March 18, 2011, - 12:13 am
Jalen Rose to Grant Hill: Blacks w/ Both Parents Are “Uncle Toms,” “Bitches;” Jalen Rose Charter School
Two new charter schools in Detroit bear the name of famous Black men. One is the Dr. Benjamin Carson School of Science and Medicine, named for the brilliant, renowned brain surgeon who is a light to all American kids, regardless of race. The other, the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, is named for a former NBA basketball player who said that Black kids whose parents are educated and married to each other are Uncle Toms. Which school would you want your kids to attend? If you are one of the many brainless zombies who watched the “Fab Five” thug-life glorification documentary on ESPN over the weekend, you might sadly prefer the latter. It seems the American public has already made that determination.
Jalen Rose Called Grant Hill “Uncle Tom,” “Bitch” for Having Married, Educated Parents
Last weekend, ESPN broadcast its most highly-rated documentary ever. The show was about the famed “Fab Five,” University of Michigan basketball players (including Jalen Rose), some of whom accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a bookie, Ed Martin, who lived just around the block from where I grew up. This violated their status as amateurs and college student-athletes. I took special offense to the documentary, especially because of the continued fascination with thugs–Black AND White–who were given everything and it still wasn’t enough. Now, they feel entitled and have giant chips on their shoulders, calling everyone a racist. I had my own not-very-pleasant encounter with the Fab Five thugs. More about that later on in this post.
Probably the most disgusting part of ESPN’s Fab Five documentary was the part in which college and pro basketball player Grant Hill–a wholesome upstanding player–was maligned by Fab Five member Jalen Rose (who doubled as producer of the documentary). Rose said Hill was an “Uncle Tom” and a “Bitch” because both his parents were married to each other and are educated and hard-working. Yeah, that’s the attitude to give to Black kids in America, Jalen. Because, hey, we don’t want the ten percent of Black Kids still born with two parents and an intact family to get the wrong idea about what’s hip and what’s “Uncle Tom”ish. Oh, and by the way, no biggie that Rose founded a tax-funded charter school bearing his name in the City of Detroit. Good to know the guy who wants his name on a school doesn’t think the Black kids who populate it should be married and educated because that would constitute Uncle Tomism.
These Fab Five veterans are fabulously wealthy freaks of nature who would be selling crack on Detroit’s Eight Mile if they didn’t have the accident of basketball skills. Yet, despite their tremendously good fortune, they just can’t stand that they are not living the whole package of the thug life, and this is the way they act out in “repentance”–by calling out class acts like Grant Hill, who beat them on the court every single time.
In yesterday’s New York Times, “Uncle Tom” Hill responded, and here are the important excerpts:
I am a fan, friend and longtime competitor of the Fab Five. . . .
It was a sad and somewhat pathetic turn of events, therefore, to see friends narrating this interesting documentary about their moment in time and calling me a bitch and worse, calling all black players at Duke “Uncle Toms” and, to some degree, disparaging my parents for their education, work ethic and commitment to each other and to me. I should have guessed there was something regrettable in the documentary when I received a Twitter apology from Jalen before its premiere. . . .
In his garbled but sweeping comment that Duke recruits only “black players that were ‘Uncle Toms,’ ” Jalen seems to change the usual meaning of those very vitriolic words into his own meaning, i.e., blacks from two-parent, middle-class families. He leaves us all guessing exactly what he believes today.
I am beyond fortunate to have two parents who are still working well into their 60s. They received great educations and use them every day. My parents taught me a personal ethic I try to live by and pass on to my children.
I come from a strong legacy of black Americans. My namesake, Henry Hill, my father’s father, was a day laborer in Baltimore. He could not read or write until he was taught to do so by my grandmother. His first present to my dad was a set of encyclopedias, which I now have. He wanted his only child, my father, to have a good education, so he made numerous sacrifices to see that he got an education, including attending Yale. . . .
To hint that those who grew up in a household with a mother and father are somehow less black than those who did not is beyond ridiculous. . . .
I am proud of my family. I am proud of my Duke championships and all my Duke teammates. And, I am proud I never lost a game against the Fab Five.
And Jalen Rose’s attitude was and still is typical of the Fab Five. If you followed Chris Webber and the Fab Five, then you know that Webber–who refused to participate in the documentary–always felt substandard because he attended the swanky Detroit Country Day prep school, instead of a public school in the ‘hood. He spent the next several years “making up” for that by engaging in all kinds of thuggish behavior, including taking beaucoup bucks from Martin and lying under oath before a federal grand jury. Webber got away with that because the-then U.S. Attorney, Jeffrey Collins, sat on the board of Chris Webber’s C-Webb Foundation and because the federal judge, Nancy Edmunds–who has a soft spot for Islamic terrorists and rich basketball scum, let him off with community service.
I had my own run-in with one of the Fab Five and a teammate and came away disgusted. While these players were playing for my alma mater, I was a grad student at the University of Wisconsin. At that time, I usually flew home from Chicago O’Hare airport, and was once on the same flight as Juwan Howard and Rob Pelinka, two of the players. Even though they repeatedly said “Hey, baby!” to me, I didn’t respond. I did not know who they were and didn’t care. But because I didn’t ask, they volunteered the unsolicited, unwanted information anyway, telling me their names and that they are on the Michigan Basketball Team. Really? I couldn’t tell that someone a gazillion inches tall and in a Michigan warm-up is a basketball player. Thanks for the tip. Because I ignored them, both Howard and Pelinka called me a whore repeatedly, as we waited for the flight. I was trying to study during this whole encounter. When I got up to buy a drink, they deliberately tried to trip me. This is the behavior of scumbags.
Then, when we got the call for the flight, and First Class boarded, they got up and said, “We’re in first class, all the way baby!” As it turned out, with my many frequent flier miles, I was bumped up to First Class and boarded, and they were not. As they walked by me on the plane on their way to cramped coach, they again called me a whore–all of this because I did not respond to their juvenile pick-up efforts. Not long after that Pelinka got into Michigan Law School and Business School. I’m told this was not based on his superior academic achievement, which would have been needed for either school, but his status as a Michigan hoops player. Pelinka was not part of the Fab Five, but instead an insecure White guy benchwarmer who longed to be one of the Black Fab Fivers and kissed their assess to no end. He’s now a slick sports agent, making millions representing players like Kobe Bryant and driving fancy sports cars. But he’ll always be the guy who is embarrassed by his upper class, White upbringing in Lake Forest Illinois and fancies himself as a Black guy starring in a rap video.
Rob, if you’re reading this, you and I both know that despite all the money, degrees, and accoutrements of the high life, you’ll always be a lowlife thug who wishes he were Black, but just isn’t. It’s that pigment thing getting in the way.
The Fab Five and all their associates are pieces of crap not worth shining Grant Hill’s shoes. If we had more players like Hill and fewer like the Fab Five, America’s kids would truly have Fab heroes in college and the NBA.
Oh, and if you send your kids to the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy charter school, you’re a moron.
Tags: basketball, bitch, Black America, Charter School, Chris Webber, college basketball, Detroit, Ed Martin, educated, ESPN, Fab Five, Grant Hill, Jalen Rose, Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, married, NBA, Rob Pelinka, The Fab Five, Uncle Tom, University of Michigan, University of Michigan basketball team
Dayum Debbie,You never cease to amaze me
ebayer on March 18, 2011 at 1:36 am