"40 Million Dollar Slaves"

I don't do reviews, not on here anyway, but this is a special occassion. This is in celebration of my enlightenment thanks to William Rhoden's "40 Million Dollar Slaves." I enjoyed every second of reading this book, not only because I learned so many things I was previously unaware of, but because at its very core, it's not even a book about sports, or money, this book is about what it means to be Black in America. This book is about the Black Promised Land; its ever changing definition and the ever-shifting, unsteady, journey toward it.

The book is lovingly littered with a lot of gems of sports-knowledge, but the most important thing I walked away with, was a strong sense of William Rhoden's voice - he was clear, concise and entirely unapologetic. A rare find when most books one picks up about race is either filled with instantly apologetic double-talk, i.e 'so sorry if you're white, please buy my book;' or otherwise unneccessarily verbose academia - both approaches escaping accessibility to the average reader, and to be honest if the revolution will not be televised, I'm gonna at least need a TV Guide whilst I march in unison with the struggle. This is not to say that Rhoden's book is over-simplified, far from it, only to say that it is what it needs to be; a conversation between reader and author, a conversation that progresses with such ease that you cannot help but wonder why you never connected the dots yourself.

Rhoden takes a few quality shots in his book; 'Be Like Mike?' - not so much - Bob Johnson/BET also gets its fair share of criticsm, and that is why this book is so important, it ignores niceities, to articulate a core issue that surrounds Blackness in America today - the lack of communal direction - where some see Rhoden's words as anti-integration, I see them, and so does he, as pro Black success, which if we all believe James Baldwin's words, is pro American success. You need only to read of the demise of the Negro Leagues and the tragic later years of its visionary, Rube Foster, to long for a business landscape in America today where Black-owned businesses can compete fairly with their White-owned counterparts.

This book should be a required read for any Black child who decides they want to pick up a basketball, and also this book is for the parents of those children, but most importantly, this book is for every Black athlete with as many BMWs as there are days in the year - don't stay on the plantation, only you can lead yourself out, and would it not be wonderful if you took us all with you.

But of course if this book is about anything, it is about self-sufficiency, finding where you fit in the struggle, without waiting for Shaq to tell you, and applying yourself to helping define that Promised Land because 40 Acres is so wholly inadequate now.

First of course, you have to understand that the struggle never ended, then you can understand where you need to be headed.

Hair Day

I'm all for curiosity, honestly I am. I bath in its glow often enough; my job on the New York City subways solely consists of looking at any and everyone until they notice and consequently think me strange or "interested." That said, there exists a sort of morbid curiosity when Black folks are the subject, a curiosity centered often and rigourously on our hair; nappy, straight, curly, dreaded, natural, whatever. I for one am tired of people wanting to touch my hair - it was excessively pronounced when I had dread locks, but even now I get into a conversation about my hair an average of once a month and that's too much. This is not a new frustration, it's just one whose day in the sun is seemingly never-ending.

My brother attends Bard College in upstate New York, their claim to fame being an alumni list of rich and famous, and a professorial residency by the Nigerian literary geniuses Chinua and Christie Achebe - both being the select few residents of color on campus, well count my brother and his Black Student Organization and you get maybe twelve Black people out of about 1500. So to be fair, a small school, but disproportionately colorless to say the least. Perhaps that explains the recent faux pas in a suggestion emailed to all campus clubs of color. In consideration apparently for the lack of access to grooming facilities on campus, the Office Of Multicultural Affairs offers this solution:

...the idea of having a Hair Day where the office will pay for hair stylists, hair braiders, a barber to come do the hair of melanated/of color/descendants of the enslaved and colonized students for free. The idea is that the office will pay for them to come, and it will be a day for Bard students of color, with priority given to Black and Brown folks to get their hair done...

So am I being touchy when I say WHAT?!!@#@#!@ Of course not, the plain fact being that one simple consideration never crossed the minds of those who thought up this ridiculous idea of Hair Day; no one wants to be put on display.

It is granted that it might be difficult for students of color to get their grooming needs met in far off places such as Annandale-on-Hudson, heck I had the same problem in Manhattan when I went to NYU - "Super"cuts, I think not - the problem is, when it comes to Black people, everyone wants to give us what we "need," but no one ever considers the ramifications, the end result being, a polarized set of opinions in the mainstream. Where someone else sees here an attempt to include students of color in the mainstream, I see an attempt to exclude and put on display. The title of this email might as well have been "Hey Colored Folks, You Ain't Looking So Fresh!"

I don't know about you, but a free hair cut, while a bunch of morbidly curious folk stand gawking at your "exotic" hair, is not far removed from placing me on stage and paying for the priviledge; well at least then there would be some revenue sharing involved - maybe 70% for me, 20% for the barber, and of course 10% for the organizer, thats you Bard College, I'm not greedy. So I'm up for it, if you would like to watch this Black boy get a hair cut, the charge is fifteen bucks a show, and you can touch it and everything, and that's no joke.

Ridiculous!