But I can’t. I won’t. The police SHOULD be there to protect and serve but if they get a call of a 6ft., 2 in. tall Black male, you may fit the description and in that case you may have an encounter with one of the lesser men that I spoke of.

I have NEVER had a real run in with police outside of traffic stops so everything I’m about to tell you is based on what I’ve seen throughout the years. What I’m about to tell you will make you question my sanity, but I am telling you this because I want you to live. There is NO room for mistakes in your life, Braxton; none. You cannot dress a certain way, you cannot talk a certain way, you cannot walk a certain way and you CANNOT EVER commit ANY kind of crime that will put your life in the hands of someone else.

You CANNOT hang around certain people, walk in certain areas, or even go to the store with a group of friends to buy a sandwich. I may never see you alive again. Your life can be taken by police and there will be NO recourse because all they’ll have to say is 5 words…. “I feared for my life.” That’s it. Guess what? They will be believed because it appears that the prevailing belief is just by virtue of your skin color and sex that you are to be feared. It doesn’t matter that you’re very sensitive. It doesn’t matter that YOU don’t care about what color your friends are. It doesn’t matter, honey.

A lot of people will assume you’re a thug… not because you act like one, not because you’ve EVER walked the streets of an inner city, but because you are Black. It doesn’t matter that I worked my fingers to the bone to ensure that I raised you in a safe environment away from the issues that prevail in poor communities. It doesn’t matter that I’m educated and articulate. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t let you run the streets doing what you wanted to do; NONE OF THESE THINGS MATTER!

I thought I had more time to figure out exactly how to approach the fact that you’re Black and you’re a male in this country. I thought that I had more time to prepare you for what appears to be the inevitable. I don’t. Twelve-year-old Tamir E. Rice was killed after taking a BB gun to a playground near his home. The gun looked real enough.

Someone called the police and told them that someone had a gun and was scaring people but that it was probably fake. Officers responded and according to them they told him to put his hands up and he reached for the gun. He was shot in a playground and later died. I don’t want to send you to the playground and never see you alive again. No more guns. I know you like playing with them but no more. You can’t even take your super-soaker outside because who knows how that can be construed. No more!

If you are ever stopped by the police, Braxton, I want you to do the following:

1. Comply with their requests. It doesn’t matter how they request it, what they are doing while they request it or how you feel about the request. JUST DO IT! I need you to come home.

2. Make NO sudden movements. If they ask you for ID tell them it’s in your pocket and suggest that they get it out. Lord knows if they fear for their lives at that moment you may be killed.

3. If you’re driving, keep your license and registration in your lap or very close by so that any movement to retrieve it isn’t a big movement. You may be shot if they fear for their lives.

4. If the officers grab you, push you, rough you up. Take it! Demean yourself, humiliate yourself but take it. Remember those 5 words. “I feared for my life.”

Wait… I can’t do this; this is complete and utter bullshit. I’m sorry, baby, but it is. I shouldn’t have to tell you these things. I shouldn’t even suggest that you allow yourself to be humiliated to preserve your life. It’s insane but IT IS REALITY; our reality.

I don’t want to be Sabrina Fuller or Lesley McFadden. I don’t want to run down the street and see you DEAD, baking in the noonday sun. I don’t want to watch a smug prosecutor who appears to find satisfaction in letting your killer resume his life as if yours meant absolutely nothing. I don’t want that for you. I need you to be strong. I need you to be law-abiding because God knows if you EVER make a mistake, if you EVER commit a crime, your future is no longer bright; it’s no longer yours.

I can teach you to stand up straight and hold your head high, but when confronted by the police find a way to appear smaller; less imposing. I can teach you to be law-abiding but that won’t prevent you from having to deal with police who only need believe you fit the description of someone who committed a crime to stop you. I can tell you to fight for what you believe in but not if it involves police. In that case you’d better believe what they tell you to believe. Remember those five words. “I feared for my life.” I can teach you that respect is earned but the reality is that you’d better respect police authority earned or not earned or face possible execution.

How in the world do I teach you to be proud of who you are when every single time I turn on the TV there are negative images of people who look like you? When a Black man does something positive it’s an individual accomplishment. When a Black man does something negative, it is somehow a collective condemnation of all Blacks. Others can distance themselves from the negative, criminal acts of those like them… we don’t have that luxury.

If I teach you nothing else, I will teach you that you are to grow up to be strong, and proud and honest and hardworking. I’m going to teach you to always do the right things no matter what. I’m going to teach you that you have to work 3 times harder than your peers even though at the end of the day, the rewards won’t be as great as theirs. But you are NOT to stop trying. I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning and go to work. I wanted to roll around in my sadness and depression a little while longer. Then I went in your room and watched you sleeping. Creepy, right?

I realize that I cannot afford to stay in this place because it’s my job to help you navigate through this messy world. You will NOT be a victim. You will NOT be murdered by some cowardly officer who used those five words. You will NOT be a criminal. You will NOT stand by and watch your friends behave badly without attempting to stop them. You will NOT drop out of school. You will NOT listen to rap music. I’m just kidding! You will NOT do anything that will land you in the back of a police car because there have been situations where a handcuffed man was accused of shooting himself back there.

You are beautifully and wonderfully made, Braxton, and let NO ONE tell you different. You are not responsible for the actions of others. You are responsible for YOUR behavior and YOUR choices. I will stand with you until hell freezes over so long as you do the right things. Unfortunately for you, you do not have the luxury of making boyhood mistakes. You do not have the luxury of pleading your case to an officer or defending yourself against one. You do not have the luxury of reacting because you feared for your life against an officer.

The decision not to indict an officer that killed an unarmed young man last night made me a believer. Your life is of no value to the majority in this country. No one can convince me that it is. Not anymore. You have to be smart, Braxton, and think about every single decision that you make because the consequences can cost you your life. A Black man with a felony in this country may as well be dead. Because it doesn’t matter if he’s served his sentence, his life is virtually over. Don’t be THAT man. Be honorable, be smart, be strong, and be proud. Take care of your responsibilities and hold YOURSELF accountable for your actions and choices.

You need to know and understand that in this country, you can be killed by the police without ever drawing a weapon, without ever being convicted of a crime, without ever committing a crime. I know what you’re thinking. I know you’re wondering what the hell you’re supposed to do with the cards stacked this way. I am telling you to do WHATEVER you need to do to make it home to your family alive. That is what you’re supposed to do. Come home! I want you to live to deal with the justice system another day. Come home!

I need to see you graduate from high school and college. I need to see you meet the woman of your dreams and marry her and give me grandchildren because your sister says she’s NOT having them. I need to see the man you’re destined to become. I need you to live, Braxton. I will figure out how to deal with my fears when you walk out the door, but I need you to walk back in that door alive. I am sick as I type these words because it isn’t fair that I have to tell you these things. I don’t imagine other mothers have to do this with their sons. But I need you to live, so here I am.

I love you, Braxton,

Mom

As a Black Man I’d be Crazy to Stand for the American National Anthem

by Kwado Akoma Akofena

Black NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers has caused a huge uproar in America from whites on every level, from politicians, NFL football owners, and media hacks to average citizens because he refuses to stand for the national anthem to protest racism in America.

Mr. Kaepernick's been attacked vehemently by patriotic whites who totally ignore his factual position that for Blacks the American flag and the national anthem is a symbol and song of racist oppression and hypocrisy.

Right now, every Black person in America with any kind of pride and sense should be supporting Colin Kaepernick’s protest by not standing for the national anthem. If you have some Black pride and sense you would investigate who wrote the national anthem and when.

Let me expose the writer of the national anthem, Francis Scott Key, on September 14^th, 1814 Key while being detained by the British, pens a poem which is later set to music and in 1931 becomes America's national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The poem, originally titled “The Defense of Fort McHenry,” was written after Key witnessed the Maryland fort being bombarded by the British during the War of 1812.

During the Civil War, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was an anthem for Union troops, and the song increased in popularity in the ensuing decades, which led to President Woodrow Wilson signing an executive order in 1916 designating it as “the national anthem of the United States” for all military ceremonies.

On March 3, 1931, after 40 previous attempts failed, a measure passed Congress and was signed into law that formally designated “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the national anthem of the United States.

While writing this poem in 1814, Key owned slaves and referred to enslaved Blacks as “a distinct and inferior race of people”. From 1833 to 1840 Key was the district attorney for the city of Washington, D.C. and used his office to defend slavery and attacked the abolitionist movement to free slaves.

What most Black folks don’t know is that there are 4 verses of his poem. The 4^th verse you don’t hear about partially reads: “Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps pollution; no refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror flight or the gloom of the grave.” Frances Scott Key wrote this verse to attack Blacks who joined the British to fight against America during the War of 1812; as the British had promised slaves their freedom.

It is a total lie and myth that the national anthem represents Black freedom, the writer of the U.S. national anthem was a racist, cold-blooded slave owner and the above verse was anti-Black freedom. Black people were enslaved in America for 246 years and it took us another 100 years just to get basic civil rights.

There has never been a war that the U.S. has been involved in that was about or for Black peoples’ freedom. President Abraham Lincoln made it very clear that the Civil War was fought to save the Union and not to end slavery. 

In closing, to white people, if the national anthem was written by a Black slave owner who enslaved your white ancestors, and a nation that has been racist towards you for 400 years would you stand for the national anthem?  No, ya’ll would not stand, so why should we?

Black Male Murders Continue Under the American Flag

The controversial stance of Black San Francisco 49er’s quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the national anthem and flag raising before NFL football games due to its racist-oppressive symbolism is not the “causative issue”.

The issue is not so much what Kaepernick’s stance is ‘for’, but what he’s ‘against’ – American racial oppression, particularly racist police murders of Black men.

Indeed, the racist police murders of Black men continue; this week in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a Black man Terence Crutcher was killed by a white female police officer; Mr. Crutcher had his hands up and was unarmed.

Also, in Charlotte, North Carolina, a Black man Keith Lamont Scott was shot and killed by police; neighbors who witnessed the shooting said the officer who fired the fatal shot was white; that Scott was holding a book - not a weapon, as he waited for his son to get off a school bus.

The police murder of Scott has led to a Black rebellion in Charlotte – North Carolina’s governor has imposed a state of emergency and brought in the National Guard.

Let me contrast the police murders of the 2 unarmed Black men and the terrorist bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami, who is responsible for a bombing spree that injured 29 people in New York and New Jersey.

Rahami was taken into custody the morning of September 19, 2016 alive after an intense shoot-out with police officers. Let me make this clear, ‘real-clear’, the so-called armed terror bombing suspect was not killed while unarmed Black men are killed, because white police hate Black men more and view them as a greater threat.

Thus, the real war in America is not against so-called terrorism; the real and long-standing war in America is the racist police war waged against Black men.

This racist police war against Black men has taken place under the American flag; the racist white police who murder Black men have the American flag on their uniforms; the American flag is on the police cars that they ride down on Black men.

Think about it, do you think Jews honor the Nazi flag that millions of them were murdered under during the Jewish Holocaust? 

The ultimate ‘disregard’ and ‘disrespect’ of Black people is for whites to expect Blacks to honor a flag under which so many racist deaths of Blacks has taken place during slavery (Black Holocaust) and afterwards. 

Don’t Stand For Their National Anthem – Recite Your Own Anthem

Every week white police men and women go to sporting events and before the game they stand for the National Anthem with hand over hearts, reciting the verse while the American flag is raised.

Every week these white police men and women swear to ‘protect’ and ‘serve’ with American flags on their uniforms and patrol cars. Every week it seems somewhere in this country patriotic white police are killing unarmed Black men.

On September 18, 2016, Tawan Boyd, 21, was viciously beaten by police in Baltimore, Maryland, dying from his injuries on September 21rst. September 27, 2016, Alfred Olango, 38, an unarmed Black man, was tasered, shot and killed by police in El Cajon, California.

Before, during, and after the National Anthem is sung and the American flag raised, Black men are routinely killed and murdered by white police. Indeed, the racist police murders of Black men is a normal way of life in America; it’s the American way like baseball, hot-dogs, and apple pie.

For hundreds of years in the South, white men called Black men ‘bucks’; hunting us down and murdering us like ‘deer’. For Black men, the National Anthem’s verse:

“And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,gave proof through the night that our flag was still there”,

The following is my reinterpretation of this verse:

“And the white police pistols are shot, bullet sounds bursting in air, gave proof yet another day that a Black man’s life was not there. Oh say does that star spangled banner still wave over dead Black men’s bodies in the land of hypocrisy”

The constant murders of Black men by racist police should give ‘proof’ to Black people of why we should not stand for the National Anthem.

As Black people, we have our own National Anthem to stand for – we have the ‘Negro National Anthem’, written by James Weldon Johnson, titled “Lift Every Voice and Sing”.

As Black people we should become familiar with our National Anthem; read it, memorize it, and recite it daily. The verse, “Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, let us march on till victory is won” should be said daily as a morning affirmation.

As Black people, we must ‘realize’ and ‘accept’ that the American National Anthem was not written for us; it was written by a racist slave owner – it was written for white peoples’ freedom from Britain, while our Ancestors were those white peoples’ slaves. 

A Deeper Look at the National Anthem, the Man Who Wrote it, and the History Attached

By Martenzie Johnson

When San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided not to stand for the national anthem, he set in motion a chain of events that not even he a black athlete fed up with systemic inequality of blacks in America could have foreseen. Even with the historical precedents.

Boxer Muhammad Ali refused induction into the U.S. Army in 1967, was stripped of his world title and had his New York State Athletic Commission boxing title revoked. Ali wasn’t revered as a civil rights leader by the public at large until he lost the ability to speak.

Olympic sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith won gold and bronze medals for the United States at the 1968 Olympic Games, raised their black-gloved fists as The Star-Spangled Banner was played, and were expelled by the International Olympic Committee.

Back home, the U.S. Olympic Committee suspended the pair, stating, “The untypical exhibitionism of these athletes also violates the basic standards of good manners and sportsmanship, which are so highly valued in the United States.” Even baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson complicated political history aside couldn’t bring himself to sing the national anthem or salute the flag.

Much like how the murders of nine black churchgoers allegedly carried out by white supremacist Dylann Roof in South Carolina a little over a year ago led to a nationwide reconsideration of the Confederate battle flag, Kaepernick’s defiance of police brutality in a nation that “oppresses black people and people of color” and the flag that he believes represents it has inadvertently sparked a reviewing of the 200-year-old song about that very flag: The Star-Spangled Banner.

By 1810, over 15 percent of the U.S. population was enslaved.

Francis Scott Key was born in 1779 on a Frederick County, Maryland, plantation to upper-class parents who benefited greatly from chattel slavery. He eventually studied law in the state’s capital and became a prominent lawyer in Washington, D.C., in the early 1800s. Following the Battle of Baltimore on Sept. 14, 1814, against invading British forces - where the lawyer had been “dispatched by President James Madison on a mission to negotiate for the release of Dr. William Beanes, a prominent surgeon” - Key famously penned what would become our national anthem.

After witnessing 25 hours of combat And the rocket’s red glare!/The bombs bursting in air! Key assumed the Americans had lost, but was then elated to see the Stars and Stripes still flying the next morning at Fort McHenry Gave proof through the night/That our flag was still there/Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave.

The Star-Spangled Banner is actually four verses long, though, and features lyrics that go beyond what we’re used to hearing at presidential inaugurations, military ceremonies and sporting events.

Though the well-known first verse, “in which a young man peers into a foggy and rain-soaked dawn to find out whether his country has been conquered in battle, is urgent, open-hearted and honest,” the third verse all but contradicts any meaning of a “land of the free” and “home of the brave” (emphasis mine):

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The War of 1812 was caused, among other things, by Great Britain’s attempt to restrict U.S. trade and America’s desire to expand its northern territory by annexing Canada. By 1810, more than 15 percent of the U.S. population was enslaved, and British forces recruited escaped slaves to fight for the slaves’ freedom against the American militia. This unit, referred to as the Colonial Marines, was part of the British forces that overran Washington, D.C., in 1814 and set fire to the White House.

So when Key references the “foul footstep’s” of the “hireling and slave” who “no refuge could save” from “the gloom of the grave” in the third verse, he’s referring to the killing of Colonial Marines. As noted by The Root political editor Jason Johnson, “The Star-Spangled Banner is as much a patriotic song as it is a diss track to black people who had the audacity to fight for their freedom.”

Following the War of 1812, the Treaty of Ghent was signed, with the United States ordering the return of “such slaves as may be in your control, belonging to any inhabitant or citizen of the United States.” The British refused.

Key did not have a complicated or complex history with race. He “supported sending free blacks (not slaves) back to Africa and was about as pro-slavery, anti-black and anti-abolitionist as you could get at the time,” Johnson wrote in his article for The Root. He owned slaves while writing the national anthem, at one point referring to blacks as “a distinct and inferior race of people.”

Though Key won several legal cases on behalf of slaves during the 18th century, 2o years after writing the national anthem, he is believed to be responsible for inciting the Snow Riot of 1835 with the overzealous prosecution of a young black man accused of trying to kill his mistress.

According to Smithsonian, Key “used his office as the District Attorney for the City of Washington from 1833 to 1840 to defend slavery, attacking the abolitionist movement in several high-profile cases,” including an episode wherein he unsuccessfully sought to have a New York doctor hanged.

Nothing Kaepernick has said in recent days gives reason to believe he knew anything about the history of Key or The Star-Spangled Banner when taking his stand the past few weeks. He never mentions Key by name and never takes umbrage with the actual words behind the song. But the sixth-year veteran’s history with race likely well-prepared him for this moment.

Kaepernick was born in Milwaukee. His mother was a white woman, age 19. His father was African-American, and left the home before Kaepernick was born. At 5 weeks old, Kaepernick was placed up for adoption, and a white couple in the area eventually adopted him.

From the beginning, Kaepernick’s parents made him aware of his race but didn’t force the issue. “I never felt I was supposed to be white. Or black, either. My parents just wanted to let me be who I needed to be,” he told MrPorter.com last September. Halfway through the 2012 season, Kaepernick took over the starting job for the 49ers, and just that quickly the 6-foot-5, chiseled 24-year-old with the half-sleeve tattoos was the face of an NFL franchise. And the criticism began.

Just weeks after his first start, former Sporting News columnist David Whitley wrote a scathing critique of Kaepernick, based solely on his ink. “NFL quarterback is the ultimate position of influence and responsibility. He is the CEO of a high-profile organization, and you don’t want your CEO to look like he just got paroled,” Whitley said, while also comparing Kaepernick to inmates at San Quentin State Prison in California.

A season later, as Kaepernick led the 49ers to their second consecutive NFC Championship game, Democrat & Chronicle reporter Sal Maiorana tweeted “Kaepernick. Always so media friendly. Turn your cap around and act like a professional quarterback.” Quarterbacks of all races wear caps backward.

Despite never having made a statement about race at that point in his career, Kaepernick was continuously thrown into the racially coded debate over appearance and behavior. Since remaining seated for the national anthem, Kaepernick has been called the N-word too many times to count. Based on everything Kaepernick risks losing by taking this stance football contract notwithstanding his stand is that much more courageous.

In 1900, as part of a celebration of former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, civil rights activist and educator James Weldon Johnson performed Lift Every Voice and Sing, a poem he had written a year prior. In 1919, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) adopted Lift Every Voice and Sing as its official song, later renaming it the Negro national anthem before it was again changed to the black national anthem toward the end of the 20th century.

A second verse of the song sings:

Stony the road we trod
Bitter the chast’ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat / Have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

The Star-Spangled Banner wasn’t written for people like Kaepernick. The song was penned by a slave-owning lawyer who spent a lifetime fighting against the rights of African-Americans. But whether Kaepernick knows it or not, his stance alludes to a different national anthem - a “chast’ning rod” won’t stop him from standing up for what’s right.