[jschoolwhitlock]

Curry Injury Gives NBA Excuse To Improve

The NBA regular season is dead. Steph Curry’s right ankle and knee killed it.

That’s the big-picture takeaway from Curry limping back to the locker room with a knee injury midway through the Warriors’ Game 4 blowout victory over the dysfunctional and disinterested Houston Rockets.

Gregg Popovich and the Spurs took the right approach to the regular season. Golden State chased Michael Jordan, the ‘96 Bulls, 73 victories and immortality. San Antonio pursued a title. So did the Cavaliers, the Thunder and the Clippers, the primary threats to unseat the Warriors.

Just so we’re clear. I’m glad Golden State set the record for victories in a regular season. The Warriors’ pursuit of history provided intrigue, substance and entertainment to a season that otherwise would’ve solely been about Kobe Bryant’s obscene, season-long masturbation.

But the reality is, with Curry undergoing an MRI today which revealed an MCL sprain that will keep him out at least two weeks and raises questions about his health beyond that, the regular-season-coasting Spurs are in better position to win the West than GSW. Maybe that will change. Maybe Steph’s knee and ankle will be fine by the end of the second round of the playoffs. Maybe this is just a scare that will be an afterthought come June.

Regardless, moving forward, all teams will adopt San Antonio’s 82-game philosophy. It won’t just be old teams loaded with veterans that coast during the regular season by sitting their stars. The more we learn about our bodies and the importance of sleep and rest and recovery, the more teams and individual players will choose the Popovich approach.

The 82-game NBA schedule is dead. It hasn’t made sense for quite some time. The primary employers of NBA superstars -- Nike, Adidas, Under Armour -- don’t need their employees moonlighting 82 nights a year. It’s too risky. It’s unnecessary. It actually hurts their marketability.

More teams will surely start following the the well-rested Spurs’ approach unless the NBA makes changes to the schedule.

It’s time for Adam Silver, the NBA and the league’s television partners to realize less is more. Next season, as more and more superstar players rest during the regular season, you’re going to hear more and more fans complain about the quality of the product. The NBA salary cap is about to take a substantial jump, moving from $70 million to $92 million, thanks to additional TV revenue.

The added TV revenue will prevent NBA executives from acknowledging their regular-season product isn’t good. But when average NBA players are making NFL superstar money, that reality will cause fans to focus on the mundaneness and lack of urgency of the NBA regular season. Overpaid “stars” who require rest during the season will be a major media/fan talking point.

The league should get out ahead of this problem by cutting the regular season to 70 games and making some additional tweaks to the schedule to add urgency. I’d start the season in mid-October and play a 40-game schedule that ends January 1. I would take the top two teams from the East and the West at the end of the 40-game schedule and pit them in a single-elimination tournament at a neutral dome site. I would do this in place of the All-Star Game, which is nearly as non-competitive as the NFL Pro Bowl.

I would pay a $20-million bonus to the team that won the four-team, mid-season tournament. I would allot $18 million of the bonus to be split among the 15-man roster. The other $2 million would be split among the winning coaching staff. I would play two games on Friday and a championship game on Sunday. You could have the dunk contest and skills competition on Saturday. The NBA’s midseason classic would dwarf all other professional sports showcases.

After a week off from the midseason classic, I would play the last 30 games of the season over 15 weeks. Teams would play twice a week. This would enhance the quality of play. I would also give out “win bonuses” over the final 30 games. This would make it harder for teams to tank and improve the quality of effort from teams eliminated from the playoffs.

The NBA should be aggressive about improving its regular season. With pro basketball players scheduled for a significant pay increase and the regular season less relevant, people who care about the NBA should take steps to get out ahead of what will be bad public relations.

Photo credits: David J. Phillip/AP (top); Ronald Cortes/Getty Images (bottom)

[jschoolwhitlock]

Hardy Outrage A Dangerous Mask For Lack Of Insight

Media-driven faux and/or over-the-top outrage is not harmless. The consequences can be dire, particularly for poor people of color.

In fact, generating media outrage is a common political tactic used to sway the public to support laws, regulations and wars that victimize the poor. President Nixon launched America’s drug war by propagandizing exaggerated dangers of drug use.

The cocaine-overdose death of basketball star Len Bias and subsequent media hysteria contributed greatly to the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, a bill sponsored by Democrats that strengthened predatory mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Democrats wanted to look tough on crime and they used the media outrage surrounding Bias’ death to get the bill passed.

“We would not have had mandatory minimums if it had not been for Len Bias, because that changed the whole political equation,” Eric Sterling, one of the architects of a law that put mass incarceration on steroids, told Al Jazeera.

Allegedly well-intentioned Democrats used a black basketball star to enact a law that has disproportionately negatively impacted black men. Liberal Democrats now call the ramifications an unforeseen consequence. An objective reading of history would label the ramifications as “predictable.” Whatever the case, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and accidental consequences.  

I bring this up because Greg Hardy, Ray Rice and other black athletes are being used as the Len Biases of domestic violence. Personal outrage is driving the media narrative surrounding domestic violence. Sports pundits are building their brands by topping each other in expressing their outrage over Hardy.

The contention that Adam Schefter and ESPN were wrong for interviewing Hardy is journalistically illogical, absurdly childish and solely intended to one-up pundits who had previously criticized Hardy.

Let’s think this through. There have been men and women convicted and/or responsible for preposterously heinous crimes who have been interviewed on national and local television. This goes well beyond the Charles Manson interviews. No reason to even mention James Earl Ray’s sitdown with Dan Rather. Timothy McVeigh on 60 Minutes? Focusing on violent criminals is too easy. How many of the corrupt Wall Street bankers who destroyed thousands of retired people’s savings and lives and bankrupted our economy have been allowed to sit on television and rationalize their immorality? Tobacco industry executives?

But Greg Hardy is the bridge too far?

This is dangerous and inappropriate. The ramifications of this kind of allegedly well-intentioned personal outrage will have predictable consequences.

Being a victim of domestic violence or an advocate for domestic-violence awareness does not legalize a media pundit to illogically and emotionally discuss domestic violence on television or in print. Victimhood does not justify journalistic irresponsibility.

Overzealous, confrontational, drug-war policing cost me and my family my cousin, Anton Butler. He was tasered and killed while unarmed. There were numerous witnesses supporting our contention that the sheriff deputies acted inappropriately. When working as a member of the media, I don’t throw objectivity and fairness out the window and interpret all claims of police brutality through my personal lens of pain and perceived injustice. The issues are more complex than what happened to me and my family.

The Greg Hardy situation is far more complex than the way it is being framed by attention-seeking pundits and social justice advocates. Greg Hardy is not a monster. Few human beings, if any, are.

Hardy is dangerously foolish. This is not uncommon for people thrown into wealth and fame from his impoverished and athletically-driven background. He didn’t escape poverty on a math or English scholarship. He escaped because he’s good at the violent game of football.

Hardy’s interview with Schefter was not bizarre. His responses to Schefter’s questions weren’t inappropriate if you remotely understand his perspective on what transpired between himself and his then-estranged girlfriend Nicole Holder.

Hardy believes/insinuates that her injuries were caused by his friend Sammy Curtis’ aggressive, wall-banging removal of her from the small bedroom-like area and Curtis’ prolonged, contentious restraint of her until the police arrived.

An objective full reading of police interviews with Holder and other witnesses adds some credibility to Hardy’s claim. So does his decision to call police. As I wrote previously, an experienced and educated female judge and two prosecutors examined all the information and found Hardy guilty of a misdemeanor and agreed on a sentence of 60 days suspended and a year’s probation. People with experience deciphering the behavior of dysfunctional relationships and people high on alcohol and drugs rendered a judgment on Hardy’s interaction with Holder that night. Outrage pundits -- some of whom grew up in total privilege and have an extremely limited worldview -- desire to re-litigate Hardy vs. Holder and bully the courts into taking a drug war-like stance on domestic violence.

A war on domestic violence sounds good. But war produces collateral damage that often devastates the poor. I’ve been poor. I’ve lived in the ghetto. I remember when $20 meant the world to my mama. I know the volatility and tension caused by financial stress. I know what that does to a household and human interaction. I don’t have to speculate. This is not a rationalization of domestic violence. It’s context necessary to begin to understand how zero-tolerance policies play out in communities filled with financial and violence stresses not common in suburbia. Like the judge and prosecutors in the Hardy case, I know that the frontlines of a criminal justice war on domestic violence will be in poor communities of color.

Millionaire athletes won’t be the target. Poor people will be. So some of these millionaire pundits and blogger advocates need to tamp down their personal outrage when they’re on television performing or writing for their Twitter audience. Their uninformed good intentions have real consequences in the real world.

The solution to America’s domestic violence problem is increased education, information and treatment. Not increased outrage and punishment.

Media outrage is oftentimes nothing more than a beard for a lack of information, insight and intellect. It’s a hustle. Find a new one before more poor people get permanently relegated to our criminal, mass-incarcerated class.  

Photo credits: Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images (top and bottom)

[jschoolwhitlock]

Goodell Changes CTE To ‘Clever Twitter Exploitation’

Looks like Twitter canceled the social justice warrior revolution. America’s much-anticipated Arab Spring has been aborted in favor of Thursday Night Football. No one should be surprised.

Twitter never was ‘bout that life.

Pretending to be the hub for revolutionary change was just a fashionable branding strategy that backfired. It happens. Malaysia Airlines, after the disappearance of Flight 370 and the shooting down of Flight 17, launched a “Bucket List” marketing campaign. LeBron James did that whole “Decision” thing.

Hipster bloggers convinced Twitter to morph into the angriest, politically correct safe space on the planet. The bloggers acted as George Zimmerman-like, volunteer thought police, patrolling Twitter 24/7 as roving lynch mobs looking for independent thinkers to bully. The price was Twitter’s originality and humor. The thought police turned Twitter stale and dangerous. No one “plays” at Twitter’s house anymore. It’s no place for fun. Kids avoid it. Twitter stock is down 66 percent in the past year. It can’t attract new users.

Time for a new strategy. SJW kicked to the curb for NFL.

Is there anything more establishment than getting in bed with billionaire NFL owners?

Again, Twitter ain’t ‘bout that life.

Twitter is a news aggregator used to influence and manipulate the public. It’s really no different from ESPN, FOX Sports, CNN, MSNBC, CBS and countless other American media and entertainment outlets. The NFL delivers massive audience to needy networks. In exchange, those networks tread lightly in their dealings with the NFL.

Handing streaming rights to 10 “Thursday Night Football” games to Twitter is a savvy business move by Roger Goodell and his billionaire bosses. Twitter is struggling to grow, but it maintains an unprecedented stranglehold on -- bordering on monopoly -- its ability to influence the American media.   

American journalists are addicted to Twitter. We, journalists, used to believe in “boots on the ground” and talking to real people in real communities. We now just quote from Twitter. Pay attention to how often a newspaper or digital news story states: “Joe Blow’s actions caused a storm of Twitter backlash.”

Twitter backlash/reaction is all the justification an editor needs to publish a story. Journalists are now guided by an easy-to-manipulate virtual world. In many cases, Twitter bots dictate the news disseminated to the public.

In my opinion, the American media have declared war on football and the NFL. Making Twitter dependent on the NFL is Roger Goodell’s answer to the New York Times’ concussion narrative. The NFL now has influence over the engine (Twitter) driving nearly all media narratives.

Think this through. Bill Simmons argued that Goodell and the NFL exercised too much influence over ESPN, a brand and business on far more stable footing than Twitter. In early September of 2014, while working at ESPN on different platforms, Keith Olbermann and I called for Roger Goodell’s resignation. A few days later, Simmons uncorked his infamous and over-the-line “liar” podcast.

A year later, the media who cover ESPN argued the Worldwide Leader moved away from employing outspoken, independent thinkers.

Twitter is weak and vulnerable. Its inauthentic political correctness has caused consumers to choose Facebook and Instagram. Desperate for authenticity and audience, Twitter is in no position to offer Goodell, the NFL and other sports leagues much resistance.

The revolution will not be streamed! At least not on Twitter.

Photo credits: Mike Lawrie/Getty Images (top); Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images (bottom)

[jschoolwhitlock]

How To Fix College Basketball

Don’t blame CBS for its shitty NCAA Tournament selection show. Blame American culture.

We don’t fix shit anymore. We just put our hands in the next guy’s pocket. Yeah, I just butchered Frank Sobotka’s legendary quote. Long live I.B.S. Local 1514!  

CBS has been trying to mask college basketball’s decay for 30-plus years, ever since it wrestled the rights from NBC in 1982. And truth is, college basketball has been in decay since Moses Malone skipped the whole college basketball experience in the 1970s.

Hoya Paranoia, the Fab Five, the purity of Duke, the General, Coach K, Tark the Shark, Big John, Dickie V, “Send it in, Jerome!” and even President Obama’s Bracket have all just been television props intended to distract viewers from a carcass that once carried the souls of Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Elvin Hayes and Larry Bird.

Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith, voices of the NBA, are new props, added in recent years to create the illusion that basketball’s most important ambassadors follow a dying brand. It’s not hard to understand why CBS extended the selection show from one hour to two. Have you seen college basketball’s regular-season ratings? Can you really blame CBS/TNT from trying to ring some value out of the $11 billion it gave the NCAA to broadcast college hoops? Next year they should turn the selection show into a 24-hour telethon and announce three teams an hour. Better yet, I’d demand the selection committee completely snub the highest-ranked team in the country, so that there’s something controversial and debatable to talk about. Do something to make Jay Bilas’ head explode on live TV.

Bowing to television pressure and in an attempt to create ticket demand, the selection committee plays games with the seeding process and where teams are sent to play. When your game is devoid of recognizable stars and great teams, you shoot for classic “matchups.” Can we get Kentucky vs. Indiana in round 2? Nothing worse than selling “March Madness” inside a half-empty arena. It won’t be long before a Tim Donaghy-type alleges the officiating is rigged.

This is what happens when you don’t fix problems, when you allow them to linger and fester. You create additional problems. You create corruption.

College basketball is broken. Its problems impact professional basketball. The NBA isn’t nearly as popular as it could be if college basketball was healthy and whole. Everyone knows this. The NBA’s one-and-done rule is just another band-aid that fixed nothing. Ben Simmons at LSU is not a solution. A bunch of Ben Simmonses at Kentucky isn’t a solution, either.

The solution is the NBA, the NCAA, the NBA players association, the shoe companies and their television partners working together to compensate NBA-worthy players for staying in school for four years. That’s the solution. Anything else is just a half-measure.

The NBA, the NCAA, the shoe companies and their television partners can all ante up for some sort of NBA internship program for the top 200 amateur prospects (high school juniors through college seniors). Compensation for the internship program could be tied to academic performance, years in school, draft projection and personal conduct.  Some of the money could be paid immediately, the rest deferred until after college graduation.

I tire of hearing how smart and innovative NBA commissioner Adam Silver is. I see no evidence. Basketball could challenge the NFL’s popularity if the league invested in its young talent in a meaningful way. Silver is the czar of American basketball. His predecessor, David Stern, wrongly believed a college game devoid of Jordan-like stars put the NBA in superior position at the TV negotiating table. It was greed. Fat pigs get slaughtered.

The health of college football and its star-making ability enhances the NFL. Cam Newton’s Auburn career is what has made him so interesting and watchable. The damn NFL Network has turned college kids running around in shorts and a T-shirt (the combine) into must-see TV.

Imagine the TV ratings for a 10-game NBA Summer League filled with amateur interns from America’s top college programs.

Fix basketball and CBS’s selection show won’t be a shitty mess with my man Charles Barkley having to pretend he watched college basketball’s unwatchable regular season.

Photo credits: Andy Lyons/Getty Images (top and bottom)

[jschoolwhitlock]

Concerned Grownup 2016 Questions Tactics/Results Of Concerned Student 1950

The cost of orchestrating an in-your-face, disrespectful and non-strategic civil rights campaign via Twitter is now coming into view.

Maybe now the well-intentioned youth swept up in the Black Lives Matter propaganda will realize the most sophisticated and surveilled country on the planet (USA) won’t be revolutionized in the same 140-character fashion as a CIA-manipulated outpost in Northern Africa (Tunisia). Maybe now the young people who define pro-black as anti-white and dismiss any thoughtful admonishment as respectability politics will begin to recognize the courage and wisdom of strategic civil disobedience.

The Twitter slingshot Black Lives Matter brought to a drone fight has failed to duplicate the “Arab Spring.” It has wrought “Trump Winter.”

Congrats, Black Lives Matter! You didn’t lie. You told us this wouldn’t be our grandparents’ civil rights movement, a movement that produced voting rights, access to schools and eventually President Obama.

Diss-respect, race-bait politics has drastically expanded the Republican base, moved Donald Trump close to the White House and crippled the University of Missouri’s budget. DeRay McKesson and the other BLM activists are the toast of the Tea Party. What the Tea Party couldn’t do in 2012, BLM has done with an ease and swiftness that brings a wide smile to the face of white bigots. Four years after America re-elected a black president by a wide margin, America is as racially polarized as we’ve seen it in 40 years. This isn’t America post-Rodney King or OJ Simpson verdict. Those were one-offs, moments of division sparked by singular events.

America’s mood and spirit now feel hopeless and resigned to racial polarization. We feel like a country that has given up on the melting pot, especially one that includes black and white ingredients. We’re immersed in the celebration of demagoguery and the vilification of each race. Race bait is the media’s cottage industry.

What happened?

If white America was going to reject Barack Obama’s presidency, it would’ve done so after his first term. President Obama isn’t fueling the anger powering Trump Winter. The burning buildings in Ferguson and Baltimore and the wave of racial unrest on college campuses coalesced with widening economic inequality to make Trump palatable and credible.

Political and social strategy dictates picking the right hill to die on. Police brutality is/was the wrong hill. It’s a false flag, a born loser in a country as heavily armed as America. You’re not going to get the American public -- white, black, Latino or Asian -- to side with fleeing criminal suspects over the police. I say that having lost someone close to me to police brutality. The national debate over police misconduct is a ratings-driving, click-producing, Twitter-building media prop. As I’ve stated previously, police brutality is a money-loser for state government. The state isn’t remotely pro-police brutality. The state is pro-mass incarceration. Prisons generate revenue.

BLM’s focus on police misconduct is/was horrible strategy that benefited a select group of folk who built Twitter brands, sold books and hosted talk shows blustering about a problem America can never fix until the Second Amendment is repealed.

Strategy is based in logic, not emotion. The appeal of constructing a movement around police brutality is recognition of its emotional pull. But logic reveals it as flawed strategy. No different from popularizing Twitter feeds, writing and broadcasting brands dedicated to convincing the public that a certain group is inherently evil. Check the Twitter feed of a typical BLM activist. It’s a steady catalogue of every real and imaginary injustice perpetuated by a white person against a black person. Whatever energy you put into the world is generally the energy you get back. Whatever group you see the worst in will soon see the worst in you.

Christianity -- and all forms of spirituality -- requires a courage and wisdom that baffles a generation hoodwinked into believing “woke” means seeing the worst in an enemy.

The true awakening of the black social media generation will come when they begin to understand the level of discipline, strategy, empathy, forgiveness and bravery necessary to convert an adversary into an ally. Whether we like it or not, as a 12-percent minority in America, our path to equality isn’t via hostile takeover, Molotov cocktail or angry, feel-good rhetoric.

Our road is the high one, the one fortified by faith, paved by sacrifice, and travelled by the courageous. Anyone telling us different has a book to sell, movie to make, race-debate television segment to host or is slyly pointing us toward self-destruction.

Our best and brightest young people are being used and abused. Addicted to social media and popular culture, assimilated and enslaved mentally, they’ve bought the myth that anti-white is the new pro-black, that improving white people is the key to black progress. They want black lives to matter more to white people than they do to us.

Any slight by a white person is a reason to whine, cry and demand government intervention. The Missouri football players and a group of their student peers created a $32-million budget shortfall over “hardships” and rude behavior so frivolous that they’re embarrassing to repeat because they point to a fragility that has never defined black folk. Mizzou’s freshman enrollment is down nearly 20 percent. The interim chancellor, Hank Foley, announced the school will slash its budget 5 percent across the board.

There’s no money to pay for the programs and policies demanded by Concerned Students 1950, the Missouri group inspired by Black Lives Matter. The school’s brand has been significantly damaged.

What was gained? A Spike Lee documentary? The resignation of a figurehead who will be replaced by another figurehead?

Whatever was gained won’t be offset by the hardened hearts and feelings powering The Winter of Trump.

The mainstream media, bloggers and Twitter activists who rode Black Lives Matter to relevancy won’t explain the ramifications of childish, emotional and in-your-face civil rights strategy. They’ll say eight years of Obama made America more comfortable with bigotry. They’ll never admit that black rioters, inspired by BLM, burning down a city controlled by a black mayor, black police chief, black attorney general and black city council ripened American voters for Trump.

The propagandized code phrase “respectability politics” makes it easy for young people to dismiss the advice of elders and belittle the tactics that helped deliver us from slavery and Jim Crow and would serve us best in the fight against mass incarceration. What’s difficult to refute is the superiority of the victories won by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and our greatest generation.

Photo credit: Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images (top); Brian Davidson/Getty Images (middle); Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images (bottom)

[jschoolwhitlock]

Kam Chancellor Is Britt McHenry, Baby Girl

I’m going to try to handle this latest sports racial “controversy” with sufficient tact and empathy.

Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor and ESPN broadcaster Cari Champion are both well-intentioned and sincere. They believe they’re fighting discrimination by using their platforms to publicly shame two white women who made the mistake of not recognizing Chancellor’s celebrity and conducting business on Chancellor’s terms.

Chancellor and Champion, black people, are not fighting racial discrimination. They’re being allowed to use their platforms to fight for wealthy celebrities to have their celebrity recognized and catered to at all times. They’re making the same mistake Champion’s white colleague Britt McHenry made in her infamous interaction with a tow company employee.

Many people wondered why ESPN failed to fire McHenry when video of her condescending, “I’m in the news, sweetheart. I’ll fucking sue” tantrum surfaced.

We now know the answer to that question. ESPN does not truly understand the error of McHenry’s behavior. ESPN culture is so immersed in the culture of celebrity that its alleged journalists/broadcasters do not realize journalistic platforms are not intended to be used to advance the cause of celebrity privilege. That’s not to argue celebrities can’t be wronged and are unworthy of defense from the media. But Chancellor was not wronged. Two females in a closed business refused to meet his demands and called the police when he and his four friends would not leave. Stopped by the police five blocks from the business, Chancellor acknowledged that the officers were polite and interacted with him without incident.

Chancellor, in his interview with Champion and others, has directed all of his ire at the two women who refused to meet his demand of providing him information about buying the business. It is exactly the kind of privileged behavior McHenry exhibited. Watch the Chancellor-Champion interview. It’s a fascinating display of celebrity privilege.

Around the 5:30 mark of the video, Chancellor describes how the second woman recognized him as Kam Chancellor of the Seattle Seahawks.

“Wow! That tells me a lot right there,” he tells Champion.

“You’re telling me they knew who you were,” Champion responds incredulously.

These are two celebrities offended that Chancellor wasn’t treated like a celebrity.

Money and fame foster delusion. Chancellor and Champion are carrying on like what he experienced is a step or two away from what Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin experienced. It’s not. It’s not even discrimination.

Here’s a picture Chancellor shared on Instagram of what he and his four friends looked like when they banged on the door, climbed on a wall and took pictures through the window of a closed business.

“Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. According to the 911 call placed by the Redmond Athletic Club, we were identified as homeless, methamphetamine addicts. I had a photo taken of our crew after that disturbing incident and researched images of homeless meth addicts. I’m still searching for similarities. #itwas4pm #broaddaylight #businesscloseat11pm #andshewasaGM

A photo posted by Kameron Chancellor (@bambamkam) on Mar 4, 2016 at 12:56pm PST

My father owned a bar and/or a barbershop in all-black neighborhoods my whole life. He might have shot Chancellor and his friends had they approached his closed business in similar fashion. My father wouldn’t put cream in his coffee. He did not like white people. He existed in an all-black environment by choice, pride and affection. Chancellor would’ve been staring at the barrel of my father’s .38. These women were polite.

Chancellor said he was interested in buying the closed gym. When a non-celebrity wants to do business, they dress for business and they call ahead and announce their intention.

Celebrities, regardless of color, often disconnect from the reality of real people. Chancellor and Champion, like a lot 1-percent black people, have disconnected from the reality of real black people. They think their inconveniences are emblematic of the struggles of real people. They think using their platforms to showcase the inconveniences of other black celebrities is a way of supporting poor black people who face legitimate discrimination. Chancellor had a respectful, awesome experience with the police. Freddie Gray’s family wishes police treated him the way Chancellor was treated. And had Chancellor and his friends banged on my father’s closed business door, he’d realize how respectful and awesome the two white women were. He might realize what happened to him isn’t the experience of poor people of color.

Journalism platforms were intended to be used by people who would speak for and understand the plight of the voiceless and vulnerable. Chancellor isn’t voiceless or vulnerable. He’s spoiled and delusional. Champion is using her platform to enable Chancellor’s delusion and protect celebrity privilege.

It’s disconcerting and disappointing that no editor or executive at ESPN learned a thing from McHenry.

Unchecked privilege -- whether white, black or celebrity -- is ugly to witness, especially when the media disguise it as fighting for racial equality. It’s enough to make you suspect media outlets don’t want to combat real racial discrimination

Photo credit: Otto Greule Jr./Getty Images

[jschoolwhitlock]

Country Corner: King James Chose The Wrong Clothes

This is the second installment of “Country Corner with Uncle Bobby,” a new J.School feature written by Bobby Glanton-Smith. Read the first article here.

The thing about growing up country and poor is we never acknowledged our poverty or lack of big-city sophistication around strangers. Mama kept us suited and booted at church, when we went into town or to any important school functions.

We looked the part.

The young man LeBron James don’t look the part in Cleveland. He left his King’s crown in Miami and applied for Emperor status back home. He claimed new territory that no other player had ever staked a claim to in the history of sports. He wanted all the power, all the responsibility of building a champion. He wanted the power Michael Jordan could never wrestle from Jerry Krause in Chicago. It’s looking like LeBron brought the wrong tailor with him to Cleveland. City folk might say “The Emperor has no clothes.” In Murfreesboro, we’d say “LeBron shit and fell backwards.”

Power corrupts and exposes. The Emperor is now dealing with the unintended consequences of wielding power that compromises the ultimate objective of winning championships.

I’m too old to subtweet. I keep it plain. LeBron built a bad roster and now wants us to believe his “beautiful mind” is just too beautiful to be understood by ordinary folk. Oh, we understand. Hell, we overstand. LeBron blessed the acquisition of Kevin Love and publicly supported the re-signing of Tristan Thompson, a player repped by LeBron’s sports agency. LeBron defended the acquisition of the mercurial J. R. Smith and the often-injured Iman Shumpert and assured everyone that Kyrie Irving would flourish alongside the Emperor. Really? That ain’t what I’m watching when the Cavs play.  

When the axe fell on head coach David Blatt, it was speculated that LeBron ushered him to the gallows and put the blindfold over his head. Whether Blatt was the right fit or not, it raised eyebrows when he was sent packing after guiding the Cavs to the NBA Finals last season and having them perched atop the East 41 games into this season.

How did the Emperor end up naked as a jaybird’s knees?

Ego. Should we be surprised a man with “Chosen1” tatted on his back thinks he solely possesses every gift needed for success? LeBron underestimated the importance of chemistry and miscalculated the length of his reach. The NBA is comprised of the best athletes in the world, all of whom possess their own massive egos. LeBron found two superstars -- Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh -- willing to put their egos on the backburner so LeBron’s could flourish. LeBron took Wade and Bosh for granted.

No wonder LeBron flew down to Miami to hang with Wade and started subtweeting his current teammates. The Emperor wants Kyrie and Love to act like Wade and Bosh. Ain’t happening. It’s like asking your new girl to curl your toes the way your old girlfriend did. She’s insulted you even asked.

LeBron “Emperor” James, like most emperors, needs good retainers, strong advisors. Owner Dan Gilbert needs to step in and clean up LeBron’s mess if the Emperor will allow it. At age 31 and with Golden State fortifying its dynasty, LeBron might bounce to a team ready-made for contention.

LeBron must redefine his legacy in the event he stays in Cleveland. The Emperor is going to have to humble himself. We just saw Peyton Manning do it. John Elway and Gary Kubiak stripped Manning of control of the Broncos, put him in an uncomfortable offense and told Manning to stay out of the way while Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware carried the Broncos to the Super Bowl.

It worked quite well. Can Gilbert and Tyronn Lue duplicate Elway and Kubiak’s blueprint?

If they can’t, the Emperor will spend the rest of his career as the shining example of why ownership should never share power with a player. That’s not the legacy of a King, Emperor or the Chosen1.

Bobby Glanton-Smith is the author of “Let’s Go to Work: The Millionaire Chronicles of Leon T. Garr,” and “Real Men Don’t Play!”

Photo credit: David Kyle Liam/NBAE via Getty Images

[jschoolwhitlock]

Grammar Po Po, Please Ticket Cam And LeBron

Here’s my social media philosophy: Judge my columns. Enjoy my tweets.

It’s my attitude because I believe there’s often a disconnect between what people think and what they believe. We think all kinds of foolish things that we don’t really believe.

Example: I think I’m the perfect man for NBC’s Tamron Hall. I think this most days. Do I believe it? OK, bad example. Better example: I think I’m as handsome as Denzel Washington. Do I believe it? Not really.

My point is, the thoughts spewed on Twitter and Instagram are often incomplete and not reflective of people’s genuine beliefs. Our thoughts help shape our beliefs. The expression of thought also exposes our thinking to higher levels of thinking. That’s what I absolutely love about social media, the opportunity to expose my thoughts to pushback from others. I try not to overreact to people’s thoughts because I know I think a lot of stupid things, too. I’m far more confident in what I believe.

It’s important to be tolerant of people’s impure and incomplete thoughts.

I bring this up because Cam Newton’s Instagram post praising Peyton Manning is being heavily scrutinized. Did Newton troll Manning by twice spelling the word high as “H1GH”? Was that a reference to HGH, human growth hormone?

I am grateful to have shared the field in your LAST game but most importantly I am grateful to have mimicked a style you created to bring out the best in MË! And that style is/was mastering the art of: PREPARAT1ØN. You have changed this game in ways you will never no and I admire the man you are on and off the field. You set the bar H1GH....extremelyH1GH and knowing your family, I know that's just the norm. I came into this league gagging and still gagging my talents to this day off of the things that YOÜ have done and accomplished; because you are and you will FOREVER be the STANDARD! So long SHER1FF! #omahaOMAHA #1STpickGÄNG #iWmW -1OVE

A photo posted by Cam Newton (@cameron1newton) on Mar 7, 2016 at 11:40am PST

I don’t believe it was. Newton misspells numerous words throughout his Instagram post. He uses his jersey number “1” instead of “i” several times in the post. It’s his style. And Newton, like most people on social media, is waging a war against proper grammar. I’ve been an occasional soldier in this conflict. You write/tweet a lot, you’re going to relax the rules and make intentional and unintentional mistakes. It happens.

Journalists and writers have editors for a reason.

Athletes need social media grammar consultants.

LeBron James bragged to the media about his “beautiful mind” when he explained his recent philosophical subtweets. LeBron does have a “beautiful mind.” People could recognize it easier via social media if an editor helped him conjugate subject(s) and verb(s).

Athletes hate the “dumb jock” stereotype. I hate the fat-lazy stereotype. I can combat the stereotype two ways: 1) Don’t be lazy; 2) Lose weight. I have some control over how I’m perceived. If athletes desire recognition of their intellect, they should consider presenting themselves in an intelligent manner via social media.

The substance of what Cam Newton had to say about Manning’s retirement was high class. Unfortunately, Newton presented his tribute in a way that undercut his message. Newton’s lack of “PREPARAT10N” contributed to his message being misinterpreted.

Someone from Auburn’s English department should volunteer to edit Newton’s social media posts or tutor him on grammar. Protect the brand. Newton’s war on grammar is a bad look for Auburn, too.

Gauging the reaction to his Manning post, Newton is “gagging” all over his Auburn education.

Should athletes handle their own social media? @ColinCowherd & @WhitlockJason discuss. #TheHerdhttps://t.co/9Bf8mMvMx5

— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd)

March 8, 2016

Photo credit: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

[jschoolwhitlock]

Vilifying Peyton Manning A Futile, Foolish Mistake

The vigilante journalists, social justice warriors and feminist media personalities determined to stain Peyton Manning’s legacy won a fleeting victory Monday.

During the most memorable retirement ceremony since Lou Gehrig declared himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth” 76 years ago, a reporter asked Manning to comment on a two-decades-old controversy the New York Daily News reshaped into the second coming of Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill.

You could hear champagne corks popping all over social media. Peyton Manning was shamed for all of three or four seconds on one of the greatest days of his life. A segment of the sports media held him accountable for an allegation we don’t know to be true but one that fits important, clickable agendas -- sexual harassment and white privilege.   

It’s a victory that will hurt black athletes and black people in the long run. That’s a consequence the politically correct won’t share with “Black Twitter,” the group that has come to see Manning as the embodiment of white privilege. The truth is, Peyton Manning as racial-wedge issue is a loser for black people. We lose when we diminish a man for moving past mistakes made in his youth.

Before I go further, let me be clear: The single inquiry regarding Manning’s Tennessee locker-room incident did no damage to Manning’s classy retirement ceremony. Manning easily brushed it aside, the media gathered in Denver eventually laughed it off, and the national media pretty much ignored it all together. ESPN’s audio feed mysteriously short-circuited during Manning’s reply.

Furthermore, USA Today reporter Lindsay Jones’ tone and framing of the question conveyed respect and possibly planning. Manning and his handlers knew someone would ask and they had to appreciate Jones’ delivery.

No direct mention of the seemingly unstable, obsessed, money-driven accuser or her sensationalized accusations, punctuated with a vague, open-ended question.

“What can you say now about those allegations and how this has maybe overtaken the discussion?”

Properly teed up, Manning did not dodge.

“I think it is sad that some people don’t understand the truth and the facts and I did not do what has been alleged and I’m not interested in re-litigating something that happened when I was 19 years old. ... And like Forrest Gump said, ‘That’s all I have to say about that.’”

And with that, the vigilantes, media feminists and social justice warriors had their long-fought-for victory.

But it’s not our victory. Not black folk.

Watching Manning get ambushed and shamed the past month over a mistake that arguably cost him the Heisman Trophy in 1997 and a significant sum of money in 2003 made me think of a close family member who has spent the past five years trying to recover from a serious criminal mistake. He’s a terrific young person. He’s an ex-con. He did something stupid and terrible years ago. He did his time. People don’t want to let it go. It was hard for me to let it go.

But I don’t want to live in a society that doesn’t forgive. I’ve made too many mistakes. Young people make mistakes. Young people growing up in broken homes and poverty arguably make more mistakes than their more-supervised, affluent two-parent peers.

Did social justice warriors miss the point of season 4 of The Wire? Forgiveness and empathy should be core principles for people concerned about the plight of poor people of color, people suffering the ramifications of our unfair criminal justice system. Core principles should not fluctuate based on race and wealth. I want Peyton Manning treated with the same empathy as my ex-con cousin. That’s a standard that works for black people over the long haul.

Teenage mistakes should not haunt a person two decades later, especially when the person has spent the subsequent 20 years conducting himself in exemplary fashion.  

Peyton Manning never hid from his Tennessee mistake. He apologized in 1996 via voicemail and registered letter. He addressed Jamie Naughright’s allegations in a book in 2002 and paid for violating the non-disclosure agreement he signed with her.

What did the people clamoring for Manning to address this expect him to say in 2016 that he didn’t say in his book?

This is a manufactured controversy that serves no good purpose. Will Kobe Bryant now have to address Colorado at the conclusion of this NBA season? What is the statute of limitations on media shame?

The media haven’t treated Manning’s transgression seriously. If the vigilantes, warriors and feminists were remotely serious about the 1996 incident, they would be questioning the adults who investigated the incident and disciplined Manning 20 years ago. Manning was a kid who did something childish. He apparently corrected course. Based on the current lawsuit filed by six women against the University of Tennessee for enabling an environment of sexual harassment and assault, the adults running the athletics department at UT didn’t learn as much as Manning did from the Naughright fiasco.

But there are no instant clicks to be earned from questioning non-famous administrators. Challenging the highly sophisticated, American establishment for positive change requires strategy and patience. We’re not Tunisia, ground zero for the Arab Spring.

We’re America, home of the world’s most advanced system of governance and defense. That probably explains why our social justice warriors foolishly believe vilifying Manning advances the cause of people of color.

[jschoolwhitlock]

Who’s Bad? Curry, The King Of Dropped, And The New Jack 5

Stephen Curry captured our imagination Saturday night.

The reigning MVP and leader of the defending NBA champion Warriors entered a rare entertainment galaxy, a solar system inhabited by truly transcendent stars, the performers who make us contemplate the meaning of art and leave an indelible mark on the Zeitgeist.

The Saturday Night Special Curry unloaded in Oklahoma City felt like Michael Jackson unveiling the moonwalk while singing Billie Jean during “Motown 25: Yesterday, Tomorrow, Forever.” Curry’s 2015-16 season is a remake of Jackson’s Thriller, an endless release of shimmy-worthy, Scoreboard Magazine hits. The 46 points and 32-foot, game-winning dagger Curry dropped comprise the performance that launched Curry to a higher stratosphere.

The Thunder controlled Saturday’s contest pretty much start to finish. They outplayed the Warriors, leading by as many as 14 points and for all but 29 seconds. Golden State had lost 11 of the 12 previous times it had visited OKC. Early in the third quarter, Russell Westbrook, the second-best player in the league and the freakish, muscular anti-Curry, crashed on the MVP’s ankle, sending Curry into the locker room hobbling.

They make movies about what Curry did once he returned. He finished the night with an NBA-record 12 three-pointers, including the heave heard round the league.

“@StephenCurry30 needs to stop it man!! He’s ridiculous man! Never before seen someone like him in the history of ball,” LeBron James tweeted.

Steph Curry and the Warriors have reached a level of must-see television we rarely see.

In Europe, sports writers are comparing Curry to Lionel Messi. There is no higher praise when assessing the skill of an athlete. Messi is Europe’s Willie Mays, the perfect combination of skill and flair. More than that, the 5-foot-7 Messi is a relatable and loveable undersized dynamo, a boy toy making fools of giants. He’s Europe’s “Baby Assassin.”

Curry is ours. He’s Michael Jackson crooning Got to Be There, demanding that we stop what we’re doing and pay attention to his final 24 regular-season games. But the Warriors are not a solo act. Curry, The King of Dropped, fronts a New Jack(son) 5.

If the Warriors catch Michael Jordan’s 72-win Incredi-Bulls, Saturday’s overtime victory will be Golden State’s signature performance. Trailing by 11 points, Draymond Green cussed out his teammates at halftime, went on to miss all eight of his shots and still managed a team-high plus-minus of +10 thanks to 14 rebounds, 14 assists, six steals and four blocks. On an off-night, Klay Thompson put up 32 points. With the Warriors struggling out the gate, Andre Iguodala came off the bench, erupted for 10 points and then played the background until knocking down the two free throws that sent the game into overtime.    

This is the Victory Tour.

The Warriors stand at 53-5. They’ve yet to lose a home game this season. Saturday’s win concluded a post-All Star Weekend, six-game road trip. Seventeen of their remaining 24 contests tip inside the Oracle Arena. If they hold serve at home, they win 70. On the road, they play the Lakers, the Mavericks, the Spurs, the Timberwolves, the Jazz, the Grizzlies and the Spurs again. Not an easy stretch.

Michael Jordan’s legendary Bulls team will likely have some company at the top.

But it’s clear the Warriors want this piece of history. How else do you explain Green’s halftime tirade at the end of a rigorous road trip in February? They’re taking inspiration and motivation from the old, retired guys taking potshots at their finesse style of play and Curry’s bombing. The thought of 73 victories bores the Warriors. It leaves the question of greatest of all time up for debate. Seventy-five settles the debate.

The Big O and others can justifiably complain that the rule changes have made basketball and scoring easier, less physically demanding. They can further argue that the expansion of teams dilutes the skill level of the league. Oscar Robertson competed in the NBA when the league featured nine to 18 teams. But the discipline to compete and win night after night transcends eras and sports.

The Warriors aren’t Floyd Mayweather, ducking challengers until they’re washed up. They’re not Rocky Marciano or Larry Holmes dominating a weak era. The NBA Western Conference is loaded. The Spurs, the Thunder and even the Clippers are legitimate threats. Curry and the Dubs ascend in the era of LeBron James. The ‘96 Bulls were Jordan’s first team after his two-year hiatus and long after Magic, Larry and Isiah had stepped away. Golden State is doing this with a champion’s bull’s eye on its jersey. The Bulls won because Jordan played with the eye of a Tiger, determined to cement his legacy and re-establish his dominance. The defending champion Warriors are getting every team’s best shot. In ‘95-96, bothered by accusations that gambling impropriety contributed to his father’s murder and led to an undeclared suspension, Jordan gave his best shot.  

And finally, God bless the ‘72 Dolphins, but Don Shula’s boys didn’t face a playoff qualifier in the regular season. Miami’s regular-season opponents posted a 51-86-3 record.

The ‘72 Dolphins are Elvis Presley, the kings of a bygone era who might have to share their throne with a new king and his court. These Warriors and Steph Curry are that Bad.

Photo credits: Layne Murdoch/NBAE via Getty Images (top); Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images (middle); Barry Gossage/NBAE via Getty Images (bottom)

[jschoolwhitlock]

Black Twitter Feels Good While Killing Black Progress

Dear Black Twitter:

There is a lesson to be learned from the Melissa Harris-Perry-MSNBC fiasco. Twitter will play no role in our salvation.

Twitter is not the real world.

For us, black folk, Twitter is a distracting playpen manipulated to appear as ground zero for a racial-equality revolution. For white folk, Black Twitter is a media observatory manipulated to make us appear wholly disinterested in equality, delusionally entitled and convinced of America’s wickedness.

Black Twitter is the wind propelling Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Hillary “Little Bill” Clinton toward the White House and ushering Harris-Perry off television. Black Twitter and its companion, #BlackLivesMatter, form the Trojan Horse designed to ensure there is no Next Obama.

Harris-Perry, a book-smart and strong woman, constructed and operated her show solely for the approval of Black Twitter. She cast herself as the light-skinned, female Ta-Nehisi Coates, a nerdy, intellectual down to castigate white folk from the safety of a laptop, white college classroom, TV studio or charity cocktail party.

Her #Nerdland hashtag trended nearly every weekend. Her ratings did not.

Twitter isn’t real. It’s a tool that benefits people skilled at spreading propaganda. Propaganda has never been black people’s friend. The truth has been at the foundation of our American liberation.

Here’s a hard truth: Black Twitter and #BlackLivesMatter do not serve our interests. They satisfy us emotionally and undermine us strategically. They’re a bridge to nowhere.

There’s a lesson to be learned in the Melissa Harris-Perry mess.

They’re a bridge to swallowing whole the Coates-propagated, Communist-celebrated religious scripture that America is unshakably evil toward black folk. That’s akin to the hopelessness Kool-Aid Jim Jones served 900 followers in 1978. Jones, an egotist influenced by Communism and worshiped like Coates, led a flock of sheep, a high percentage of them black, all the way to Guyana, South America in search of building a Utopian world that would deal with diversity and equality better than our United States.

Jones orchestrated a mass suicide. Hopelessness and demagoguery are death’s Molotov cocktail. You can’t dilute or re-purpose their killing power with religion, atheism, writing awards or Twitter praise.  

America is imperfect. But an objective study of its history reveals its bend toward fairness … when properly engaged by citizens interested in fairness and committed to the idea of preserving Americanism.

Black Twitter, #BlackLivesMatter and the Peoples Temple of Coates come across to mainstream Americans as anarchists. The riots in Ferguson and Baltimore and the overthrow of the University of Missouri president strike Black Twitter as necessary steps in improving America.

Those events strike the real world quite differently. They feel like a reason to vote for Trump, Rubio, Cruz or “Little Bill” Clinton, law-and-order presidential candidates who will write the epilogue to Michelle Alexander’s book on mass incarceration.

Black Twitter feels good. Black Twitter is bad strategy.

We loved and followed Martin Luther King Jr., because we believed in his strategy. We respected and loved Malcolm X because his rhetoric made us feel good and/or proud. Strategy vs. Emotion.

We’ve completely abandoned strategy in favor of what feels good. We’ve abandoned who we are, Christian conservatives, to follow hopeless, atheist, liberal demagogues. We foolishly think fiery rhetoric opened schools, neighborhoods, voting booths and the White House. We think Malcolm X was Martin Luther King’s equal.

American black folk, the lost children of Africa, the marchers on the very journey that proves a higher power, have raised a generation that thinks religious faith is the enemy of black progress.    

Our delusion is embarrassing and deadly.  

This is what happens when you overdose on Between the World and Me and other forms of eternal victimhood when your country is trying to recover from economic crisis. No one feels sorry for you. Hell, liberal icon Bill Maher is now railing on “f--king idiot” #BlackLivesMatter protesters.

Melissa Harris-Perry is shocked MSNBC’s year-long abandonment of liberal ideology includes kicking her and #BlackLivesMatter to the curb. Did she not understand the significance of Al Sharpton getting his weekday show snatched? Has she not noticed the tenor of Rachel Maddow’s and Chris Hayes’s shows have moved right?   

Black Twitter, this is said with love, drink the Kool-Aid Harris-Perry just swallowed and go away. You’ve done enough damage. It’s time for black folk to re-embrace strategy and the fulfillment of Dr. King’s Dream.

Photo credits: Johnny Nunez/WireImage (top); Shahar Azran/WireImage (bottom)

[jschoolwhitlock]

Tennessee Lawsuit Should Dismantle NCAA

The sexual assault allegations engulfing the University of Tennessee can serve as a catalyst for real and necessary change within college athletics as long as we commit to looking beyond the obvious.

If we demonize the Tennessee athletics department, crucify head football coach Butch Jones, remain transfixed on the Peyton Manning clickbait, we’ll blow past the bigger picture and enable the corrosive status quo.

Tennessee is a window to observe the rotted soul of NCAA sh-amateurism, a corrupt revenue-generator that invests the profits gleaned from football and basketball players in buildings, equipment, coaches, administrators, bowl executives and Olympic/welfare sports.

What is “rape culture”? It’s a culture that easily tolerates physical and emotional exploitation, a culture that exploits the weak, a culture fueled by duplicity.

NCAA culture is rape culture. Sh-amateurism is a system of exploitation and we should not be shocked at the different forms of exploitation that it spawns.

You do not have to accept my definition of the modern-day NCAA. Walter Byers, a white conservative from Kansas, created the modern NCAA and defined the organization this way in his 1997 memoir Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting the Student-Athlete:

“Today the NCAA Presidents Commission is preoccupied with tightening a few loose bolts in a worn machine, firmly committed to the neo-plantation belief that the enormous proceeds from college games belong to the overseers (administrators) and supervisors (coaches). The plantation workers performing in the arena may only receive those benefits authorized by the overseers.”

More than likely, we, the media, will single out Tennessee and pretend there is something unique about Rocky Top. It’s what we do. We don’t examine the system as a whole. Rocky Top will be demonized in the same manner as Happy Valley in the wake of Jerry Sandusky. Three years ago, the media hyperventilated over Manti Teo’s fake girlfriend and ignored the suicide of Lizzy Seeberg, a college freshman who accused a Notre Dame football player of rape.

Rocky Top, Happy Valley and the Golden Dome are not evil. They’re environments ruled by a corrupt system.

We have been trained to ignore the big picture, avoid uncomfortable truths that expose the malfeasance of the establishment and delude ourselves with harmless, false-equivalency hot takes about Gronk and Cam.

Tennessee can shake us from our slumber. This story is explosive. At the heart of the lawsuit that alleges Tennessee’s athletic environment enables rape is the story of Drae Bowles, a black former Tennessee football player.

Bowles was assaulted by one teammate and harassed by several others because he drove a female friend to the hospital after she claimed she’d been raped by two black Tennessee football players. Bowles further alleges Jones chastised him for “betraying” his teammates. One of Bowles’ harassers allegedly told police that people from his neighborhood get shot for doing what Bowles did. The Tennessean newspaper has more details.

The Tennessee locker room sounds like a West Baltimore corner where snitching can get you beat down or worse. The culture sounds similar to the Miami Dolphins locker room war-lorded by Richie Incognito.

How? Why? What explains an idyllic college campus warehousing a prison culture?

The easy answer -- the one that will be shared around dinner tables, on barstools and across talk radio -- is that Tennessee recruited too many “thugs.” Sports writers/bloggers will argue the same thing more politely and cleverly. They’ll blame Butch Jones for not “controlling” his players or shedding the handful of bad apples. The media will call for the university to hire a few counselors to train the players.

The easy answer will lead to a series of easy solutions.

The real solution is a complete cultural overhaul of college athletics, a tearing down of the amateur lie and a makeover of a system that acts as Robin the ‘Hood.

Off the backs of football and basketball players -- a great many of whom are black, raised in broken homes and academically unprepared for college -- the NCAA generates billions of dollars that it invests in non-football and basketball players.

Since the advent of ESPN in 1979, television has dumped billions of dollars into college athletics, turning the NCAA into Wall Street, an environment overrun by greed and corruption. College football and basketball are The Big Short, a triple-A-rated stock derivative being used to inflate the value of fraudulent stock derivatives (Olympics sports). The overuse, misuse and the weakening (particularly men’s college hoops) have made the NCAA’s triple-A-rated sports far more high risk and much more prone to risk-taking.

The seasons, conferences, bowl games and playoffs have all been expanded in an attempt to generate more and more money. Every college believes if it builds better football and basketball facilities that will translate into more revenue and more revenue means higher coaching and administrator salaries for all sports.

Greed is good! There’s a little Gordon Gekko in every big-time coach and administrator within college athletics.

It’s all a ponzi scheme. Read this story, this story and this story about the financial crisis at Tennessee.

It’s the financial pressure that breeds desperation and corruption. Those 16 coaches at Tennessee that held a joint “nothing to see here” press conference are protecting their financial interests. They’re justifiably resolute in their belief that there’s nothing unique about Tennessee’s athletic culture. Tennessee’s culture is no different from Alabama’s or Fresno State’s or Ball State’s or Duke’s.

OK, one school might be worse than another school, but not in a way that is significant.

The culture of greed pervasive within big-time college sports pretty much dictates fraud and exploitation. It demands that the NCAA not properly invest in the athletes it uses to generate all the revenue.

For the NCAA to work properly and ethically, it would need to invest in its revenue-generating athletes long before they arrived on college campuses. You can’t fix the culture within a college football locker room with programs used when the athletes enroll at age 18. The athletes bring the culture with them.

If the NCAA wants football and basketball players ready for the full college experience and in the proper mindset, the NCAA must take the responsibility of preparing those athletes starting at age 10, 11 and 12.

Or the NCAA must return amateur athletics to its root, a leisure endeavor for the upper class. Amateurism was created to exclude the working class and the poor. Think about that. Should we be surprised that a system designed to exclude the working class and poor fails the working class and poor?

This column is not written to deflect from the apparent abhorrent behavior of Butch Jones and some of his players. It’s written to point us toward the solution that stops it from happening again and again.

College football does not effectively support and train many of the players it recruits from difficult backgrounds. The only way to correct that is to start the support and training when the athletes are much younger. Other countries have academies for their young athletes. The NCAA should, too. That requires resources, resources that are currently allocated for $4 million coaching salaries, new facilities and the overfunding of sports that do not generate a single dollar. A coach with a $3 million salary on the line and an athletic director with $1 million riding on wins and losses are going to take far more risks than coaches and ADs making far less money.

Greed is not good. Greed is exploitation’s bestfriend. Exploitation powers rape culture.

You don’t want to pay athletes a substantial stipend while they’re in college? I can agree with that as long as we invest real dollars in their development as children. That’s the real solution to this Tennessee mess. Everything else you’ll hear is just support for the status quo

Photo credit: Brett Deering/Getty Images

[jschoolwhitlock]

Gronk, Barkley Can Save Journalism And Cam

Rob Gronkowski isn’t new. We’ve seen him before. We’ve seen phenomenally talented athletes burn bright on the field and burn brighter off it. We’ve loved them, we’ve loved to hate them and we’ve loved living vicariously through them as they flirted with excess.

Rob Gronkowski is as old as Babe Ruth, as irresponsible as Charles Barkley, as debaucherous as John Daly and as free as Dennis Rodman.

Gronk is YOLO. You Only Live Once. That’s not new. And neither is our reaction to it. Sports media have always been attracted to athletes unconcerned with being stereotypical role models. The illusion of flawed authenticity has always sold in America as feverishly as the illusion of perfection.

The two greatest television characters of my lifetime are Cliff Huxtable and Tony Soprano. In retirement, Peyton Manning, if he chooses, could be the broadcasting ying to Barkley’s yang, the Golden Boy vs. the Bad Boy.

There’s nothing new about Rob Gronkowski. Some wealthy public figures choose to live their flawed lives transparently and the media go along for the ride.

Remember when Charles Barkley was throwing fans through windows, accidently spitting on little girls sitting courtside and rejecting the role-model label? Hell, remember a few years ago when police busted him drunk on his way to get a BJ?

Gronkowski is 26, single, the best tight end in football and a Super Bowl champion. That resume buys you a lot of transparency. Success is such a wonderful deodorant. Men and women have used it to cover all sorts of sins since the beginning of time.

There’s very little original about Gronk. He’s Trump.

What’s new is the immaturity and desperation of the media. What’s new is hype-o-thetically asking whether Cam Newton could party on a boat in the same manner as Gronkowski without receiving media scorn and implying that racial bias explains why Cam can’t party like a rock star.

What’s new is racial, false-equivalency journalism, the hottest of all hot takes. All the kids are doing it at the request and approval of desperate, clueless adults.

A college intern at the Sporting News threw coals on the Gronkowski hot-take fire earlier this week. A blogger at USA Today scoured Twitter and found a couple of clueless NFL players playing the false-equivalency, Gronk-Cam game on social media.

Stop the presses! Two professional athletes have a delusional, unsophisticated thought.  

I’m embarrassed for my profession, print/written journalism. We’re being exposed as frauds. Watching journalism shed all of its standards of fairness, accuracy and mature perspective makes me think of the movie Trading Places, the hilarious comedy that righteously argued poverty and circumstance explain America’s black-white racial dilemma.

Journalism is the Dan Aykroyd character Louis Winthorpe III, a white Wall Street broker stripped of his wealth and reputation. Winthorpe quickly turns criminal and desperate.

Stripped of solid financial support and forced to compete in real time because of technological advances, written journalism has adopted all the tactics of bad television. Contrived, shortsighted racial controversy now rules print journalism.

Poverty dismantled journalism’s ethics and dignity. Winthorpe partnered with Eddie Murphy’s character Billy Ray Valentine and they concocted a scheme to bankrupt their manipulators and trade places with them.

At the moment, I don’t see a happy ending for journalists and journalism. We’re incapable of saving ourselves. People who see themselves as victims wait for superheroes to save them. We’re waiting.

Our only hope is for the athletes to cape up and save us. We need more Gronkowskis and Barkleys, athletes willing to be true to their identities and live transparently. Why do we love Barkley and Gronk? Because they truly don’t give a f--k what the media say about them. They’re enjoying life and don’t see themselves as victims.

Cam Newton needs to shed the victim mentality the media desperately want him to embrace. If he wants to kick it on the field, if he wants to be the Deion Sanders of quarterbacks, he needs to do it full speed and ignore the people who don’t like it. People will love him for the authenticity.

It’s hard to fully embrace a victim, a front-runner. Millionaire athletes who want to complain publicly about false-equivalency double standards don’t connect with real people with real problems. They connect with the millennial lightweight “journalists” who think they’re fighting racial discrimination by throwing out groundless hype-o-thetical racial false equivalencies.

If Cam Newton wants to be treated like Gronk and Barkley, he has to act like them.

[jschoolwhitlock]

Tyson’s Former Manager: Holm-Rousey Rematch A Mistake

The following piece was submitted to J.School by John Horne, Mike Tyson’s former co-manager.

The most dangerous and difficult fighter to beat is the confident, undefeated champion. I worked with one for several years, Iron Mike Tyson.

After watching Ronda Rousey break down in tears on The Ellen Degeneres Show, I don’t think she has any business getting back in the ring with Holly Holm at this time. She’s too wounded, too vulnerable.

Fight champions historically come from poverty and depressing upbringings. Beating every opponent put in front of them is their path to a better life. When they finally reach that goal and receive the accolades and attention they never thought possible, there is only one thing they truly fear will take everything away from them: Losing.

Stripped of their mythical invincibility, they fear returning back to what and where they once were. In the moments after losing to Holm, Ronda said she thought she was nothing without her belt, without her title as world champion. When she said those words to Ellen, it made me immediately think of Mike Tyson and his February 1990 loss to Buster Douglas.

Ronda and Mike were both overwhelming favorites to win, so much so that oddsmakers could hardly find customers to bet on their opponents. They both were undefeated, confident and cocky. Their attitudes dared reporters to even ask about the remote possibilities of them losing. One more amazing similarity is that Ronda and Mike both loss in a faraway land. Mike lost in Japan. Ronda was beaten in Australia.

When a world champion loses for the first time, he or she will never be as difficult to beat again. They can return to greatness. Muhammad Ali did. But they’re easier to beat, no question about it.

Rousey took everything she could possibly muster into that ring with her in Australia. When things got tough and began to go in a direction she could have never imagined, she dug deeper. She’s a true warrior. She would’ve chosen death rather than walk out of the octagon a loser. Holly Holm destroyed Rousey. It was a one-sided fight. Ronda knows this. That’s why the pain is so deep. Being the baddest woman on the planet meant everything to Ronda Rousey. That’s what she shared with Ellen.

You may not want to rush back into this mess, Ronda.

But, in the fight game, whether it be boxing or MMA, the prerequisite conditions that should determine whether there should be a rematch is whether the original fight was close. There should be clear evidence that the first fight was truly competitive. Maybe a judge’s scoring was really questioned. Maybe a referee stopped the fight way too soon, a questionable disqualification.

What most of the world does not know about Mike Tyson’s career is that if everything would have been executed from management’s agenda rather than Mike making the final decision, the second Evander Holyfield fight — The Bite Fight — never would have occurred when it did. The world saw Mike get beat soundly by Holyfield in the first fight. Behind the scenes we had a clear path both professionally and financially laid out for Mike in case of a devastating loss.

Even in defeat, Mike was a box-office draw. The deal that we created for Mike with Showtime and MGM allowed for Mike to go into his next fight immediately with then-IBF champion Michael Moorer with a guaranteed purse of at least $25 million. We implored Mike to take his time and take advantage of his negotiated benefits. We wanted Mike to take on an easier opponent before hopping back into the ring with Holyfield. I believe Mike recognized this as much as we did, but what Mike faced everywhere he went was all the noise pushing him to immediately fight Holyfield again. The noise, the outside voices challenged Mike’s manhood. Mike gave into the noise and decided to immediately fight Holyfield again.

Let’s don’t challenge Ronda’s womanhood. Let’s hope she makes a smart decision.

Ronda is in no condition to be the one to make the decision that she should fight Holly Holm in a rematch. The prerequisites are not set at all. The first fight wasn’t close. Ronda was overwhelmed. She did no damage to Holly at all.

This rematch is being pushed by the public. It’s our selfishness and desire to understand how could we have been so wrong. Did that really happen in that ring? Can we see it again to be sure we were not right? Ronda Rousey is the last person on earth to decide on a rematch. But what can she do? Everywhere she goes, everyone is pushing her. Before they even ask is she OK, they’re telling her the first fight must have been a fluke. But Ronda knows better. She was there. She felt every blow, every kick. What is Ronda to do? Be looked upon as a coward by the same people that she always wanted to make proud? She would rather die in that ring.

No, this decision is supposed to be made by the people who not only want to protect Ronda, but also protect the reputation of the already-fractured fight game. Pump the brakes on a Holm-Rousey rematch.

Photo credits: Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images (top); Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images (bottom)

[jschoolwhitlock]

Rebuttal: Don’t Ignore the Culture Behind the Peyton Manning Accusations

Lyndsey D'Arcangelo is a freelance writer/author based in Buffalo, N.Y. Here, she writes a letter to Jason Whitlock after his recent column on the media’s treatment of the not-so-new Peyton Manning allegations.

Hi, Jason.

I wonder how many emails you get in response to your commentary, and how many you actually read. Perhaps this will be one of them.

Sigh. I admit it. I've always been a Peyton Manning fan. Both on and off the field. His quarterback play in his prime was like watching poetry in motion. And his good, goofy guy image in commercials and in Saturday Night Live skits have always amused me. That's why, when I first read the column by Shaun King, I was shocked. Peyton Manning? THE Peyton Manning, did what?

Like you, I initially had a hard time believing that he actually sat on said trainer's face with his genitalia exposed. It seemed so ridiculous, especially when trying to imagine the logistics of the whole thing. The report Mr. King referenced, as you and other writers have pointed out, is one-sided. But there are some parts of the column you left out in your write-up that are puzzling to me.

There was a witness in the locker room, was there not? And that particular witness confirmed the trainer's story, right? And there were other undisclosed incidents before this one, correct? There is also the fact that after the lawsuit was settled, Manning brought up the incident of his own accord in a book he wrote with his father. I'm not saying that these things are proof or an admission of guilt, but that should cause pause.

Clearly, Mr. King should have taken what he had unearthed and vetted some sources and information before writing his column. That much I agree with.

Still, I find it troubling that two journalists such as yourselves cannot engage in an intelligent conversation with each other over this matter without resorting to some kind of Twitter beef. I don't know Mr. King, and I'm not one to engage in character defamation based on rumors and whatnot. I also do not feel comfortable talking about the Black Lives Matter movement as a white, gay female.

Here comes the transition.

As a white, gay female, I may be more inclined than you or other former male football players to believe that Peyton did in fact sexually assault (or harass?) the trainer. In my writing career, I have interviewed numerous female (and gay) athletes, coaches and administrators. Their stories, while all different and inspiring, include one common thread -- the difficulty of working in the male-dominated sports world. Many of them have been discriminated against due to their gender from a physical, emotional and mental standpoint. Now, before you roll your eyes and think, "Oh, here comes the gender card," hear me out.

As your former colleague at ESPN, Kate Fagan, pointed out in this well-written commentary, the University of Tennessee has a history of covering up past sexual harassment and gender discrimination incidents. That also causes me pause in regards to Manning.

Nobody is talking about that, though. Nobody really talks about it all. The playing field for females in the sports world is by no means level, and even worse so for gay women. Just look at the uproar that was caused by the Buffalo Bills hiring a female coach a few weeks ago. The discriminatory and foul language hurled at her on various social media sites was palpable. It's a cloud that still hangs over us to this day, despite Becky Hammon and Kathryn Smith. I'm sure if I sat down and chatted with these women, they'd have some stories of discrimination of their own to share.

In the opening paragraph of your column, you said, "I may be proven wrong later, but it's difficult for me to believe that in 1996 Peyton Manning pulled his pants down and sat on the face of a University of Tennessee female trainer."

Maybe, just maybe, that's part of a larger problem -- that a lot men (and former and current college/pro athletes) have a hard time believing that this kind of thing does in fact happen to women, on a very consistent and regular basis? And that even someone like Peyton Manning could be the perpetrator.

I suppose, in the end, that is why I am more inclined to think that it is possible things went down the way the trainer said. Because I am a female. Because it has happened before. Because until the culture changes for women in college and professional sports, it will keep happening.

Does that mean that I think Peyton Manning is guilty? No. Does that mean I think he's innocent? I don't know.

To me, ultimately, it's not about that. It's about this same old story, being told a million times over, about the treatment of women in sports. It's a broken record that I'm tired of hearing. Peyton Manning or not.

Thanks for hearing me out.

Lyndsey D'Arcangelo

Photo credit: Sporting News via Getty Images

[jschoolwhitlock]

Country Corner: Cam, Jerry West And Jim Brown Can Paint A Bigger Picture

Introducing “Country Corner with Uncle Bobby,” a new J.School feature written by Bobby Glanton-Smith.

Dear Cameron Newton:

Hey, young brother, it’s Uncle Bobby. Just a country boy from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I was country before it was cool.  What else could I be but country growing up down South in the 1950s? Life was hard and simple in that era. We had no choice but to accept responsibility for our actions. I suspect that’s a lesson you will learn as time passes, as you pursue football immortality.

A close friend of mine lost eight times in the NBA Finals. One time the white boy… I’m sorry, the great and honorable Jerry West… won the MVP while playing for the losing team. Jerry was a bad mofo. Still is. Anyway, Mr. West told me facing the media afterwards was as difficult as losing. But he faced the music. Last week, Mr. West told me he will share that with you in a letter. The old f--k doesn’t use computers. Hell, I don’t really either, but Whitlock said he’d let me scribble a few words on this blog if I could figure out how to email.

So here I am writing you a letter. Us country folk gotta stick together. And, son, I love what you can represent. Hopefully you will learn that individual talent has limitations when playing a team sport. More important, you got to take the crooked with the straight. If the sun shined all the time, the world would be a desert. You like the desert? It’s cool some of the time, especially when I get out to Vegas and see the lights. But I’m a country boy at heart. I like the trees and the grass and fishing in the lake a mile from my mama’s house in Tennessee. I like the rain, Cam. Not to go all New Edition, Cam, but can you stand the rain?

You play with so much joy and have so much fun. But your mettle will be tested. Them other boys on them other teams gonna eat sometimes, too.   Nothing wrong with being a sore loser, but you can’t walk away from the microphone that has made you the megastar you’ve become. If you turn and run, them pundits gonna ride you like Roy Rogers rode Trigger. You strong, you from damn good stock, but they can break you, Cam.

Thanks to my relationship with the great and honorable Jim Brown and his Amer-I-Can Foundation I know some of the hardest, indestructible men on the planet. Guys that have been to jail and hell and back. None of them survived on their own. None of them survived without adopting a bigger vision. Guess that’s why I’m writing, Cam. When you truly see yourself as part of a bigger vision, losing a game will hurt but it won’t take you to such a low place that your opponents see they damaged you.

Jim Brown got up the same way after every tackle. Slow. He never let his opponent know what he was feeling. It was a mindf--k. Drove them boys crazy. Made ‘em believe Jim was Superman.

Jim’s vision was always bigger than football. He was about business. Still is.

Bobby Glanton-Smith

The NFL recently approved the move of the Rams to Los Angeles (actually, to Inglewood) and plans have already been developed to build a sparkling new $2-billion-dollar stadium. Jim Brown has formed an alliance between his Amer-I-Can Foundation for Social Change and Wendell Stemley, the President of the National Association of Minority Contractors and the CEO/Founder of Black IPO. Mr. Stemley has a track record of placing chronically unemployed residents in urban communities to work on multi-million-dollar construction projects. His business model is cost-effective without handicapping the bottom line of developers.  More important, there is a national labor shortage in the construction industry that has already delayed numerous projects nationwide. Their aim is to meet expeditiously with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Rams owner Stan Kronke and present a plan of action that will make dollars and sense.

You still reading, Cam? You didn’t realize old Uncle Bobby, a country boy, could talk shit and business in the same letter. As my mama always told us,  “Don’t forget where you’re from, but remember you was put on this earth to go somewhere far from here.”

Anyway, poverty is a serial killer. And if left to its own devices, it will eat away at the fabric of America. Instead of worrying about a temporary stumbling block, Cam, you can follow a trail already blazed and help put  Americans back to work. Help us embrace a bigger vision. Living-wage jobs turn predators into tax payers. It converts lost souls into productive citizens, capable of providing for their children and stabilizing war-torn communities.  

So, Cam, and the modern-day stars of sports, take a wider view of the game you are blessed to play and connect with the social conscience of the trailblazers that excelled on the field before you and used their stardom to affect positive social and economic change in the larger society.  

Let’s Go to Work!

Uncle Bobby

Bobby Glanton-Smith is the author of “Let’s Go to Work: The Millionaire Chronicles of Leon T. Garr,” and “Real Men Don’t Play!”

Photo credits: Grant Halverson/Getty Images (top); Al Bello/Getty Images (middle); Courtesy Bobby Glanton-Smith (bottom)

[jschoolwhitlock]

BLM, N.W.A. Prove It Takes 1,000 Tweets To Hold Us Back

I may be proven wrong later, but it’s difficult for me to believe that in 1996 Peyton Manning pulled his pants down and sat on the face of a University of Tennessee female trainer.

What’s even more difficult for me to believe is that he did this in front of witnesses inside the University of Tennessee training room.

At the moment, I don’t believe it. It’s difficult for me to believe any college football player would be that crude, predatory and stupid. Not in a training room. Not without the influence of alcohol or some drug.

I do believe, however, that advocacy writers masquerading as journalists in modern American media would take a one-sided lawyer’s document in a civil suit and craft a narrative that Manning placed his butt and balls on the face of a female trainer inside a training room.

There’s no accusation modern American media won’t report and sort out the facts later, especially if it can be tied to a divisive and debatable racial issue. Sports Illustrated is sorting out the facts of the sensationalized Manning story now. On Sunday, the magazine reported that the Manning saga was initially deemed a locker-room prank and no-contact mooning. The plaintiff/female trainer never alleged Manning touched her until 2003, when her lawyers turned hyper-aggressive in their statement of facts.

It’s a common tactic by smart lawyers. Apply pressure on the defendant to settle for the maximum amount of money by souping-up the allegations in a legal brief. Anyone who has been through a divorce knows this is standard operating procedure. Anyone who is a public figure and has been through a divorce knows this is why they should’ve signed a pre-nup.

Sports Illustrated reports that in 1996 the trainer signed an affidavit stating this:

“He pulled his pants down and exposed himself to me, as I was bent over examining his foot after asking me personal questions. I reported this to my supervisor, who referred to it as ‘merely a prank,' and no action was taken in regard to this until after I formally complained.”

A trainer standing behind Manning examining his foot and Manning “mooning” her in front of a handful of witnesses sounds like a stupid, inappropriate college joke. Manning minimizing his behavior by stating he “mooned” someone else sounds like the kind of defensive tale a college kid would concoct and try to stick to six or seven years later. Manning placing his butt and balls on a female trainer’s face inside a training room sounds like a 2003 lawsuit allegation and 2016 media race-bait allegation.

Going after Peyton Manning to atone for Cam Newton criticism is just a click-bait tactic.

The Daily Beast retold the old Manning story two weeks ago because the author argued it’s proof that Manning is a “bigger prick” than Cam Newton. The New York Daily News retold the 1996 Manning story because it granted a columnist platform to a Black Lives Matter tweeter, Shaun King, who wanted to deflect criticism away from Cam Newton.

Peyton Manning is a pinata in the childish, social-media race war. Millennial journalism is driven by racial demagoguery and cheered on by desperate-for-relevance-and-survival, old-school journalists and talk-show hosts looking for 2 minutes of debatable content.

No one cares that the demagoguery is toxic and damaging to our society. It’s all just a game for clicks, ratings and followers. No one cares -- or perhaps we do -- that the dumbed-down, gotcha racial debate prevents us from addressing legitimate issues revolving around the institutional bias and unfairness that impacts poor people, particularly those of color.

The Black Lives Matter-led dumbing down of racial discourse, at this point, feels intentional and calculated.

It’s not a coincidence that Shaun King got his start at Black Lives Matter. I’ve never been comfortable with BLM. Its intent, in my mind, has never been about promoting racial equality or fairness. Its intent is racial division and distraction.

BLM is modeled, in my opinion, after N.W.A., the old-school gangsta rap group. Stick with me. Let me explain.

In the late 1980s, rap music reached a crossroads. In the East, where hip hop sprouted, rap music began to bend toward political consciousness and uplift. Public Enemy and Chuck D bum-rushed the show and then dropped It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back. Scott La Rock’s murder turned KRS-One into Malcolm X and the leader of the Stop The Violence Movement. Chuck D and KRS-One had hip hop heads looking in the mirror and choosing self-respect over self-destruction.

The music industry turned West for a counter. N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton, released in the summer of 1988, picked up major-label support in 1989 and broke into the Billboard Top 200 on March 4, 1989. One song branded N.W.A. as revolutionary, authentically black and gave the mainstream media an excuse to cover N.W.A. as important.

The rise of N.W.A. resembles the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

F--k Tha Police, a song about police brutality.

Every other N.W.A. song was pornographic, misogynist, absurdly violent and self-destructive.

N.W.A. was the Trojan Horse saddled to send rap music a different direction. The music industry -- major labels and the radio stations they control -- decides what it will and won’t allow to be successful. The music industry chose black buffoonery over black nationalism. It was a choice made at a critical time.

A quarter of a century later, we reached another critical moment in terms of influencing young people through popular culture. The music industry exercises far less influence over youth culture. Social media is now a big influencer.

Two years ago, the public and politicians began to seriously wrestle with the truths spelled out in Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Right- and left-wing politicians openly discussed addressing the plague of mass incarceration and the damage it wrought on poor people of color.

Guess who drained every bit of momentum from that discussion by playing the police-brutality card?

#BlackLivesMatter.

Mass incarceration is an American business. Police brutality is a symptom of mass incarceration that hurts the bottom line of government and the prison industrial complex.

Re-read the above paragraph and comprehend its meaning.

Try this translation: The government nor the prison industrial complex has an interest in police brutality. It’s expensive, a detriment to the bottom line. The people getting rich off of our growing prison population desire less police brutality and fewer people believing mass incarceration is a problem worth addressing.

Mission accomplished, Black Lives Matter!

That is not written to argue that police brutality is non-objectionable. It’s written to say in comparison to mass incarceration (and overcriminalization) it’s a gnat on an elephant’s ass. It’s also written to convey that in a country as over-weaponized as America, police-involved shootings of unarmed people are going to occur and an overwhelming majority of citizens are always going to side with the police in those incidents.

Police brutality is a red herring hanging from a dog’s ass. Go chase it while lawmakers criminalize more things and businessmen build more prison$ in white rural areas to house the black and brown men rioting in the streets over a fleeing, unarmed, dead ex-con. (Take your time. Read it again. Marinate.)

Back to my N.W.A.-BLM comparison.

Once N.W.A. accomplished its goal of directing rap music down the road of pornography and the celebration of black self-hate, its most talented members (Dr. Dre and Ice Cube) went solo and cashed in.

Guess who is running for mayor in Baltimore? Deray Mckesson. Guess who has a race-baiting column in the New York Daily News? Shaun King.

If Beyonce had something to say with her Super Bowl halftime performance, she should’ve just said it.

Look at all the chaos left in their wake. Their immature race-bait game has infected the sports world, which has long been America’s racial leader. Black athletes traditionally took bold, strategic stances on serious issues. Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, John Carlos and Tommie Smith were not afraid of being divisive. But they weren’t childish or rebellious for the sake of rebellion and Twitter followers.

The black Missouri football players ousted the school president based on lies told by fellow students mimicking Mckesson and King. Beyonce’s Super Bowl halftime publicity stunt was cowardly. If she wanted to make a political statement, she should’ve matched Carlos’ and Smith’s courage and made her point boldly and clearly rather than weakly piecing together a puzzle for viewers to solve.

And now we’re trashing Peyton Manning’s reputation because people pointed out Cam Newton handled his Super Bowl loss like a baby. The alleged journalists pretending to be concerned about the UT trainer being “sexually assaulted” do the issue a disservice framing it around a discussion about Cam Newton’s postgame behavior. They’re using an alleged white female victim to shield a millionaire black quarterback from harmless criticism. It’s tricks for clicks. It’s faux pro-blackness in the age of Twitter, a tactic of the assimilated and their white handlers.

Where does this end? Who wins? How does this racial divisiveness help black folk? If I saw a benefit, I’d support it.

You want to piss off mainstream America because you want drug laws changed, mass incarceration gutted, policies that rebuild the black family and increase funding to inner-city schools supported, I’m all in. Let’s go.

If it’s just about tearing down someone or something white so you can feel blacker or morally superior on Twitter, I’ll pass.

Photo credit: Ron Chenoy/USA TODAY Sports (top); Ezra Shaw/Getty Images (second); Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images (third); Harry How/Getty Images (bottom)