Get the Bag

There is not a single African-American star in all of Major League Baseball. That has not happened since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. What has happened to us? We can't sing, we can't fight, we can't play baseball anymore. 

Coming up in the 50s, baseball, and boxing were all there was in sports. There was no football or basketball to speak of. Boys in the black community dreamed of being the next Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Joe Louis, and Sugar Ray Robinson, and we acted like it. We played baseball every day after school and sparred with one another between innings. They were skills that could only be honed out of the dust and dirt of boyhood. From our generation came the likes of Ricky Henderson, Joe Morgan, George Foreman, and Muhammed Ali. When boys dream, they become.

Followed a generation that produced Griffey, Bonds, Frank "The Big Hurt" Thomas; and fighters like Evander Holyfield, and the iconic Mike Tyson. Came titans out of football and basketball, as well. And music: Much of what we call "Rock 'n Roll" today was derived from white folks speeding up the tempo of the rhythm and blues blacks sang in the 50s and 60s. And, how do we quantify black folks' gift of jazz - that purely American art form that blew the doors off of musical expression? Man, we were something. We were beautiful. We were chosen. 

Then, almost suddenly, the door closed. How are we special, now? We are good at selling drugs, forming flash mobs, looting, and shooting people from moving vehicles. (Nobody does it better.) We are unparalleled in our ability to write rap songs about drug dealing, flash mobs, and drive-bys. And, when all else fails, we can always revert to the old standby: Act a damn fool.  

It would be wishful thinking to say we are at a crossroads; we are not. We passed that place decades ago, when we chose the easy way out - when we chose instant power in guns, and instant fortune in drugs. What comes quickly, comes without a soul.

African-America has become a nightmare - self-hating black men with little respect for life, especially black life. count the dead in Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans, etc., etc., etc. We have become champions of death... the death of a great community. 

How could our run have been so brief - less than a hundred years? Now, all they talk about is "the bag." "Get the bag."  I suppose that means money. Hmmph. "The bag" will no more save us than thirty pieces of silver saved Judas.