I want to make something clear before I get into this post and somebody sends me an email about how I am selling out the brother. Most little boys have idles in sports growing up. I can name all of my favorites; Magic Johnson, Rickey Jackson, Junkyard Dog, James Worthy, Dan Marino, Charles Barkley, Kirby Puckett, Walter Payton and last but certainly not least Isiah Thomas. When all the kids were buying Michael Jordan posters and wearing Bulls colors I was a Pistons fan. Isiah was my boy. With the exception of basketball, nothing ever came easy for this cat. No one ever gave him anything and no one outside of his family really wanted him to be successful. He was just too strong to let them keep him down. He used that strength to carry the Pistons to back to back titles as a player. Even after he retired and had a few failures he always came out on top. After a few disappointments my boy ended up in charge of one of the NBA’s most important franchises the New York Knicks. It takes fortitude to overcome those kind of things.
So what the hell was he doing treating the sister and costing his employer 11.6 million dollars. As big of a Zeke fan as I am, I am going to say the same thing about this situation as I said about Mike Vick. Sometimes when you get to a certain level of achievement and responsibility, we have to hold you at a higher standard. You have fought your way out one of the roughest ghettos in America. You got over being left off of the original Dream Team. The Pistons played you after you retired. You bought the CBA and it damn near went out of existence. You built the Pacers and then got fired. You went through all of that to end up in charge of the Knicks and tried to throw it all away with your pimpin. It's a good thing for you that the NBA's current focus on their image doesn't include the respect of women that work for their organizations because they would have fired your ass.
I was having a conversation with my dad one day. I don’t remember exactly what story came up to trigger this quote but it has applied to so many instances public and private since he said it. My daddy told me “Son, a black man could run this entire world if he wanted to…….if he could just learn to control his zipper more.” Yes, I know men of other races do this kind of thing too but we are talking about Isiah Thomas right now. Yes, I know there is a slight chance that the sister isn’t being totally honest (I don't think she was lying) and set Zeke up but if you have went through as many obstacles as he has to get to this point, why would you even take that chance. A brother with his status should have no problems finding women who don't work for him to play around with.
9 comments:
A line from "I Think I Love My Wife" kept coming to mind while I was reading this post: "You can lose a lot of money chasing women, but you'll never lose women by chasing money."
This isn't anywhere near as serious as the Vick thing.
You may be right, they may have been playing each other. A power struggle of sorts.
The whole thing sounds very odd.
Remember when Isiah Thomas, Laimbeer, Dumars, Mahorn and all of those guys represented Piston Pride in the 80s and early 90s? As a then Chicago Bulls fan, I hated the team but respected them as excelling in what they did. What a legacy for Isiah.
"Remember when Isiah Thomas, Laimbeer, Dumars, Mahorn and all of those guys represented Piston Pride in the 80s and early 90s?"
Actually, I don't recall that. I recall Isiah being at the center of a group of do-anything-to-win thugs. I also recall Isiah orchestrating an incredibly immature court walk-off when his Pistons got swept out of the playoffs by Jordan's Bulls - still one of the worst examples of sportmanship I've EVER seen from a so-called champion. If I'm a Bulls fan, that's the first thing that comes to mind.
On a social level, this is far more serious than the Michael Vick situation. It goes to the core of black men and women interacting on a professional level, which is a major issue. I won't "blog" up your comment space; but due to some news items, as well as my own recent experiences, I've been giving this issue a lot of thought.
I couldn't agree with your father's quote more. The same goes for the acknowledgment that men of other races engage in this type of behavior. But as a woman who loves her black brothers, and wants nothing more than to witness their success, it pains me to see so many fall into the same pitfall time and again.
Breez,
I'm interested in why you think that Isiah Thomas disrespecting a woman and the propositioning her (which apparently she resisted) is more serious that running an illegal gambling operation.
One is a civil dispute and the other is a criminal conspiracy.
It's a civil dispute that highlights a larger issue within our community. That issue is the black male's lack of self restraint as it relates to sexual conquest. What Mike Vick did was bad but that behavior is isolated to a small group. What Isiah Thomas did happens daily in our community at every level. It creates single parent homes and absentee fathers. We have to deal with the premise that a real man needs to conquer as many women as possible.
Thank you for answering for me. As a black woman in the work force, it's actually disheartening the way some of my brothers approach me. Very successful brothers who, in the grand scheme of things, would have MUCH to lose if I were to file a report on their conduct.
Recognizing the criminal facet of Vick's situation, I did qualify my statement by saying that Thomas' situation was more serious on a social level. This goes to the way many black men see black women. And that actually stems from the way they were taught to view women, and PARTICULARLY black women, by the Caucasian male heirarchy.
P.S. I won't even go into the fact that far too many people are more concerned with the mistreatment of a dog than the systematic marginalization of black women.
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