NewsBusters readers are likely familiar with Jason Whitlock, the outspoken sportswriter for the Kansas City Star whose views on race relations in America typically go quite contrary to most in the mainstream media.
On Wednesday, Whitlock wrote an article for Fox Sports.com concerning the recent shooting of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor.
True to form, Whitlock spoke of truths few press representatives and even fewer black leaders dare to today (emphasis added, h/t Larwyn, reader is cautioned that some of the language is a tad raw at times):
Someone who loved Sean Taylor is crying right now. The life they knew has been destroyed, an 18-month-old baby lost her father, and, if you're a black man living in America, you've been reminded once again that your life is in constant jeopardy of violent death.
The Black KKK claimed another victim, a high-profile professional football player with a checkered past this time.
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Well, when shots are fired and a black man hits the pavement, there's every statistical reason to believe another black man pulled the trigger. That's not some negative, unfair stereotype. It's a reality we've been living with, tolerating and rationalizing for far too long.
When the traditional, white KKK lynched, terrorized and intimidated black folks at a slower rate than its modern-day dark-skinned replacement, at least we had the good sense to be outraged and in no mood to contemplate rationalizations or be fooled by distractions.
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Let's cut through the bull(manure) and deal with reality. Black men are targets of black men. Period. Go check the coroner's office and talk with a police detective. These bullets aren't checking W-2s.
Rather than whine about white folks' insensitivity or reserve a special place of sorrow for rich athletes, we'd be better served mustering the kind of outrage and courage it took in the 1950s and 1960s to stop the white KKK from hanging black men from trees.
But we don't want to deal with ourselves. We take great joy in prescribing medicine to cure the hate in other people's hearts. Meanwhile, our self-hatred, on full display for the world to see, remains untreated, undiagnosed and unrepentant.
Our self-hatred has been set to music and reinforced by a pervasive culture that promotes a crab-in-barrel mentality.
You're damn straight I blame hip hop for playing a role in the genocide of American black men. When your leading causes of death and dysfunction are murder, ignorance and incarceration, there's no reason to give a free pass to a culture that celebrates murder, ignorance and incarceration.
Of course there are other catalysts, but until we recapture the minds of black youth, convince them that it's not OK to "super man dat ho" and end any and every dispute by "cocking on your bitch," nothing will change.
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According to reports, Sean Taylor had difficulty breaking free from the unsavory characters he associated with during his youth.
The "keepin' it real" mantra of hip hop is in direct defiance to evolution. There's always someone ready to tell you you're selling out if you move away from the immature and dangerous activities you used to do, you're selling out if you speak proper English, embrace education, dress like a grown man, do anything mainstream.
The Black KKK is enforcing the same crippling standards as its parent organization. It wants to keep black men in their place - uneducated, outside the mainstream and six feet deep.
In all likelihood, the Black Klan and its mentality buried Sean Taylor, and any black man or boy reading this could be next.
What's amazing about this column, and others by Whitlock, is that if Martin Luther King, Jr., was alive today, he'd completely agree with these sentiments.
Yet, every time Whitlock writes an article like this, he probably receives more hate mail than plaudits from colleagues and so-called civil rights leaders that haven't a clue what King fought and died for.
On a personal note, every time I read a column like this by Whitlock, I wonder why we've gone four decades without a real civil rights leader to take King's place, for as Jason has himself said before, people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are part of the problem with race relations today, not the solution.
Bravo, Jason. Your courage to speak what so many refuse to brings us all hope that maybe some day in the future, King's dream will finally come to fruition.
