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[falling-c]

Thoughts

Hey guys, I guess this is my first time uploading anything on this account. Well, we all of our first of anything right? Might as well enjoy it.

Lately, I decided to watch the new Proud Family, Louder and Prouder on Disney+. Let me tell you, it was not what I was expecting. Along with the addition of Michal as one of the core group, we have the new extremely woke girl and her brother who were adopted by a gay couple. That’s something that personally I love to see but it’s also a topic for another day.

Right now, I wanna talk about another new character, and the guy who looks like Penny main love interest, Jerome. I love this man. He is an amazing character to have in modern day black television. I know it may be a hot take, but a six foot six black male in a tv show who doesn’t do sports, NOT BECAUSE HES WEIRD, but because he simply has no interest. It’s amazing because it breaks a stereotype that we as black people have for ourselves.

Trust me when I say I understood a large part of his struggles. I myself am a 6’10” black male in college. Yes, I actually do play basketball but for me it’s never been something I really cared much for. To me, sports have always been a burden that distracts me from work. It takes up so much time and usually adds more stress into my daily life. I know what you’re wondering, then why do it? Well I’ll tell you this it’s not because financially, I wouldn’t be able to afford the college I’m currently at without it. It’s for the exact same reason I wanted to write this.

I play basketball because if I don’t, there’s something wrong with me. It‘s one thing for it to be only the white people who view it that way but it’s something completely different when a black person does. It takes away apart of the blackness I have. It robs me of being anything more than tall-for-nothin or a-waste-of-height. No matter what level I’m on academically or artistically, that doesn’t matter. If I don’t play then I am the one something is wrong with.

To see someone represent this mindset if I am more than an a athlete and I don’t have to be that, it’s powerful to me. My parents, on the other hand, saw this and said that it was goofy. How are you gonna be that tall and play the cello? With the last bit of the episode as well, when he told Penny to be true to herself and we found out he could play but was pretending he couldn’. My parents reacted with so he’s pretending he can’t play and going of to play cello, weird, goofy. I understood why he would do that too. When you have people walking up to you everyday, asking the same questions.

“How tall are you?”

”You play basketball?”

”Who you play for.” It gets exhausting! As I said before it’s one thing if it’s white people only but it’s not. Since when did the ideal standard for black men become tall dumb athlete? Why is it that for so many people the moment they hit a certain height we are cursed to either play a sport we may not really care for or be subjugated to the list of people considered weird just because we refuse to play a sport.

I remember when I first started playing basketball. It was just before fifth grade. I didn’t care for the sport. In fact, I didn’t even wanna go, but my parents had me go anyway. It was good for me to interact with other black kids my own age and from early on my parents thought I had some sorta skill. To this day they remember me playing against teams filled with people from the real hood and their drug dealer of a coach and how everyone else on my team was scared besides me. To be honest I don’t remember that day, I don’t remember most games I played. By that point I just did well because I knew I could go to target if I did well.

Along with that I can tell you how later on my performance on the basketball court would get me into more trouble then Some bad grades ever would. People always say student athlete but let’s be real for both black and white people it’s a lie in regards to our young black men.

why do we have our men coming out of D1 college with useless degrees? Why do we have our men not getting to college on an athletic scholarship and breaking down because no colleges are looking at them? Why do we have young boys getting prepped to go and play sports with the idea that the NBA is their future. People love to talk about Black Leadership this and Black excellence that, but when are we going to realize that our young black men are all being filtered into the same cycle that keeps the rich people up in Nike wealthy?

To me Athlete’s are glorified slaves and yet we encourage our young men to pursue being the head negro in charge. Dreams like being a doctor, a musician, a lawyer, they’re cute but meant for people under 6ft. Once you’re above that it’s time to shoot for the league or find some shitty job to work at but hey at least you can say “Yeah, I hoop.”

I know it sounds strange for some but how did we come to have our values so … confused.