I remember that night at the Lakers game in 2023—when you, a towering Black man with a chiseled legacy on the field and a microphone in your hand, rose up from your courtside seat and barked across the hardwood at Dillon Brooks. What followed was a mess of testosterone and ego: Ja Morant jumped in, Steven Adams, and even Ja’s father, Tee Morant. Security intervened, the game paused, and headlines were born.
They were all Black men. Like you.
But I also remember how you sat for years, day after day, across from an elderly white man who belittled you, mocked your career, and on occasion, talked to you like an overgrown child. Skip Bayless. That man could raise your blood pressure with a single smirk—but never once did you leap out of your seat. Never once did the exchange turn physical. All bark. No bite. And therein lies the difference. I am attacked all the time by my brothers on my platform, and I will never allow myself to get out of character, because at the end of the day, they are still me.
Because that’s the thing, Shannon. When it comes to us, we are quicker to raise fists than voices. We will swing on each other at the hint of disrespect, but we sit quiet and composed in the face of white degradation. That, my brother, is the legacy of internalized oppression—a disease passed down through chains, through Jim Crow, through mass incarceration, and now through talk shows. Your talk show. You were gangsta toward your brothers, but babied toward Skip.
Another headline. Another Black man. Another white woman. Another allegation. I won’t speculate on guilt or innocence. I pray—deeply—that if her claims are true, justice is swift and final. And I pray with equal sincerity that if she is lying, the full weight of the system holds her accountable, for the history is blood-soaked with that brand of falsehood.
You see, Shannon, more than half of documented lynchings of Black men in this country were based on accusations from white women. This is not conjecture. This is history. Visit the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama—an institution built by Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative. There, you will walk through America’s shame and see it plainly: Emmett Till was not the first, nor the last.
Yet, despite this history, you and too many of your peers continue to curve the Black women who know your story, who know your soul—at least the one you were supposed to have.
This isn’t about preference; this is about pattern. It’s about logic. It’s about survival.
Because you are not Skip Bayless. You are not some honorary member of whiteness. You are a Black man in America—subject to the same traps, the same scrutiny, the same fragile privileges that can be revoked at any moment.
And here’s the ugly truth: White men can fall and rise again. You fall once—and they write your obituary in ink.
What’s more tragic is that so many of you think assimilation is elevation. You get the check, the mic, the platform—and suddenly, you’re above race. But the system never forgets. It may dress you in a suit, but it still sees you in chains.
I’m not saying that Black women are perfect. I’m saying they are culturally rooted. Historically loyal. And spiritually equipped to hold you accountable when you are too big to humble yourself. That type of love doesn’t just uplift—it protects.
Shannon, you mistake access for acceptance. You think you’ve arrived. But brother, you are still on the plantation—only now the cotton is digital, and the overseer is smiling across the desk. Had you started your rise and income with making money amongst your own people, then the media would have no bearing on you, if these are simply accusations. However, since your money is from them, you could possibly be finished.
If this accusation is true, then you are indeed finished. And rightfully so. But if it’s false, the stain will still remain—because you’ve forgotten who you are. And when a Black man forgets that, this country has a way of reminding him.
You do not belong to whiteness. You belong to us.
And it’s time you came home and heal the little Shannons from your home town, and all over this nation because it's your collective responsibility, as it is mine.
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