Too much to Text
Yesterday, I sent a text message to Jahmal Cole asking him, “What he thought about the LA Clipper’s situation”? He said “It was too much to text”, so this is what Jahmal sent instead.
Billa, I haven't finished my speech yet, but here are a few answers to the questions I've heard in the media this week. Feel free to use this in the blog if you'd like.
Do you think the Clipper players should boycott?
I don't know. Each must act in according to their conscious.
What would be a good punishment?
Punitive action for exercising the freedom of speech in what Donald Sterling thought was a private conversation? He who has not sinned cast the first stone... I have said very hurtful things in anger, and I've been forgiven.
Should African Americans just deal with the fact that racism is still alive?
What is American? How American are African (or any other hyphenated group) Americans. Ask a person who grew up in any other country as a 'native' of that country what group they associate you as, they will say American.
As long as we are willing to associate a 'subgroup' or 'hyphen' in front of American, others will also; some out of an attempt to be respectful, others out of contempt.
How do you feel about this being a huge issue when there were 30 murders in Chicago this past week?
What were the motivations? Why did compassion by the perpetrator for the victims fail? Our society (locally and globally) seems to be increasingly de-humanizing.
I've hear a lot of prominent African American men talk about the Donald Sterling issue but nobody says anything about the murder rate in Chicago...
Or about 'too big to fail' global corporations, BP's failure to compensate victims of Deep Water Horizon, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations pollution, Genetically Modified Organism Utility patents, Fresh water commons protections (Large bottling companies exploiting municipalities water supplies for profit)... etc.
Will there ever be an end to racism?
Yes, because there is only one, human race. History of 'racism' in today's context can be traced to 1800's Victorian England and the idea of 'pure/superior' breeds of 'species'. In Hindu society it was 'caste', during the early Hebrew bible it was 'being chosen by God', during the Reformation in Europe it was 'religious denomination', during the early 1900's it was 'nationalism'. It has always been the teenage girl definitions of what is 'in' or 'out', tomorrow some other divisive boundary will be in vogue. - Jahmal Cole
