Move over Oprah....
The first selection in the Prez’s book club is the controversial $40 Million Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete by NY times sports columnist William C. Rhoden.
I found this book to be unique in that I learned a great deal about the complex relationship between sports and society in America, an ultra fascinating topic that I had not really focused on since my senior project at Lyman Memorial High School. Not since my classes with Professor Jeffery Ogbar ( http://www.history.uconn.edu/faculty/ogbar.html ) has the topic of race in America hit home in a way that combined the past and the present in such a profound way.
For all people without independent wealth and capital in America, whether you are black, white, brown, green or orange, sports can be an outlet to overcome the injustices created by Capitalism. For people like me, it’s the main temporary escape from the horrors of the real world. This is double the case for minorities, as they are not represented by the ruling class of decisions makers in America. Now, I am not a black man. I do not know what it is like to be negatively profiled specifically because of my skin color. I don’t know what its like to grow up in an environment where it is more likely to go to jail then college. However, despite this it is easy for me to understand the fact that in this book Rhoden tries to create a picture that, using history as a guide, paints the picture of forced exploitation and manipulation by white middle men in the lives of black athletes. I don’t believe you can every consider somebody making 40 million dollars a slave. 40 million dollars make you somebody who can take advantage of the system. But Rhoden makes it clear that even as black athletes have reached a pinnacle of success and financial stability, the problems in the black community that push minorities to see sports or the drug trade as their only way out persist. Thus his argument is micro and macro.
Segregation in America’s schools has reached 1950’s standards, How in the hell can this happen? People who can make a difference are asleep, wrapped in the warmth of a blanket of ignorance and apathy. Rhoden details how the growth of black athletes in American society has also come with a knee-jerk backlash—one example being Major League Baseball’s integration of the sport, which stripped the black-controlled Negro League of its talent and left it to decline rapidly, thus creating a void in the development of black owned businesses and decision makers.
Rhoden also comes down hard on Michael Jordan, long seen as an athlete who has put personal gain above the needs of people in the black community. Jordan of coarse is famous for saying “Republicans buy shoes to!”. He became the epitome of the uber-wealth producing athlete that transcended sports. But as much as Jordan made, he made more for other people. While Rhoden pinpoints the problem of exploitation in the college ranks and beyond, I think that he stops short of condemning the contradiction of what America values, a contradiction that damages the black community a great deal whether your talking about athletes or hip-hop artists. The natural response to Jordan’s statement, that “Democrats and Republicans turned their backs on the crack epidemic and urban decay in the black community” is nowhere to be found here. This contradiction exists when America values the spirit of the entrepreneur, someone who grows in wealth and power based on their own hard work, and also says that the individual should enjoy the spoils of their wealth. Now juxtapose this with the prospects of a country boiling over with awful living conditions for the people on the bottom of the spectrum who can’t ball. It’s the American dream versus the American reality.
Do those who make it have a responsibility to give back, and give back while seeking to become a political, economic, and social force for change? Does the real exploitation exist in the mental slavery of a society that makes it a status symbol to buy a pair Jordan’s produced in an Indonesian sweetshop for $140. I say yes to both. Is it actual slavery? No. but it has a link to the kind of the perverse thinking that promotes tyranny. I think that Rhoden has crafted a tremendous read, that if you are in fact open minded, this book can illuminate the reader on a perspective America must work together to discuss openly.
In the famous “Martin Luther King” episode of the Boondocks, creator Aaron McGruder included a very brief clip posing the question about what would happen if the stars of the NBA decided to protest the Iraq war by not playing. I think that sharp actions like this, in contrast with the mind numbing apathy in our country, are required and required now.
“Running over the same old ground, what have we found? The same old fear….” –Pink Floyd
Strength and Honor……..
I found this book to be unique in that I learned a great deal about the complex relationship between sports and society in America, an ultra fascinating topic that I had not really focused on since my senior project at Lyman Memorial High School. Not since my classes with Professor Jeffery Ogbar ( http://www.history.uconn.edu/faculty/ogbar.html ) has the topic of race in America hit home in a way that combined the past and the present in such a profound way.
For all people without independent wealth and capital in America, whether you are black, white, brown, green or orange, sports can be an outlet to overcome the injustices created by Capitalism. For people like me, it’s the main temporary escape from the horrors of the real world. This is double the case for minorities, as they are not represented by the ruling class of decisions makers in America. Now, I am not a black man. I do not know what it is like to be negatively profiled specifically because of my skin color. I don’t know what its like to grow up in an environment where it is more likely to go to jail then college. However, despite this it is easy for me to understand the fact that in this book Rhoden tries to create a picture that, using history as a guide, paints the picture of forced exploitation and manipulation by white middle men in the lives of black athletes. I don’t believe you can every consider somebody making 40 million dollars a slave. 40 million dollars make you somebody who can take advantage of the system. But Rhoden makes it clear that even as black athletes have reached a pinnacle of success and financial stability, the problems in the black community that push minorities to see sports or the drug trade as their only way out persist. Thus his argument is micro and macro.
Segregation in America’s schools has reached 1950’s standards, How in the hell can this happen? People who can make a difference are asleep, wrapped in the warmth of a blanket of ignorance and apathy. Rhoden details how the growth of black athletes in American society has also come with a knee-jerk backlash—one example being Major League Baseball’s integration of the sport, which stripped the black-controlled Negro League of its talent and left it to decline rapidly, thus creating a void in the development of black owned businesses and decision makers.
Rhoden also comes down hard on Michael Jordan, long seen as an athlete who has put personal gain above the needs of people in the black community. Jordan of coarse is famous for saying “Republicans buy shoes to!”. He became the epitome of the uber-wealth producing athlete that transcended sports. But as much as Jordan made, he made more for other people. While Rhoden pinpoints the problem of exploitation in the college ranks and beyond, I think that he stops short of condemning the contradiction of what America values, a contradiction that damages the black community a great deal whether your talking about athletes or hip-hop artists. The natural response to Jordan’s statement, that “Democrats and Republicans turned their backs on the crack epidemic and urban decay in the black community” is nowhere to be found here. This contradiction exists when America values the spirit of the entrepreneur, someone who grows in wealth and power based on their own hard work, and also says that the individual should enjoy the spoils of their wealth. Now juxtapose this with the prospects of a country boiling over with awful living conditions for the people on the bottom of the spectrum who can’t ball. It’s the American dream versus the American reality.
Do those who make it have a responsibility to give back, and give back while seeking to become a political, economic, and social force for change? Does the real exploitation exist in the mental slavery of a society that makes it a status symbol to buy a pair Jordan’s produced in an Indonesian sweetshop for $140. I say yes to both. Is it actual slavery? No. but it has a link to the kind of the perverse thinking that promotes tyranny. I think that Rhoden has crafted a tremendous read, that if you are in fact open minded, this book can illuminate the reader on a perspective America must work together to discuss openly.
In the famous “Martin Luther King” episode of the Boondocks, creator Aaron McGruder included a very brief clip posing the question about what would happen if the stars of the NBA decided to protest the Iraq war by not playing. I think that sharp actions like this, in contrast with the mind numbing apathy in our country, are required and required now.
“Running over the same old ground, what have we found? The same old fear….” –Pink Floyd
Strength and Honor……..
posted by The Dude at
10:24 AM
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