Basketball wives, Uncle Toms, busted brackets...Week In Review
Oooooweee!! This past week has been something else! Full of controversy, slick talk, and basketball! Mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm!!! You know I was lovin' it!
So I'll run through this stuff and give my Shut Yo' Mouth Award to the person who got straight out of pocket for the week. (Y'all know I'm just coming up with this stuff as I write...no rhyme nor reason...)
Basketball Wives Season 2 Reunion
The looks: Despite what everyone else is saying, I thought Royce looked cute in her French Connection dress. Why spend stacks on a dress, when you live in an empty apartment (side-eye to Evelyn...but we'll get to her in a sec.). Tami looked fabulous. Very polished. Very pretty. Aesthetically she's the prettiest one naturally, in my opinion. She has good genes. Shaunie was super fly from tip to toe. Makeup was flawless. Shoes fiyah! Suzy was plain jane-ing it as usual.
Gloria looked like the 2011 Betty Rubble/Wilma Flinstone... WTH was with the huge barbles and the prehistoric dress showing too much cleave? Ashley? ho-hum...Jen looked flawless as usual. Now to the mess that was Evelyn Lozada. Chad said he would upgrade you like Bey did Jay, but honey you should ask for your money back. The dress was gorgeous though. (seeing as my mom never told me that whole if you have nothing nice to say diddy...I'll continue...) But your face looked to' out the frame. WTH did Chad Ochenta-y-cinco do to you?!!! Girl and your weave was pushed back!!!! Acccccccckkk!! FLAG ON THE PLAY!!!
The moral of the story: I will end on a positive note. Look...those women are human. They have flaws that scream at you. The shame is that sometimes they do not recognize their own flaws because they are busy covering them up by pointing at those of others. Evelyn and Jen were quick to label "Plastic Surgery" as a home-wrecking groupie, and they all put the tentative "groupie" label on Royce in Season 1.
But from Season 2 we learned that the groupie label doesn't fall too far from the "wolf pack" given their criteria. Plastic Surgery...seems like everyone up there has had a job done except maybe Royce. Smashing the homies...Evelyn knocked down a few ball players in her day including another woman's husband/fiance. (Maybe more than we know given Eric's warning to Jen..."You don't know Ev. I KNOW Ev...and you call hu' ya friend?!"). Chasing ballers...And as much as she claims she wasn't Twitter-Stalking Chad Johnson (his mama named him Johnson...Imma call him Johnson...), if you'll recall in Season 1, Evelyn got embarrassed when she THOUGHT she was at Chad's house for that party...sitting under a tent in the rain with a rack of chicks she called groupies. (Hello honey...do you not see the connection?)
I hope they get it together. All seem to have been damaged either by messed up friendships, relationships, hard times or life. But shoot that stuff happens to everybody. Grow up and stop acting like you have no sense or common decency. Heal from your wounds and stop wounding and blaming everyone else for your issues.
The Fab 5 versus The Uncle Toms
Oh boy!! I don't know if you were old enough to even remember them. But the Fab 5 were the dopest ballers walking the Earth in the early 90s. The black socks, the Walkmans, the NWA mentality...Sure the NBA was pretty nice then, but these guys were setting fashion and music trends like no one else. AND they were talented on the hardwood! And my goodness they were CONTROVERSIAL! All in all...a recipe for legendary status!
I was probably in middle school or starting high school when they jumped on the scene. They were like hip-hop in sports form. They had the talk game down, the dress game down, they had talented moves, and their passionate play moved the crowd. So yep...they were like basketball MCs.
But something happened along the way..they ran into Tobacco Road legends...not once, but twice. Losing to Duke in one title game and my alma mater, UNC, in another. One run-in with the Dookies (hey...that's what I call 'em) has caused a firestorm across the airwaves and in the Black community.
When ESPN aired the Fab 5 documentary, Jalen Rose discussed how he and the rest of the crew looked at Duke as an elitist place that did not accept Black players who didn't conform to certain acceptable cultural norms. In their opinions at the time Duke only recruited certain types from the Black community who didn't have issues in their upbringing or struggles in their lives. And who conformed to certain standards, assimilating into a White dominated sense of normalcy. In other words, he said, dook only recruited Uncle Toms! (Mind you at this same time, the Fab 5 were getting racist hate mail from Michigan alums!)
Yeah..yeah..yeah.. I know the original Uncle Tom is not as it is being portrayed now. Spare me the history lesson, I read the book (have it in my library) and I know exactly what you're going to say. HOWEVER...as viewed TODAY...we all know what is meant by Uncle Tom...or do we?
Jalen Rose explained what he meant and why he felt the way he did at the time. And quite frankly, people felt that way for a while until Dook started recruiting people like Elton Brand, Corey Maggette and Will Avery. As Ice Cube eloquently put it in Boyz N the Hood...either they don't know, don't show, or don't care about what's going in the hood. Basically Duke stayed away from 'round the way.
Now the Uncle Tom issue. See here is where I see people don't get what Jalen Rose meant. People automatically assumed he meant successful Black people. Why? Because you hear it all the time in relation to those who have seemingly "progressed" and done well in society. So of course those from that type of background, who view "not being like other Black people" as the key to their success, would think so. But that isn't the case for the rest of us (or at least me and some folks I spoke with afterwards).
Jalen spoke about those who get in a certain position or around a certain group and change up. They turn their noses up at other Black people. They look down on other Black people. They change the intonation of their speech. They change their dress. Change their personalities. Conform to be more accepted. Basically assimilate to become that which is acceptable to the dominant group. (My sister noted how in the beginning of the documentary Chris Webber appeared to do this while at the prep school LOL!). This tends to happen during impressionable ages with all groups, and that's understandable...but when you're grown? REALLY?!
One phrase. Two different meanings. Let me give you an example of how Jalen's meaning is directed at a segment, but not the whole. I went to a going away dinner with a group of folks. At the dinner were degreed, professional "minorities". It just so happened that three of the guys there went to Duke. The conversation went to how they were warned about going into the regular population of Durham. Oh we don't party with them. Durham is dangerous. Those people blah blah blah. The words "Those people" "They" and "Them" were used quite frequently.
SOOOOOO I'm sitting at the table getting heated...trying to bite my tongue..because it isn't my dinner...nor are those my people at the table. I couldn't hold it in so I went off in a sarcastic manner. Calling them corny, bland, boring and basically out of touch with the real world. (All the while thinking..."Those" people are YOUR people! WTH are you talking about?)
Funny thing is...I've been around that type of thing before. My homeboy accuses me of "keepin' it real" too much. But not really. Because I too have said something about not partying with locals while in undergrad. I don't hang out with hood folks that I don't know. (Or bourgeoisie ones for that matter. Heck...I'm xenophobic! STRANGER DANGER!! LMBO) Or in hoods that I'm unfamiliar with. Those labels. But what I have never done is try to distance myself from other Black people. Nor do I associate "acceptable behavior" as being connected to any race or culture or socio-economic class. (Ummm look around your dinner tables at holidays...all of you have relatives acting a fool, I don't care what part of town you're in...or what's on the dinner table!)
I use "correct" English (when I feel like using standard English), but I don't "sound white" (you know that whole code changing thing...don't act like you don't know people who do it...I mean if you speak in that tone normally, so be it...if not...stop putting on!), I go to places that seem "culturally abnormal", have never been accused of acting "white". But I have seen people who do. It has nothing to do with behaving well or achieving success. More to do with trying hard to fit in and be accepted by people who shouldn't have that type of control over you since slavery did end and all... I'm just sayin'! People who accept you, ACCEPT Y-O-U! You don't have to conform to be like them.
People are people. I deal with people on an individual basis. Do I feel people still have prejudices and biases? HECK YEAH! EVERYBODY! (shoot...look at how I talk about people on here...). The problem comes when you try to make people feel LESS THAN because they aren't the same as you.
Anyway. Jalen admitted some of their feelings were based on ignorance, jealousy, and basic competitive spirit. "Nough Said!
Busted Brackets
Hot darn! It is March Madness time! I didn't even think to fill out a bracket...SHAME ON ME! But for those of you who did. Uh uh uh. I hope you went with an upset or two.. Louisville let you down, huh? LOL
All I know is...my team is still in it. Even though we played Defense like Evelyn protects her chastity on Basketball Wives (right..no defense at all! LMBO). Go 'Heels anyway! :) LOL
Anywho...March Madness has taken over your television (and invaded the city where I reside!!! YEAH BUDDY!!). You can view games on CBS, ESPN, truTV and TNT! How great is that?! Well I guess it sucks if you don't like sports. But oh well...glad I'm not you! Ha!
THE SHUT YO' MOUTH AWARD GOES TO...
It saddens me to do this..as he is my first award winner. I'm hurt by it because I married him when I was like 13..in my mind. I loved him and his funny ears and gorgeous smile. Even though he was skinny and bright. I dreamed of our wedding day...Then Tamia came along and stole my man!
Yeah...Grant Hill :(
I found his op ed piece in the NY Times, upsetting and unnecessary. It seems as though he didn't watch the documentary. He only went on what he was told by someone else about what they saw happen and what they interpreted it to mean.
First of all...you were defending something that did not necessitate defending. You were blessed to have been raised in a two parent home with seemingly stable people with a great financial situation to boot! No one finds anything wrong with that!!! WTH?!
You said Jalen apologized to you for the way you and Duke were spoken of in the Fab 5 Documentary (I don't believe he had any reason to do so, but since he felt compelled, kudos to him...). So why pray tell, did you feel the need to pen an essay about what exactly?? (Yes I read it...)
So, to you Dear former-ex-husband-in-my-head...SHUT YO' MOUTH and SITCHARSEDOWN!
*The views and opinions expressed in this blog are how I actually viewed things and the opinions I formulated at the end. You can take it however you like. As noted above, people see what they want to see, read what they want to read, and view things how they want to view them. And quite frankly I don't care. Now if you don't like it...shoot tell me about it...I'll listen! *
To read Jalen's statement go here.
To read Grant's statement go here.
So I'll run through this stuff and give my Shut Yo' Mouth Award to the person who got straight out of pocket for the week. (Y'all know I'm just coming up with this stuff as I write...no rhyme nor reason...)
Basketball Wives Season 2 Reunion
Gloria looked like the 2011 Betty Rubble/Wilma Flinstone... WTH was with the huge barbles and the prehistoric dress showing too much cleave? Ashley? ho-hum...Jen looked flawless as usual. Now to the mess that was Evelyn Lozada. Chad said he would upgrade you like Bey did Jay, but honey you should ask for your money back. The dress was gorgeous though. (seeing as my mom never told me that whole if you have nothing nice to say diddy...I'll continue...) But your face looked to' out the frame. WTH did Chad Ochenta-y-cinco do to you?!!! Girl and your weave was pushed back!!!! Acccccccckkk!! FLAG ON THE PLAY!!!
The moral of the story: I will end on a positive note. Look...those women are human. They have flaws that scream at you. The shame is that sometimes they do not recognize their own flaws because they are busy covering them up by pointing at those of others. Evelyn and Jen were quick to label "Plastic Surgery" as a home-wrecking groupie, and they all put the tentative "groupie" label on Royce in Season 1.
But from Season 2 we learned that the groupie label doesn't fall too far from the "wolf pack" given their criteria. Plastic Surgery...seems like everyone up there has had a job done except maybe Royce. Smashing the homies...Evelyn knocked down a few ball players in her day including another woman's husband/fiance. (Maybe more than we know given Eric's warning to Jen..."You don't know Ev. I KNOW Ev...and you call hu' ya friend?!"). Chasing ballers...And as much as she claims she wasn't Twitter-Stalking Chad Johnson (his mama named him Johnson...Imma call him Johnson...), if you'll recall in Season 1, Evelyn got embarrassed when she THOUGHT she was at Chad's house for that party...sitting under a tent in the rain with a rack of chicks she called groupies. (Hello honey...do you not see the connection?)
I hope they get it together. All seem to have been damaged either by messed up friendships, relationships, hard times or life. But shoot that stuff happens to everybody. Grow up and stop acting like you have no sense or common decency. Heal from your wounds and stop wounding and blaming everyone else for your issues.
The Fab 5 versus The Uncle Toms
Oh boy!! I don't know if you were old enough to even remember them. But the Fab 5 were the dopest ballers walking the Earth in the early 90s. The black socks, the Walkmans, the NWA mentality...Sure the NBA was pretty nice then, but these guys were setting fashion and music trends like no one else. AND they were talented on the hardwood! And my goodness they were CONTROVERSIAL! All in all...a recipe for legendary status!
I was probably in middle school or starting high school when they jumped on the scene. They were like hip-hop in sports form. They had the talk game down, the dress game down, they had talented moves, and their passionate play moved the crowd. So yep...they were like basketball MCs.
But something happened along the way..they ran into Tobacco Road legends...not once, but twice. Losing to Duke in one title game and my alma mater, UNC, in another. One run-in with the Dookies (hey...that's what I call 'em) has caused a firestorm across the airwaves and in the Black community.
When ESPN aired the Fab 5 documentary, Jalen Rose discussed how he and the rest of the crew looked at Duke as an elitist place that did not accept Black players who didn't conform to certain acceptable cultural norms. In their opinions at the time Duke only recruited certain types from the Black community who didn't have issues in their upbringing or struggles in their lives. And who conformed to certain standards, assimilating into a White dominated sense of normalcy. In other words, he said, dook only recruited Uncle Toms! (Mind you at this same time, the Fab 5 were getting racist hate mail from Michigan alums!)
Yeah..yeah..yeah.. I know the original Uncle Tom is not as it is being portrayed now. Spare me the history lesson, I read the book (have it in my library) and I know exactly what you're going to say. HOWEVER...as viewed TODAY...we all know what is meant by Uncle Tom...or do we?
Jalen Rose explained what he meant and why he felt the way he did at the time. And quite frankly, people felt that way for a while until Dook started recruiting people like Elton Brand, Corey Maggette and Will Avery. As Ice Cube eloquently put it in Boyz N the Hood...either they don't know, don't show, or don't care about what's going in the hood. Basically Duke stayed away from 'round the way.
Now the Uncle Tom issue. See here is where I see people don't get what Jalen Rose meant. People automatically assumed he meant successful Black people. Why? Because you hear it all the time in relation to those who have seemingly "progressed" and done well in society. So of course those from that type of background, who view "not being like other Black people" as the key to their success, would think so. But that isn't the case for the rest of us (or at least me and some folks I spoke with afterwards).
Jalen spoke about those who get in a certain position or around a certain group and change up. They turn their noses up at other Black people. They look down on other Black people. They change the intonation of their speech. They change their dress. Change their personalities. Conform to be more accepted. Basically assimilate to become that which is acceptable to the dominant group. (My sister noted how in the beginning of the documentary Chris Webber appeared to do this while at the prep school LOL!). This tends to happen during impressionable ages with all groups, and that's understandable...but when you're grown? REALLY?!
One phrase. Two different meanings. Let me give you an example of how Jalen's meaning is directed at a segment, but not the whole. I went to a going away dinner with a group of folks. At the dinner were degreed, professional "minorities". It just so happened that three of the guys there went to Duke. The conversation went to how they were warned about going into the regular population of Durham. Oh we don't party with them. Durham is dangerous. Those people blah blah blah. The words "Those people" "They" and "Them" were used quite frequently.
SOOOOOO I'm sitting at the table getting heated...trying to bite my tongue..because it isn't my dinner...nor are those my people at the table. I couldn't hold it in so I went off in a sarcastic manner. Calling them corny, bland, boring and basically out of touch with the real world. (All the while thinking..."Those" people are YOUR people! WTH are you talking about?)
Funny thing is...I've been around that type of thing before. My homeboy accuses me of "keepin' it real" too much. But not really. Because I too have said something about not partying with locals while in undergrad. I don't hang out with hood folks that I don't know. (Or bourgeoisie ones for that matter. Heck...I'm xenophobic! STRANGER DANGER!! LMBO) Or in hoods that I'm unfamiliar with. Those labels. But what I have never done is try to distance myself from other Black people. Nor do I associate "acceptable behavior" as being connected to any race or culture or socio-economic class. (Ummm look around your dinner tables at holidays...all of you have relatives acting a fool, I don't care what part of town you're in...or what's on the dinner table!)
I use "correct" English (when I feel like using standard English), but I don't "sound white" (you know that whole code changing thing...don't act like you don't know people who do it...I mean if you speak in that tone normally, so be it...if not...stop putting on!), I go to places that seem "culturally abnormal", have never been accused of acting "white". But I have seen people who do. It has nothing to do with behaving well or achieving success. More to do with trying hard to fit in and be accepted by people who shouldn't have that type of control over you since slavery did end and all... I'm just sayin'! People who accept you, ACCEPT Y-O-U! You don't have to conform to be like them.
People are people. I deal with people on an individual basis. Do I feel people still have prejudices and biases? HECK YEAH! EVERYBODY! (shoot...look at how I talk about people on here...). The problem comes when you try to make people feel LESS THAN because they aren't the same as you.
Anyway. Jalen admitted some of their feelings were based on ignorance, jealousy, and basic competitive spirit. "Nough Said!
Busted Brackets
Hot darn! It is March Madness time! I didn't even think to fill out a bracket...SHAME ON ME! But for those of you who did. Uh uh uh. I hope you went with an upset or two.. Louisville let you down, huh? LOL
All I know is...my team is still in it. Even though we played Defense like Evelyn protects her chastity on Basketball Wives (right..no defense at all! LMBO). Go 'Heels anyway! :) LOL
Anywho...March Madness has taken over your television (and invaded the city where I reside!!! YEAH BUDDY!!). You can view games on CBS, ESPN, truTV and TNT! How great is that?! Well I guess it sucks if you don't like sports. But oh well...glad I'm not you! Ha!
THE SHUT YO' MOUTH AWARD GOES TO...
It saddens me to do this..as he is my first award winner. I'm hurt by it because I married him when I was like 13..in my mind. I loved him and his funny ears and gorgeous smile. Even though he was skinny and bright. I dreamed of our wedding day...Then Tamia came along and stole my man!
Yeah...Grant Hill :(
I found his op ed piece in the NY Times, upsetting and unnecessary. It seems as though he didn't watch the documentary. He only went on what he was told by someone else about what they saw happen and what they interpreted it to mean.
First of all...you were defending something that did not necessitate defending. You were blessed to have been raised in a two parent home with seemingly stable people with a great financial situation to boot! No one finds anything wrong with that!!! WTH?!
You said Jalen apologized to you for the way you and Duke were spoken of in the Fab 5 Documentary (I don't believe he had any reason to do so, but since he felt compelled, kudos to him...). So why pray tell, did you feel the need to pen an essay about what exactly?? (Yes I read it...)
So, to you Dear former-ex-husband-in-my-head...SHUT YO' MOUTH and SITCHARSEDOWN!
*The views and opinions expressed in this blog are how I actually viewed things and the opinions I formulated at the end. You can take it however you like. As noted above, people see what they want to see, read what they want to read, and view things how they want to view them. And quite frankly I don't care. Now if you don't like it...shoot tell me about it...I'll listen! *
To read Jalen's statement go here.
To read Grant's statement go here.
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