BusinessWeek Profiles Jeff Foster, the Richest Man in the NBA

Mandatory Reading: Sports Illustrated's How (and Why) Athlete's Go Broke before you start reading this short entry.

Jeff Foster, the richest man in the NBA

On a recent business trip, I picked up the latest issue of Bloomberg BusinesssWeek (one of my favorite magazines, with Fast Company coming in a close second). Each issue is chock full of hilarious articles and analysis that deserve a weekly entry and discussion here at SBPDL.

However, an article in the recent sports issue of BusinessWeek had me laughing out loud on the airplane (forcing the person in front of me to inquire what I was reading, which quickly started an even funnier conversation about pro basketball players and intelligence).

Before we begin, the NBA is 80 percent Black and only 10 percent white American (the other 10 percent a mixture of European's and Chinese eugenic experiments). Now, the article in BusinessWeek focused on Indiana Pacers - yes, the same club where Larry Bird attempted to re-create the majority white structure of the 1980s Boston Celtics (a team that saved the NBA) - reserve center Jeff Foster and how he is coping financially with the lockout.

For those unaware - or who don't care, like 99 percent of American's - the NBA owners have locked-out the vastly overpaid players.

It is well known that most of the NBA players go bankrupt after they retire (if they don't go around shooting people), which is something the very white Foster will never be accused of doing. Here's the entire article, which you must read to believe:

Early in his National Basketball Assn. career, Jeff Foster, a center for the Indiana Pacers, became acquainted with a man he came to think of as a friend. The man followed the team on road trips and called Foster’s hotel room to invite him for meals. Then one day the man presented Foster with a business opportunity: For just $2 million, the basketball player could be part of a surefire venture to open a bed and breakfast in the verdant Pennsylvania hills. When Foster explained, truthfully, that he didn’t have that kind of money—the Pacers paid him just over $4 million for the first four years of his career, about half of which was gobbled up by taxes, escrow payments, and his agent’s fee—his “friend” was undaunted. He asked Foster to introduce him to an older teammate who had just signed a much more lucrative contract. Foster declined. “And of course,” Foster says, “I never spoke to him again.”

Professional athletes are not generally known for shrewd financial judgment. What was former Notre Dame star player “Rocket” Ismail thinking when he bankrolled a calligraphy business, for example? Did it make sense for ex-NBA guard Latrell Sprewell to turn down a $21 million contract offer late in his career and then buy a yacht? Sports Illustrated estimates that 60 percent of NBA players go broke within five years of retirement and 78 percent of National Football League players “have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress” within two years after they stop playing. (According to NBA Players Assn. spokesman Dan Wasserman, between 6 percent and 8 percent of players end up broke.)

It takes about five seconds to compile a list of once-rich, now-broke sports luminaries: former Boston Celtics All-Star Antoine Walker (gambling habits, huge entourage, multiple luxury cars); New York Jets backup quarterback Mark Brunell (real estate investments in a tanking Florida market); and, perhaps most notoriously, ex-Philadelphia Phillies center fielder Lenny Dykstra (who bought and unsuccessfully tried to flip Wayne Gretzky’s $17 million home, was indicted for bankruptcy fraud, and faces charges of grand theft auto and indecent exposure; Dykstra denies the charges). 

Such recklessness typically earns athletes more ridicule than sympathy. And yet for the moment, the ranks of America’s unemployed include pro basketball players: Because of an owner-led lockout, most NBA players, even those under contract, will stop receiving paychecks by the end of October, when the regular season was scheduled to start. Some players are scrambling for backup jobs, with about 15 percent, including standouts such as Deron Williams, signing up to play in overseas leagues in the interim. 

For hard-nosed, low-scoring NBA veterans such as Foster, however, hooking up with a foreign team isn’t a viable option. Foster is a free agent, which means he doesn’t know where he’ll be playing next, if at all. At 34, he hasn’t achieved the fame of the league’s stars. Look him up on YouTube (GOOG) and you find this: “Amare Stoudemire dunks Jeff Foster to the ground!” and “Shaquille O’Neal alley-oop dunk over Jeff Foster.” Nonetheless, Foster has played in the NBA for 12 years and earned more than $47 million, and he’s done something extraordinary: He’s saved about three-quarters of his take-home pay. “Jeff’s an example of a pro athlete who’s done it right,” says Doug Raetz, co-founder of True Capital Management, a San Francisco-based wealth management firm that represents Foster and about 150 professional basketball, football, and baseball players. 

Foster, who is six-feet-eleven, entered the league with advantages that many of his fellow professional athletes lack. He grew up in an upper-middle-class home—his mother worked as a high school principal in San Antonio, while his father ran a property management company. When he was in 11th grade—the same age as LeBron James when he had his first Sports Illustrated cover—Foster was playing on the junior varsity squad and thinking about becoming a journalist. That focus on another career may ultimately have helped him financially. “In our culture, a top athlete often stops being a student in the seventh grade and the focus is on sports,” says Peter Dunn, a financial adviser who has worked with several Indianapolis Colts players. 

When Foster graduated from high school, his relatives gave him $1,000, which he invested in two mutual funds. “I didn’t really need the money for a while,” he said over lunch on Oct. 5 near his home in Carmel, Ind. “I always had an interest in finance, but actually having my own money in the markets took it to another level.”
He enrolled in the first school that offered him an athletic scholarship, Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University-San Marcos). “My goal was to get a free education,” he says. “I never thought I’d play in the NBA.” Yet he had a strong college career, and the Golden State Warriors selected him with the 21st pick of the 1999 draft, before trading him to the Pacers. His rookie deal of $4.34 million over four years was much less lucrative than those of NBA superstars, but compared with the average American, Foster was rich.

“As I learned in my finance classes in college, when you’re in your twenties you invest heavily in the market, and as you get older, you become a lot less aggressive,” says Foster. His initial forays into investing coincided with the peak of the Internet bubble. “I was extremely aggressive investing early on. I put a lot of money into an Internet fund. I watched it go up about 20 percent in the first couple of months, but then it just vanished.”

Foster is still richer than these two Black dudes

Foster now considers himself fortunate for having learned an early lesson. By the time he signed his second deal with the Pacers in 2002—six years for $30 million—he had become a much more conservative investor. Today, while he still actively buys and sells stocks, only 13 percent of his portfolio is invested in the stock market. Although Foster and his advisers declined to provide the exact amount of his savings, they did provide a breakdown, by percentage, of his portfolio. The biggest portion—33 percent—is in fixed income, largely municipal bonds. Eleven percent is invested in managed real estate—apartment buildings and student housing that provide Foster with monthly income and tax breaks without the headache of personally overseeing properties and tenants. Eight percent is allotted to private equity; 7 percent is in private investments that aren’t supervised by True Capital Management. 

Foster keeps 28 percent of his savings in cash. He says he normally has 5 percent to 10 percent of his portfolio in cash, “but I’m scared of the market now, though I think at some point there’s going to be an opportunity to invest and get a great return.” Foster and many other players turned down the NBA’s offer to spread out players’ salaries over the course of the lockout. “It’s better to have that money earn interest for you,” Raetz says, adding that the NBA’s offer makes more sense for younger players who haven’t saved much. 

Unlike many NBA players, who may have various children, parents, cousins, and friends to support, Foster has only his immediate family to worry about. “Most of our clients are the only real earning source for their extended families,” Raetz says. It isn’t just family expenses that can get athletes in trouble. Former Chicago Bulls All-Star Scottie Pippen’s purchase of a private jet resulted in years of financial hardship and legal battles. Las Vegas casinos accused Antoine Walker of amassing more than $800,000 in gambling debts, while the sports blog Deadspin reported that during Metta World Peace’s (né Ron Artest’s) stint as a member of the Indiana Pacers, he would pay for his house to be recarpeted each month rather than clean up the dog crap that accumulated. (He now plays for the Los Angeles Lakers.) “The stereotype about the spending habits of athletes is largely true,” Raetz says.

After Foster signed his first contract in 1999, he bought a “modest $175,000 cookie-cutter house,” as he puts it, in downtown Indianapolis. Unless you’re a top-five pick, “it’s really not feasible to spend [$100,000] on a car,” Foster says, explaining why his taste isn’t more lavish. He paid for his wedding to his wife, Jamie, whom he met in college. In 2004, two years after he signed his biggest contract, he upgraded to a four-bedroom, seven-bathroom lake house in Noblesville, Ind. (He’s now trying to sell it for $2.6 million.) Foster sends his five-year-old twin daughters to a private school that emphasizes multilingual education. Annual tuition is about $13,500 per student. 

“My biggest luxury expense is that I like to travel,” Foster says. “Given my size, when first class is affordable, I buy it. But we just flew coach back and forth to Texas with the kids, and I just put up the armrests and lay across the seats.” 

The lockout has created new issues for NBA players, particularly rookies who have yet to see their first paycheck and aren’t playing overseas. “When they walk into a bank to try and get a loan, they’re unemployed,” Raetz of True Capital says. “They haven’t signed their NBA contract yet.” In several cases, Raetz and his business partner, Heather Goodman, have found private sources to secure loans for such clients. They’ve also signed up their NBA players for COBRA extensions on their health insurance, which the league no longer provides to any players.

Foster counts himself among the lucky ones. With the regular season on hold, he is happy to spend time with his family. As a free agent, he would like to sign again with the Pacers and continue to work for the organization when he retires, but his financial well-being doesn’t depend on another contract, he says. When he signed his $30 million, six-year deal in 2002, he told himself: “No matter what else happens, this is enough money to set myself and my family up for life.”

Still, he’s looking to cut costs. After Foster signed his latest contract extension in 2008—two years for $12.73 million—he did indulge in one extravagance, buying himself a $100,000 Porsche. “I wanted to treat myself, because I knew it could be my last big contract,” he says. But then, with the lockout on his mind, he sold it at a $3,000 loss. Now he drives an Infiniti SUV.

 This is one of the funniest articles I have ever read. Ever. Jeff Foster isn't Nigga Rich, he's a white boy who in a more civilized time would be a hero to millions. In Black-Run America (BRA), he's an oddity for not being one of the potential destitute former NBA players upon retirement.

 Of all the players in the NBA to profile, BusinessWeek must profile a journeyman white center to document sound financial investment strategies.

To paraphrase Harry Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life: a toast, to Jeff Foster, the richest man in the NBA!

Rush Limbaugh and Donovan McNabb 2.0: Media Anoints Cam Newton as new Black NFL Quarterback Star After One Game

Yahoo.com goes into full-blown "Donovan McNabb 2.0" mode with Cam Newton

Remember what Rush Limbaugh said about Donovan McNabb back in 2003? We do here at SBPDL, as it ultimately cost Mr. Limbaugh a shot at owning a National Football League franchise. Here's what Limbaugh said on ESPN:

Donovan McNabb has been to three straight Pro Bowls and two consecutive NFC championship games, and was runner-up for NFL MVP in his first full season as a starter.

Still, commentator Rush Limbaugh saw fit to question the quarterback's credentials.

Before McNabb led the Philadelphia Eagles to a 23-13 victory over the Buffalo Bills, Limbaugh said on ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown" that McNabb is overrated. However, Limbaugh injected his comment with racial overtones that have set off a controversy.

"Sorry to say this, I don't think he's been that good from the get-go," Limbaugh said. "I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team."

The National Football League is 67 percent Black and 30 percent white. The overwhelmingly majority of the fans who follow the 32 NFL teams, purchase tickets and concessions at the stadium, watch the games on television, and play fantasy football are white. Outside of kicker/punter, the whitest position is quarterback, long considered a position that Black athletes were kept from playing because of the "racist" perception among coaches that Black people didn't have the mental aptitude to learn the demanding (War and Peace in size) playbooks, formations, assignments, and ability to read a complex defense as white players do.

According to our friend Richard Lapchick, who broke down the racial demographics of each NFL position over the past 10 or so years, 2009 saw the quarterback position dominated by whites with 82 percent of the available roster spots, compared to only 16 percent for Black athletes.

The high water year for Black participation at the quarterback position was 2002, when Blacks were 24 percent of quarterback roster spots (out of 32 teams, most franchises carry 3 QBs).

It should be noted, that despite being 67 percent of the NFL roster spots - each team has 53 players active - the top players in terms of popularity with the predominately white fan base are the white quarterbacks and white skill position players. In 2010, this was the breakdown of the top selling jerseys for men (by the way, there is nothing more embarrassing than a grown man wearing a football jersey):

1. Troy Polamalu, Steelers
2. Drew Brees, Saints
3. Tim Tebow, Broncos
4. Peyton Manning, Colts
5. Tom Brady, Patriots
6. Michael Vick, Eagles
7. Aaron Rodgers, Packers
8. Eli Manning, Giants
9. DeSean Jackson, Eagles
10. Mark Sanchez, Jets
11. Tony Romo, Cowboys
12. Brett Favre, Vikings
13. Miles Austin, Cowboys
14. Adrian Peterson, Vikings
15. Clay Matthews, Packers
16. Philip Rivers, Chargers
17. Chris Johnson, Titans
18. Ray Lewis, Ravens
19. Wes Walker, Patriots
20. Donovan McNabb, Redskins
21. Jason Witten, Cowboys
22. Peyton Hillis, Browns
23. LaDainian Tomlinson, Jets
24. Larry Fitzgerald, Cardinals
25. Hines Ward, Steelers

Tim Tebow's jersey is still a big seller and he has the same skill-set as Newton

Fifteen of the top 25 selling NFL jerseys are white players, the bulk being white quarterbacks like Drew Brees, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, who put a white face on a game dominated by thugs like Ray Lewis (yes, the evidence points to him being either an accessory to murder in Atlanta or the individual who killed someone back in 2000). Pittsburgh Steelers are fiercely loyal to their team, so the outliers like Polamalu and Ward. Notice that white receiver Wes Welker and beloved white running back Peyton Hillis are in the top 25, illustrating the obvious fact that the predominately white fan base cheers for the players that excel at positions they have been conditioned to believe only Black players can excel at. 

Let's take a look at the jerseys that are most popular with women (these are cut in a sexy manner that accentuate the female body):

1. Troy Polamalu, Steelers
2. Peyton Manning, Colts
3. Drew Brees, Saints
4. Aaron Rodgers, Packers
5. Tom Brady, Patriots
6. Tim Tebow, Broncos
7. Miles Austin, Cowboys
8. Eli Manning, Giants
9. Tony Romo, Cowboys
10. Jason Witten, Cowboys

That list is strikingly white, with only one Black player (a light-skinned one at that). Dominated by white quarterbacks, it's obvious that the NFL's ability to attract white women is through the quarterback position.

Thus the interesting dilemma the NFL is faced with in 2011, with Indianapolis Colts star Peyton Manning potentially sidelined all season due to his third neck surgery. White quarterbacks are vital to the continued success of the NFL - well, establishing white stars in the receiver, linebacker, safety, and running back position, as evidenced by Peyton Hillis's selection to be on the cover of Madden NFL 2011 resonate with the white fan base too - as no one wants to see the league become just another thugged-out, explicitly Black National Black Association (NBA).  

The NBA went all-in on Blackness, hedging their bets that white fans would continue paying to see overpriced criminals play basketball; it hasn't turned out to be a great investment.

Oddly, the NFL and the fawning media that covers the sport (the monopoly that should be broken up, ESPN; the embarrassingly bad NFL Network; FOX, CBS, and the entire Associated Press) seem intent on turning the game into just another version of the NBA. Dez Bryant is the face of Black NFL, a walking caricature of every negative Black stereotype you can conjure; the Black quarterback that was supposed to revolutionize the game, Michael Vick, spent two years in jail for participating in the inhumane sport of dog fighting, showcasing the massive divide in the cultures between white and Black people.

With Manning down, the NFL is going into Donovan McNabb Version 2.0, hoping to push another Black quarterback to the stratosphere of popularity and name recognition among the white fan base. Tampa Bay has the overrated Josh Freeman, a mulatto quarterback who played good football in 2010; Oakland has Jason Campbell, a quarterback whose erratic play is eternally excused and blamed upon having to learn a new offense every year (perhaps the guy just can't make good decisions and isn't that intelligent?); Seattle has Tarvaris Jackson,  who is somehow a starting quarterback in the league despite not possessing the talent to start for an Arena League team; Minnesota trots out McNabb, who should have retired two years ago to protect his legacy; and Philly has Michael Vick, whose two years in jail allowed his body to heal from the blows he took from scrambling before his dog fighting avocation became public.

Which brings us to the Carolina Panther's Cam Newton, the Black quarterback that is being hyped as the next Peyton Manning:

On Sept. 6, 1998, the Indianapolis Colts welcomed the Miami Dolphins to what was then the RCA Dome to see their new quarterback, first overall pick Peyton Manning (notes) . At the end of the game, Manning had thrown 21 completions in 37 attempts for 302 yards, one touchdown, and three interceptions.

It wasn't the most auspicious debut, but Manning threw for more than 300 yards in his first pro game, something no other rookie quarterback had done before. The Colts lost the game — they would win just three that season — but it was certainly a sign of things to come. And as we now know, Manning played in every game from then to now as Sunday marked the end of his 208-consecutive games started streak.

There was a first-game passing yardage record that exceeded Manning's, but it comes with a pretty heavy asterisk. Otto Graham of the 1950 Cleveland Browns threw for 346 yards in his NFL debut against the Philadelphia Eagles on September 16 of that year, but he spent the four previous seasons in the All-America Football Conference, which merged three teams (Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers , and an earlier version of the Baltimore Colts) with the NFL before the 1950 season.

Surprisingly, Sunday also marked the end of whichever yardage record you care to recognize. Another first overall pick, Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers , broke that mark going away by passing for 422 yards. Not only did Newton obliterate Manning's record for the first game of any rookie career, he did it on the road (versus the Arizona Cardinals ) and with a truncated preseason due to the lockout. Unfortunately for Newton, the Panthers fell short, 28-21, but that's not what will be remembered about this game.

NFL.com dedicated its front page to Newton, with a story Lights, Cam-Era, Action. Despite losing the game (and being outplayed by white quarterback Kevin Kolb, who was forced out of Philly), the media is going into overdrive to anoint Newton as the heir-apparent to Peyton Manning, perhaps the most popular player in the NFL, especially one who routinely is signed to lucrative endorsements.

ESPN, sports call-in shows across the nation, and dead-wood media will spend countless hours and waste words praising Cam Newton's debut performance to no end. Despite the NFL tweaking rules that benefit that offense - the networks want high scoring games - and creating a quarterback-friendly game, the media will stop at nothing to paint Newton as Donovan McNabb 2.0.

Sadly, there's no Limbaugh in the media to point this out and cause a hilarious controversy.

Newton might be an outstanding talent, but NFL defenses have been so handicapped when it comes to hitting - to protect players - and how opposing defensive backs can play receivers that an NFL quarterback that doesn't throw for more than 300 yards is having a bad day statistically.

Once again, white fans keep the NFL afloat. They buy jersey's of white players (especially women), primarily quarterbacks. Rumors persist that Danny Woodhead's jersey, a white running back from New England, has one of the NFL's best selling jersey's as well. White fans tolerate a primarily Black league because they have been conditioned to believe that only Black athletes can legitimately play the running back, receiver, and corner/safety position.

As we at SBPDL have shown, discrimination towards white athletes begins at the high school level where college recruiters refuse to recruit white running backs, receivers or safeties. Tom Lemming, perhaps the best recruiting guru in the nation, told Michael Lewis in The Blind Side that white high school players are discriminated against, hell, he'll tell anyone this fact.

The same principles that dictate who gets recruited in college hold true in talent evaluations for the NFL. See this article on the 2011 NFL Draft, courtesy of SBPDL.

So the media crowning Cam Newton as the "new Peyton Manning" need to be called to task: this is nothing more than Donovan McNabb 2.0. The league's financial future rests upon white women being attracted to the game (because single Black women have a net worth of $5), and white guys living vicariously through white quarterbacks, receivers, bad ass linebackers like Clay Matthews, and white running backs like Hillis.

Cam Newton? He grew up in College Park, Georgia, an area white people assiduously avoid and only mention because of high Black crime rates, a scary MARTA station, and the fact that Newton is from there.

Remember: without sports to manufacture positive images of Black people, Black-Run America (BRA) would collapse overnight. Much like the media's desire to see a Black quarterback succeed, eventually Project Donovan McNabb 2.0 will fail.

Newton might have some success, but he could end up like JaMarcus Russell and Vince Young. But with offensive and defensive rule changes that continue to benefit the quarterback and a passing offense mentality, the NFL was bound to be find the right mixture to finally of rule tweaks to see a Black quarterback succeed.

But after one game - when he was outplayed by Kevin Kolb - to anoint Newton as the "new Manning" shows you the "BRA agenda" all too perfectly.

NBA Lockout: They Still get an "A" from Richard Lapchick for Diversity!

Editor's note: Due to events outside of my hands, SBPDL must undergo an emergency fundraiser. You can make a donation through the PayPal link in the upper left-hand corner or contact us and we'll you send PO Box information. Or purchase Hollywood in Blackface or SBPDL Year One from Amazon.com in either book or Kindle form.

This is a re-post from SBPDL 2.0 that was written before the National Basketball Association (NBA) lock-out began. Be sure to check that Web site for stuff that isn't posted here. I'm working on a big article for tomorrow on Milwaukee, a city that is right now at 11:50 p.m. on the doomsday clock heading toward a total Blacks Behaving Badly (BBB) meltdown at (12 p.m). Remember, it will only takes one incident of police brutality for a story to go viral and bring an increasingly hostile and lawless segment of society (youth, gang of teens, Black people) to fully remind us all of Los Angeles in 1992. This time - thanks to Flip Cams, cell phone cameras, social media, security and surveillance cameras - it will all be documented.
 
Thanks again to all who have donated or sent in kind thoughts: you have no idea what this outpouring of support means to fuel my drive and intensity to make SBPDL that much more impactful. I've been working on a lot of new material for the book tentatively titled Captain America and Whiteness: The Superheroes Dilemma (coming out on July 22, 2011), but wanted to post this for the time being. Enjoy.
 
--- Paul Kersey

And... you are locked out.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) has cause to celebrate: the playoffs generated the highest ratings for TNT basketball ever, and 2011 championship series between the Miami Heat and the Dallas Mavericks saw sports fans actually compelled to care about and invest in the product again:

Sunday’s Game 6 pulled in almost 23 million viewers, 31% more than last year’s marquee Game 6 matchup between the Los Angeles and Boston Celtics, according to Nielsen Co. data. (The 2010 final went seven games.)

It’s clear most were tuning in to watch the Heat: In the two months of the playoffs, the Heat were mentioned about 330,000 times on such consumer media sites as Facebook and Twitter, as well as on blogs and message boards, said Nielsen. That compares with 140,000 mentions of the Dallas Mavericks.

More importantly, Richard Lapchick just bestowed the NBA with an "A" ranking for its commitment to diversity:

The NBA isn't resting on its laurels as a pacesetter in sports diversity.

The league has again earned an A grade in a study of the diversity of its leadership in its front office and its 30 teams.

The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida released its annual report on the league Thursday. The NBA received an A-plus for race and an A-minus for gender. It is the only men's pro league to be awarded an overall A.

Using data from the 2010-11 season, the study found that for professional positions at the league office, 36 percent were held by people of color and 42 percent by women.

At the beginning of the season, 33 percent of head coaches and 45 percent of assistants were people of color. The percentage for general managers or executives with equivalent responsibilities was 26 percent.

There were five African-American CEOs/presidents for teams and two women who were presidents.

"Our goal has always been to hire the best people available, which has worked well for us, and we will continue to do that," NBA spokesman Mike Bass said.

"They've consistently had a record of opening up the search process so it includes a diverse group of candidates, and I think that's helped more than anything else," said Lapchick, chair of the DeVos Sport Business Management Program at UCF and director of The Institute for Diversity of Ethics in Sport.

The study found that 83 percent of the league's players were people of color this season, with the percentage of African-American players increasing one point to 78 percent. The percentage of Asians remained 1 percent, the percentage of Latinos rose slightly to 4 percent and percentage classified as "other" was under 1 percent.

Lapchick only believes professional sports that have a complete commitment (a religious fervor and zeal) to replacing all white people in front office, managerial and coaching positions are worthy of an "A" rating.

He has attacked NASCAR for having a 'racist' culture; called the college football practice of hiring predominately white coaches a grave injustice and attempts to hire more Black coach "too slow" that can only be remedied with the implementation of a 'Rooney Rule'; and bemoaned the dropping participation of Black people in Major League Baseball (MLB).

But a sport with only 17 percent white participation is classified as an "A" for diversity in his book.

As of 2008, the NBA was a league with only a couple score white American players:

Is it just a coincidence that the Indiana Pacers have 5 White American players on their team?

As of January 27th, 2008, there are 51 white American-born players in the NBA. This represents just 11.8% of the 432 total players on current NBA rosters.

Here I’ve selected 12 of the best to see how an All-White USA team would stack up.

With the game of basketball being more global than ever before, and with more and more international players becoming stars in the states, is the white American baller a dying breed in the NBA? Do certain NBA cities prefer white players more than others?

Lapchick's view of a perfect world for professional and ultimately collegiate sports is one where every player is a Person of Color (PoC) and every head coaching, assistant coach, and front office (athletic department) position is held by a non-white.

Sadly, the popularity of the NBA compared to the NCAA March Madness Tournament (and revenue generated during that 68-team battle royal) shows that sports fans do enjoy seeing white players compete. As of 2006, 30 percent of players on Division I NCAA teams were white.

People can say they hate the Duke Blue Devils and other teams that play white players, but as Richard Spencer put it, perhaps its because the Duke players overwhelmingly look like the student body they represent.

The NBA is largely being rejected by casual white fans turned off by the thuggery of the Black athletes, a problem that football needs to be worried of repeating.

And who can forget that NBA had to take out an emergency $200+ million loan to help teams make payroll a few years ago?

The NBA is headed for a lockout. Were it not for ESPN basically buying the league and writing them blank checks to survive, the NBA would be in a situation where attrition of at least 8 financially underperforming markets would be necessary to monetarily survive.

Players salary are too high and not enough revenue is being generated to substantiate paying exorbitant salaries to players who more likely than not end up bankrupt upon retirement anyways:

Repeating the words several times, David Stern made it clear: NBA owners and players are "very far apart'' on a new labor deal.

And with the union saying the league hasn't moved off its harshest demands, it may be hard to get closer in time to prevent a lockout.

"I think one of the owners indicated at the conclusion of today's meeting that he was very pessimistic as to whether or not they'd be able to reach an accord between now and the end of the month, and I'm forced to share that sentiment,'' union executive director Billy Hunter said Wednesday. "I think maybe it's going to be a difficult struggle.''

Representatives of the owners and players completed a second day of meetings, scheduled two more for next week, and expressed hope that continued dialogue before the June 30 expiration of the collective bargaining agreement could head off a work stoppage.

Yet the players reiterated their opposition to a hard salary cap, reduction in contract lengths and the amount for which they could be guaranteed, and said owners haven't budged on their desire for all three.

"No change at all. What has changed is maybe the mechanism, the system somewhat in maybe how we get there. We tossed around some ideas in that regard, but there is no hiding the fact that the main components of what we originally received in their proposal have not changed at all,'' union president Derek Fisher of the Lakers said. "So from that standpoint, there hasn't been much of a negotiation because that really hasn't changed.''

Owners are seeking an overhaul of the system after losses of hundreds of millions of dollars annually during the current CBA, which was ratified in 2005. They believe they could get the relief they seek through a hard cap that would replace the current soft cap system that allows teams to exceed the limit under certain exceptions.

During a lockout, one wonders if NBA players will resort to payday loans - like National Football League do now - to make ends meet?

One day, Americans will reject Black-Run America (BRA) and it will start with the rejection of professional sports. When they realize that the goals of Richard Lapchick are also the goals of Disingenuous White Liberals (DWLs) for every profession in America, perhaps people will finally say enough.

All that takes is turning off the television and not watching sports, the only avenue for positive images of Black people to be manufactured left in America.

Black Thanksgiving is upon Us: NBA All-Star Weekend

The NBA needs great white hopes, but that means Black players must pass them the ball

Editors Note: I am Number Four was exactly like we said it would be two weeks ago. An all-white cast in which white people are the heroes, American flags in virtually every scene, and not one non-white had a speaking part.American flags in virtually every scene and not one non-white had a speaking part. It was an homage to Pre-Obama America. Somebody get Michael Bay a script of Camp of the Saints.

NBA All-Star Weekend is upon us again (and one does hope it won't be a repeat of the 2007 All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas) and, finally, it has earned a worthy name - The Black Thanksgiving - that accurately nails the vibe surrounding the event:

So, you want to know about Black Thanksgiving?

That's what sports writer Mike Wilbon calls NBA All-Star Weekend.


First of all, what you need to know about Wilbon, whom I love, is that he has been known to exaggerate just a touch on occasion. But on this one, he's on point.


For those of us who cover the NBA for a living, like me and Wilbon -- now an ESPN yakker and writer, formerly a Washington Post yakker and writer, and my friend --All-Star Weekend is a long four days of work.


But for most of the people who descend into town -- this year it's Los Angeles, with its still sparkling Staples Center and the surrounding "L.A. Live" area -- it's an opportunity to go wild (sometimes a little too wild, as happened in Las Vegas a few years ago) and get together.


Other folks have Tweetups. Black people have All-Star Weekend, or ASW. It's a national holiday, sort of.


ASW is the only time of the year that people call me. I don't say that to be maudlin, 'cause most of the time, I don't want people to call me. (Dirty little secret: I don't really like talking on the phone.) But they come out of the woodwork this time of year, because NBA players are royalty in Black America, and everyone wants to be near them. The old saying is that ballers want to be rappers, and rappers want to be ballers. That's really, really true.


Basketball is a culture. It isn't for everyone, though the game is loved by people of all colors. There is a rhythm to it, just as if McCoy Tyner was dribbling a ball instead of playing piano.


"Considering that the culture of basketball in a predominantly black league like the NBA is so strongly connected to African American culture, the NBA All-Star weekend has turned into a celebration of African American culture by extension," says Todd Boyd, professor of critical studies at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.

Bill Simmons in his Big Book of Basketball called the sport a "Black game" and wrote fawningly over the athletes who have played in a sport just a hair's breadth of legitimacy above professional wrestling. The NBA has become a "Black game" with the people charged with making the rules of the game deciding to favor an individual aspect over any team aspect of the sport (The same, by the way, in the NFL, with rule changes favoring speedier receivers and tiny corners).

Our friend Richard Lapchick - who always criticizes sports for a lack of the right kind (that's the Black kind) of diversity - loves the NBA and gives it an "A" rating for diversity, though the league is 80 percent Black. He does attack, however, NCAA basketball for having Black players that earn such anemic grades compared to the white players who earn their grades and degrees.

Since the majority of NBA players lack the intelligence to last more than, at most, two semesters of college, the moniker "Black Thanksgiving" makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense because of the utter thugnicity surrounding the NBA has reached levels that only World Star Hip-Hop can rival (the same could be said for football).

College Basketball thrives while the NBA withers because "the great white hope" has an academic advantage over Black athletes as well as rule book that dictates a more defensive game. The NBA thought that offense and slam dunks would bring viewers, though that hasn't been the case. To understand why college basketball thrives, one would be wise to consult this fantastic data that shows the political inclinations of sports fans. Conservative, right-leaning people watch college basketball, while the NBA has incredibly left-leaning fans.

Look at Duke Basketball, Jimmer Fredette, the 2010 NCAA Tournament. All the evidence you need to understand that college basketball primarily utilizes the "white game" blueprint while the NBA has decided the "thugnicity" is the way to economic success and a wonderful way to celebrate a Black Thanksgiving. The problem is, however-- at least for the NBA -- is that white fans are heading for exists and leaving in droves:

No one wants to acknowledge why the NBA is losing popularity. Buzz Bissinger on why white fans have trouble getting excited about African-American athletes.


My editor thinks I should write something about professional basketball. The timing is certainly right—the National Basketball Association’s All-Star extravaganza starts today in Los Angeles, culminating in the All-Star game on Sunday night.


The problem is, I don’t really know what to say about the NBA other than I almost never watch it anymore.


I am not a basketball junkie and I have no desire to be one. There are maybe three players I would pay to watch. The first is LeBron James of the Miami Heat, because whatever you think, and I think a lot less after his free-agency melodrama despite writing a book with him, he is the best athlete in the world today. The second is Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers, and the third is Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder.


The game is in trouble and I don’t think there is much dispute about that. Attendance was down last year and is slightly down so far this season. Although basketball is supposed to be a team game, it has become more one-on-one in the NBA than a boxing match. The style has changed and it is a definite turnoff.


But a major problem with the NBA, one that is virtually never spoken about honestly, is the issue of race. I have no hard-core evidence. But based on my past experience in writing about sports, I know that whites ascribe very different characteristics to black athletes than they do white ones. I also make a habit of asking every white sports fan I know whether they watch the NBA. In virtually every instance, they say they once watched the game but no longer do. When I ask them if it has anything to do with the racial composition, they do their best to look indignant. But my guess is they felt very differently about the game when Larry Bird and John Stockton were playing.


Based on various statistics, the percentage of African-American players in the NBA has remained relatively constant over the past decade, fluctuating between 72 and 75 percent. The number of foreign-born players has increased exponentially to about 18 percent. The number of white American players, meanwhile, has decreased from 24.3 percent in the 1980-81 season to roughly 10 percent now.


The one white American player today who comes the closest to being a star is Kevin Love of the Minnesota Timberwolves. He is averaging 21 points a game and 15 rebounds. He is on the West roster in the All-Star Game. Do you know anyone who would pay to see Love play?


It boils down to this: Are whites losing interest in a game in which the number of white American players not only continues to dwindle, but no longer features a superstar?


Yes.


My good friend and colleague Stephen Fried, who has had season tickets to the Philadelphia 76ers for a decade and has written about the NBA, says he thinks my argument is more than simply terrible. “While racism is a part of America and American sports and always will be, I really don't think the main problem with the NBA is racial, and I think it's kind of racist and certainly reductionist to say it is,” Stephen told me.


In a piece for Parade magazine last year, he wrote that the NBA game needed to be significantly modified to regain its former popularity. In talking with NBA watchers, he came up with six solutions to improve play, including shortening the 24-second clock, increasing the number of fouls for a player before fouling out, and shortening the season.


They are good ideas. But I still believe race is a key deterrent in getting more whites reengaged and increasing interest. It has to do with racial stereotyping. Those stereotypes are wrong. They are malicious. But to act is if they do not exist is disingenuous. When I wrote the book Friday Night Lights about high-school football in Texas, I saw the racial stereotypes of some whites up close—their firm belief that white athletes admirably succeeded because of hustle and hard work and brains, and black athletes succeeded solely on the basis of pure athletic skill. In other words, white athletes virtuously worked their tails off whereas black athletes simply coasted because they can.

White racism is always the evil problem behind any problem in America, even the lack of ratings for NBA games. Larry Bird tried to make the game whiter in Indianapolis but was attacked for being, well, a racist.

There is no shelter from the accusation of white racism, though the future of America continues to look more and more like the sad ending of the film Mars Attacks where a mariachi band plays the Star Spangled Banner. When whites are the minority, white racism will still be the trusty whipping boy for all of America's problems.

If Black people can complain about the lack of Black people in baseball, is it not reasonable that white people will boycott the paucity of white basketball players by sitting on their wallets and changing the channel when ESPN highlights a league that represents a Black Thanksgiving every day?

The NBA will continue to lose popularity. It is solvent now because ESPN had decided to keep it on life support by broadcasting games and acting like people still care about a sport that lacks a great white hope.

Another theory as to why great white hopes are few and far between is courtesy of Pistol Pete Maravich. When he was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks, people thought he would revolutionize the game but his predominately Black team wouldn't pass him the ball, deciding to practice reverse racism instead. He finally snapped, saying, "I hate you. I hate all of you niggers."

Just like Peyton Hillis in the NFL, the Black players in the NBA don't want to see a white guy succeed on their turf. If you have played any level of sports against Black players (high school, college or professional) you know this to be true.

Black Run America (BRA) stigmatizes white athletes; those that excel are still just pretty good... for a white guy.

Let the NBA have their Black Thanksgiving. The NCAA Tournament is a white man's  feast, where white players who have no shot in NBA captivate the nation.

Without ESPN, the NBA would be in serious jeopardy of having to fold many franchises that aren't producing financially. Enjoy your Thanksgiving, Black people.

At Stuff Black People Don't Like, we'll just remember that one Thanksgiving where Black people decided Las Vegas was just another major metropolitan city.

That white shadow that stalks the NBA will remain forever haunting a league that slides into financial ruin thanks to a bunch of overpaid thugs. All the while, Richard Lapchick will be courtside applauding a league the diversity of which he fanatically gives his seal of approval.

#459. The Loss of the Washington Bullets Nickname

Black people seem to have no problem with gun violence. Inexplicably, gun violence seems to pervade communities as diverse as the cities of Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington DC.

The common denominator among all of these cities is – besides a populace brimming with disingenuous white liberals – Black people committing high levels of crime through the usage of guns.

Gun violence is no laughing matter, but hate facts support theories that Black people are incapable of staving off this pusillanimous form of faux-machismo and provide the powder that ignites a shocking number of the gun deaths in this nation:

“Too often, African-Americans cover their ears when the talk turns to black homicide rates. Yet the statistics are beyond alarming: Blacks make up nearly half of this country’s murder victims, and nine out of 10 times those deaths are the result of a black hand squeezing the trigger of a gun.

It’s time that we talk about — and better understand — the factors at the core of the black-on-black violence that exists throughout the nation.

Some groups are doing just that. Projects like CeaseFire in Chicago, where community leaders intervene in conflicts and promote alternative solutions to violence. In the Dallas area, Vision Regeneration focuses on violence prevention, gang intervention and youth rehabilitation.”

Yes, it is past time this discussion occurs. Some would argue in favor of imposing massive restrictions on who can garner a firearm, through gun control legislation. Unfortunately, the reality of gun control is once you ban gun ownership by law-abiding citizens, those with criminal-leanings will find ways to maintain their firearm possession (take a look at this harrowing statistics of Washington DC once they implemented a weapons ban).

Or, how about this from Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame?:

The problem here is that crime rates are volatile and it really matters what control group you pick. I would argue that the most sensible control groups are other large, crime-ridden cities like Baltimore or St. Louis. When you use those cities as controls, the gun ban doesn’t seem to work.

What about indirect evidence? In Chicago we have a gun ban and 80 percent of homicides are done with guns. The best I could find about the share of homicides done with guns in D.C. is from a blog post which claims 80 percent in D.C. as well. Nationwide that number is 67.9 percent, according to the F.B.I.

Based on those numbers, it is hard for someone to argue with a straight face that the gun ban is doing its job. (And it is not that D.C. and Chicago have unusually low overall homicide rates either.)

It seems to me that these citywide gun bans are as ineffective as many other gun policies are for reducing gun crime."

Gun bans don't work, nor will they ever. Walter Williams, a Black intellectual, wrote these words in 2007:

"Last year, among the nation's 10 largest cities, Philadelphia had the highest murder rate with 406 victims. This year could easily top last year's with 240 murders so far.

Other cities such as Baltimore, Detroit and Washington, D.C., with large black populations, experience the nation's highest rates of murder and violent crime. This high murder rate is, and has been, predominantly a black problem.

According to Bureau of Justice statistics, between 1976 and 2005, blacks, while 13 percent of the population, committed over 52 percent of the nation's homicides and were 46 percent of the homicide victims. Ninety-four percent of black homicide victims had a black person as their murderer.

Blacks are not only the major victims of homicide; blacks suffer high rates of all categories of serious violent crime, and another black is most often the perpetrator.

Liberals and their political allies say the problem is the easy accessibility of guns and greater gun control is the solution. That has to be nonsense. Guns do not commit crimes; people do.

Up through 1979, the FBI reported homicide arrests sorted by racial breakdowns that included Japanese. Between 1976 and 1978, 21 of 48,695 arrests for murder and non-negligent manslaughter were Japanese-Americans. That translates to an annual murder rate of 1 per 100,000 of the Japanese-American population. Would anyone advance the argument that the reason why homicide is virtually nonexistent among Japanese-Americans is because they can't find guns?"

An interesting map of the Black crime rate can be found here. But again, we are primarily focusing on Washington DC, a city where even Black officers find it necessary to brandish a weapon at a snowball fight.

Washington DC has long been a city proud of its majority Black population, yet repulsed by its high rate of crime. Of course, pointing out a correlation between the two might result in the wanton usage of hate facts that merely makes any argument unsuitable for polite conservation, thus this relationship is strictly verboten.

In DC, more than 80 percent of young Black people are exposed to gun violence:

Barnes formed his anti-violence group, Reaching Out to Others Together, after the September 2001 slaying of his son, Kenneth Barnes Jr., in a robbery on U Street NW.

The one-page survey was completed by 1,512 students ages 9 to 19 from at least 18 predominantly black middle and high schools in the District, as well as youths at Boys and Girls Clubs and other venues.

According to preliminary results, 80 percent of the respondents were "highly exposed" to gun violence, meaning a loved one had been shot or the sound of gunshots is common in their community, and of that 80 percent, 67 percent reported that they received no form of counseling or therapy. The survey also included Prince George's youths; numbers for them had not been finalized, but Barnes said they were similar to those for D.C. respondents."

Washington DC, a city that is traditionally blessed and enriched with a lively Black population, is in the midst of massive gentrification that threatens to loosen the vice that Black people have on the local government, and worse, lower gun crime to such rates as seen in Whitopia's across the nation.

The city once had a National Basketball Association (NBA) team nicknamed - aptly - the Bullets, but outside pressures threatened that appropriate nickname for Washington DC's team. A high preponderance of crime in the city, conducted with incredible efficiency, brought undue attention to the teams moniker and had to be scrapped:

"The Washington Bullets will change their nickname because of its connotation to street violence and will hold a contest to choose a new name, the club owner, Abe Pollin, said today.

"Unfortunately, far too often these days 'bullets' in the news does not have anything to do with basketball," Pollin said. "I realized we should consider changing our name."

Fans will be able to recommend new nicknames by submitting suggestions at Boston Market restaurants in the Baltimore-Washington area, club officials said. The new name will take effect in time for the 1997-1998 season."

The team is now known as the Washington Wizards. However, as Horace admonished, "you can throw nature out with a pitchfork, yet she will always return," for the Wizards were recently in the news for the Bullets that didn't fly:

"Guess they're still the Bullets at heart.

NBA all-star Gilbert Arenas and his Washing ton Wizards teammate Javaris Crittenton drew guns on each other in the team's locker room during a Christmas Eve dispute over a gambling debt, The Post has learned.

League sources say the pistol-packing point guards had heaters at the ready inside the Verizon Center, the Washington, DC, home of the Wizards -- whose name was changed from the Bullets over gun- vi olence concerns.

It was the three- time all-star Arenas, 27, who went for his gun first, sources said, draw ing on the 22-year-old Crit tenton, who quickly brandished a firearm as well.

The duel in DC -- unprecedented in sports history -- was sparked when Critten ton became enraged at the vet eran guard for refusing to make good on a gambling debt, a source said.

"I'm not your punk!" Crittenton shouted at Arenas, according to a league source close to the Wizards.

That prompted Arenas to draw on Crittenton, who then also grabbed for a gun, league security sources said."

The NBA is nearly 80 percent Black. Gun violence, like NBA basketball athletes, appears to be primarily an event that only Black people participate in (see here for Jeff Benedict's book, Out of Bounds: Inside the NBA's Culture of Rape, Violence and Crime).

Remember, even DWL's admit where gun violence is coming from:

"Gun violence disproportionally harms people of color and women. More than half of the teens who die as a result of gunshot injuries are African American, the rest are evenly split between Caucasians, Native Americans, and Asian Americans.

On average, we lose about 21 African Americans to gun violence every day, and the leading cause of death for African Americans between the ages of 15 and 34 is homicide, which is committed with guns over 90 percent of the time.

African American women are five times more likely to be murdered by guns than young white women. Moreover, between 1990 and 2005 over two-thirds of the spouse and ex-spouse murders, which feature female victims the majority of the time, were committed with guns."

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Stuff Black People Don't Like includes the loss of the Washington Bullets nickname, for Black people have scandalously few teams that have a nickname which reflects their community. The Bullets' was one of those lost to the boring notion of a Wizard (which looks like Gandalf), which is a white guy:

And even more frustratingly, poor good-intentioned Pollin had stepped from one socially insensitive mire only to land right in another. Local NAACP chapter president Morris Shearin complained that the name "Wizards" carried Ku Klux Klan associations, as the Klan's supreme leader is called the Imperial Wizard, while state leaders are "Grand Dragons." Others observed that the new logo featured a ball-handling, robe-clad wizard wearing a pointy blue brimless hat – just like the KKK! Well, except for the ball-handling part.

It's time to bring back the Bullets nickname. Just ask Mr. Arenas.

#123. Those Who Can See

We at SBPDL talk about college football and sports all the time for one simple reason: without sports, Black people would have absolutely no positive images to project to the American people.

Integration and the breakdown of entrenched dogmatic white supremacy in every institution in America only occurred when white people realized they could derive enjoyment out of watching Black people compete in sports.

We still live in a world where Black people commit crimes at an unprecedented level against white people, yet we live in a world where they make up 68 percent of the NFL on-field employees and 80 percent of the NBA competitors (these numbers don't eradicate the reality of crime in the USA):

• Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.
• Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black.

Hate Facts, you might protest, are being utilized again to denigrate Black people. This entire website is comprised of Hate Facts, even including the Michael Oher entry (do you realize that without white people, The Blind Side could never have been filmed?), for any person pointing out faults within the Black community obviously has racist intentions.

Wrong. Black people understand this world perfectly. They look to Africa as a continent devoid of hope, reason and a future (save for the Chinese exploitation of it and the impending Human Rights nightmare), and wonder why white people even bother.

Black people live an incredible life in America, where billions of dollars are thrown their way to educate them, promote them ahead of every other race and ensure their domestic tranquility.

Disingenuous white liberals work extra hard to provide a luxurious lifestyle for Black people and the tools necessary to educate them to the highest degree possible.

Crusading white pedagogues strive to close the racial gap in learning - which even the election of Barack Obama failed to close - but only endanger themselves in the process.

Sports, you see, is the only reason Black people haven't all been sent to Monrovia, Liberia by now, and any honest Black person will nod their head in unison at this remark.

Every opportunity to assimilate into mainstream American life has been offered to Black people, yet they have steadfastly refused to for decades, instead finding solace in the "perpetually victimized-class" status and continuing to hold this nation hostage in a vice of racial guilt.

Sadly, this age will pass and the glory of Black sports achievements will be forgotten as the reality of crime, substandard test scores that trillions of dollars can't remedy and rotting unlivable cities will provide the necessary sunglasses for people to see clearly.

Don't understand the sunglasses reference? Allow a quick They Live explanation to fill you in:

"Part science fiction thriller and part dark comedy, the film echoed contemporary fears of a declining economy, within a culture of greed and conspicuous consumption common among Americans in the 1980s. In They Live, the ruling class within the monied elite are in fact aliens managing human social affairs through the use of a signal on top of the tv broadcast that is concealing their appearance and subliminal messages in Mass media....

When Nada later dons the glasses for the first time, the world appears in shades of grey, with significant differences. He notices that a billboard now simply displays the word "Obey"; without them it advertises that Control Data Corporation is "creating a transparent computing environment." Another billboard (normally displaying "Come to the Caribbean" written above a lovely woman lying on a beach) now displays the text "Marry and Reproduce." He also sees that paper money bears the words "This is your God." All printed matter around him contains subliminal advertising.

Additionally, he soon discovers that many people are actually aliens, who are human-looking except for skull-like faces. When the aliens realize he can see them for what they truly are, the police suddenly arrive. Nada escapes and steals a police shotgun; while evading the police, he accidentally stumbles into a local bank filled with aliens. Realizing that the jig is up, he proclaims, "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...and I'm all out of bubblegum."

Right now, those who can see the truth of 21st century are demonized and called racists, bigots even. They are lepers and must be driven from polite society for they infect everyone with the impetuous notion of prejudicial thinking.

Yet those who can see the truth of 21st century America are precisely Stuff Black People Don't Like, for they operate on a playing field that most Black people do.

Those who can see exist diametrically opposed to those who currently run the nation, yet stand as a reminder that like Yeats, this era of Black dominance can change at any moment:

"All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born."

A terrible beauty will be born when those who can see grows in number. For on that day, Black people will realize bubble gum will be hard to come by, and sports achievements will account for the worth of a handful of sand at the beach.

And a lot of Black people will ask: what took you so long?