WHEN IT COMES TO BLACK ATHLETES, IT DOESN’T MATTER IF IT IS FULLY FURNISHED WITH THE LATEST OR LEGISLATED DESOLATION, WHEN WE STEP ON THE:
COURTS
FIELDS
GYMS
IT IS KNOWN, IT IS FELT, IT IS UNDERSTOOD THAT WE CAME TO COMPETE.
I WANT TO HIGHLIGHT BLACK ATHLETES ON ANY COURT BUT FIRST LET’S LOOK AT THE HISTORY OF THE COURTS FOR US.
COURTS FOR US HAVE NOT BEEN NICE
COURTS FOR US HAVE NOT BEEN GOOD
COURTS FOR US HAVE NOT BEEN FAIR
COURTS FOR US HAVE NOT BEEN EQUAL
COURTS FOR US HAVE NOT BEEN JUST
SERENA WILLIAMS REDEFINED WHAT THE COURTS SHOULD AND COULD MEAN FOR US ALL, IF WE WOULD ONLY GET BACK TO WHAT OUR ANCESTORS DID AND EMBODY WHO THEY WERE.
I WOULD LIKE TO ONYM THIS TRIBUTE TO THE GOAT.
ACRONYM
COURAGEOUS
OPPORTUNISITIC
UNERSTOOD
RIPE
TACTFUL
SINCERE
ANTONYM
CLUELESS
OPPORTUNISTIC
UNSKILLED
ROOKIE
TRAINEE
STARTER
CONTRANYM
CONTINUE
OUT
UNBENDING
RAVEL
TRIP
SEED
SERENA WILLIAMS, THE GOAT HAVE SHOWN OUR CHILDREN IN OUR INNER CITIES THROUGHOUT AMERICA THAT WHAT IS IN HER, IS IN THEM IF ONLY THE LISTENED, LEARNED, THOUGHT AND UNDERSTOOD IT.
THEY TOO WOULD PRODUCE WHAT YOU DID BECAUSE THEY SHARE THE SAME DNA.
CONGRATULATIONS AND THANK YOU FOR BEING WHERE OUR CHLDREN CAN UNDERSTAND AND SEE JUST WHAT EXCELLENCE IS.
OUR CHIDLREN ARE SO SERENA, SO BARACK, SO TIGER, SO SIMONE, SO GABBY, SO BLACK BRILLIANCE, EXCELLENCE AND SCHOLARLY THAT AMERICA CREATED WAYS TO MAKE THEM FEEL LESS THAN, INFERIOR AND EMBODY THE LIES OF CRIMINALITY THAT HAVE THEM LOOKING, SOUNDING, ACTING AND PRESENTING THEMSELVES JUST LIKE THE ENEMY AND INFERIOR ONES WANT THEM.
OUR EDUCATION
OUR EXPERTISE
OUR EXPERIENCE
OUR ENVIRONMENT
THESE THINGS ABOVE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN REASON TO DENY US, OMIT US, REJECT US AND EXCLUDE US
I END WITH THESE REMINDERS…….
No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.”
Assata Shakur
“If we as a people realized the greatness from which we came we would be less likely to disrespect ourselves.”
Marcus Garvey
“It is your mind that rules the body. You cannot go further than that mind to seek truth and to know truth and to react to truth.”
Marcus Garvey
“You at this time can only be destroyed by yourselves, from within and not from without. You have reached the point where the victory is to be won from within and can only be lost from within.“
Marcus Garvey
If you haven’t confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.”
Marcus Garvey
“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”
Dr. Maya Angelou
“It’s hard to be what you can’t see.”
Marian Wright Edelman
“When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.”
Carter G. Woodson
“If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.”
Carter Godwin Woodson
“History shows that it does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government, those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning.”
Carter Godwin Woodson
“Philosophers have long conceded, however, that every man has two educators: ‘that which is given to him, and the other that which he gives himself. Of the two kinds the latter is by far the more desirable. Indeed all that is most worthy in man he must work out and conquer for himself. It is that which constitutes our real and best nourishment. What we are merely taught seldom nourishes the mind like that which we teach ourselves.”
Carter G. Woodson
“When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.”
Carter G. Woodson
“No man knows what he can do until he tries.”
Carter Godwin Woodson
“As another has well said, to handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching.”
Carter Woodson
“If the Negro in the ghetto must eternally be fed by the hand that pushes him into the ghetto, he will never become strong enough to get out of the ghetto. ”
Carter Godwin Woods
