"The Black KKK"

Jason Whitlock, a black columnist writing for The Kansas City Star, is doing what will piss off the modern day civil rights movement.  He's provocatively telling the truth:

EDITOR'S NOTE: This column originally appeared Wednesday, two days before Friday's arrests of four men in the shooting death of Sean Taylor.

There's a reason I call them the Black KKK. The pain, the fear and the destruction are all the same.

Someone who loved Sean Taylor is crying right now. The life they knew has been destroyed, an 18-month-old baby lost her father, and, if you're a black man living in America, you've been reminded once again that your life is in constant jeopardy of violent death.

The Black KKK claimed another victim, a high-profile professional football player with a checkered past this time.

No, we don't know for certain the circumstances surrounding Taylor's death. I could very well be proven wrong for engaging in this sort of aggressive speculation. But it's no different than if you saw a fat man fall to the ground clutching his chest. You'd assume a heart attack, and you'd know, no matter the cause, the man needed to lose weight.

Well, when shots are fired and a black man hits the pavement, there's every statistical reason to believe another black man pulled the trigger. That's not some negative, unfair stereotype. It's a reality we've been living with, tolerating and rationalizing for far too long.

When the traditional, white KKK lynched, terrorized and intimidated black folks at a slower rate than its modern-day dark-skinned replacement, at least we had the good sense to be outraged and in no mood to contemplate rationalizations or be fooled by distractions.

Our new millennium strategy is to pray the Black KKK goes away or ignores us. How's that working?

About as well as the attempt to shift attention away from this uniquely African-American crisis by focusing on an "injustice" the white media allegedly perpetrated against Sean Taylor.

Within hours of his death, there was a story circulating that members of the black press were complaining that news outlets were disrespecting Taylor's victimhood by reporting on his troubled past

No disrespect to Taylor, but he controlled the way he would be remembered by the way he lived. His immature, undisciplined behavior with his employer, his run-ins with law enforcement, which included allegedly threatening a man with a loaded gun, and the fact a vehicle he owned was once sprayed with bullets are all pertinent details when you've been murdered.

Marcellus Wiley, a former NFL player, made the radio circuit Wednesday, singing the tune that athletes are targets. That was his explanation for the murders of Taylor and Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams and the armed robberies of NBA players Antoine Walker and Eddy Curry.

Really?

Let's cut through the bull(manure) and deal with reality. Black men are targets of black men. Period. Go check the coroner's office and talk with a police detective. These bullets aren't checking W-2s.

Rather than whine about white folks' insensitivity or reserve a special place of sorrow for rich athletes, we'd be better served mustering the kind of outrage and courage it took in the 1950s and 1960s to stop the white KKK from hanging black men from trees.

But we don't want to deal with ourselves. We take great joy in prescribing medicine to cure the hate in other people's hearts. Meanwhile, our self-hatred, on full display for the world to see, remains untreated, undiagnosed and unrepentant.

Our self-hatred has been set to music and reinforced by a pervasive culture that promotes a crab-in-barrel mentality.

You're damn straight I blame hip hop for playing a role in the genocide of American black men. When your leading causes of death and dysfunction are murder, ignorance and incarceration, there's no reason to give a free pass to a culture that celebrates murder, ignorance and incarceration.

Of course there are other catalysts, but until we recapture the minds of black youth, convince them that it's not OK to "super man dat ho" and end any and every dispute by "cocking on your bitch," nothing will change.

Does a Soulja Boy want an education?

There's more where that came from.  Read it all. 

And understand the risks that Mr. Whitlock is taking here.  A black man bucking the Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson wing of the Civil Rights movement, a wing hell-bent not on stopping the troubles that ail young black America but on fomenting, for self gain, more problems.

God bless Jason Whitlock.  God protect him.  God nurture his voice and allow it to spread. 

For the sake of young black men across the country.

Comments

[Dymphna]

It takes a lot of courage to post this. I have been flamed for posting on eternal white guilt and how destructive it is.

But I'm also working for Bill Cosby's "Come On, People" campaign in our area.

If you haven't heard of it, you can guess the nature of his book based on the speeches he's given.

All the black men I know -- decent fellows -- are sick of the rap (pardon the expression) they are forced to take for the behavior of these men.

The politics of grievance and entitlement are fostered by the Dems; it brings them more votes. Until they stop their "victim" mantra it's going to have to be a change from the bottom.

[Mommynator]

My daughter and I were watching The Blue Brothers this evening. It was made in the early 80s.

Even in that movie, there are tons of black men portrayed positively as family and working men, who respect women and there are women who respect themselves and are not willing to be used and abused by men.

How quickly things have changed, and what a shame for the black community. It's really such a waste of humanity.

[Brian G.]

That column is exactly why Whitlock is not writing for ESPN.com anymore. They don't want anything other than the liberal mindset, that every problem the African-American faces is the result of something the white man did.

I think Whitlock's comments on the Taylor murder are spot on. I can feel how pissed off he is about it. And I don't blame him.

[Jeff B.]

Whitlock is a bad*ss, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. He's been writing thoughtfully about racial issues in sports for years now.

For example, Whitlock was way out ahead of the rest of the MSM on the Duke LAX case. He also got into an infamous scrum with Scoop Jackson of ESPN (back when Whitlock was still writing for them too) for criticizing Jackson's "thug" writing style and praise for what he felt were some of the worst characteristics of the fusion between African-American athletic and gangsta culture. Glad to see he's still being intelligently provocative.

[scrapiron]

The democrats will keep feeding the black KKK, they organized and kept the white KKK alive as long as they got the votes.

[Billy Beck]

I thought Whitlock was good on the Imus episode, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5ZQXaXmCW4

[Robert]

It would be a good thing if decent black folks everywhere, like those that Dymphna knows, shared their sentiments. I think Chris Rock had something when he said, "I like black people, but I sure hate niggas." And it was clear that he meant that term for those who behaved badly and served as bad examples. Perhaps instead of that term disappearing, we'll see its definition and usage shift. For example, with some imagination, I could imagine black parents that aren't totally averse to the term telling their children, "Don't be a nigga." Or black shool-age children telling their dark-skinned friends the same if they happen to be misbehaving at the time. I'm sure the decent black people will come up with something, because celebrating ignorance and criminality sure isn't working!

[Eric JaMaal Williams]

The truth should come out sometime shouldn't it? But this time, it came out like it had a vendetta to lies. This man truly spoke the truth about hip-hop and the streets. It takes "A real man" not nigga but real man to step up and say what he said. PERIOD!!!!

[TG Scott]

If black men actually started acting like real men and not thugs, Jackson and Sharpton would be out of business. That's why they love to stir up more racial strife. I've never personally seen a pic of Al Sharpton that his big pie hole wasn't wide open stirring up a riot. If you are black and have done well for yourself, you're construed as "acting white."

[Truth B. Told]

I wholeheartedly agree with Whitlock's commentary. As a member of the hip-hop generation, I can say we've been long tired of the "nigga" mentality being marketed to us by the pimps of the recording, movie, and television industries, the whores (rappers, video "actors & actresses", etc.) and the vampires (ACTUAL thugs, gangsters, drug dealers, so-called hustlers) that suck the life's blood out our communities on a daily basis. This rampant thugging is NOT an accurate portrayal of the hip hop community, just as much as Steppin Fetchit or Amos and Andy was not an accurate portrayal of our community in their day. The so-called "gangsta" rapper is the modern-day minstrel, the new millenium "house nigga" but WORSE. The new H.N.'s will live in mansions of their own, all the while preaching their false gospel of enterprise at the expense of black lives, further adding to the destruction of a community in which they no longer live. (in some cases NEVER lived)

They claim to have "love for the streets" when the reality is that that they have hatred for every person of color except themselves, which is why they're so anxious to kill each other and anyone who gets caught in the cross -fire.

These people don't represent hip hop, or black people for that matter. they represent their masters, for they aspire to be exactly like him.

[Michael Tinsley]

Why are Jason Whitlocks's comments not more widespread?
That would be a step in the right direction in getting these terrorist thugs of the streets of _all American cities.
I beleive the police in my city are doing all they can, but is it enough ?