There is a cancer in our culture that, thanks to boxer Bernard Hopkins, reared its ugly head recently.
While preparing for his championship boxing match, which he won on Saturday, the 46-year-old Hopkins chose to call out Washington Redskins’ quarterback Donovan McNabb for not being “black enough.”
“He’s got a suntan, that’s all,” Hopkins told reporters.
According to Hopkins, McNabb isn’t “black enough” because he was raised comfortably in a Chicago suburb, indicating that Hopkins believes poverty is what being black is all about.
Hopkins’ comments bring up a sore subject for many black people who struggle with their cultural identity.
There is a myth that growing up in poverty and in tough, crime-laden neighborhoods is what constitutes being black. If people grow up in the suburbs or in wealthy families and didn’t experience the inner-city struggles of others, they are often criticized for not being “black enough.”
Michael Wilbon, a sports columnist for the Washington Post who is black, said he was outraged with Hopkins’ comments. On his ESPN television show “Pardon the Interruption,” Wilbon said Hopkins’ comments indicated that in order to be black in America you had to embrace law breaking and poverty.
“Hopkins and anybody else who thinks blackness is defined by lawlessness, should be shouted down,” Wilbon said on the show.
We agree.
Hopkins’ statements were dangerous and ill-informed. They support beliefs that do not benefit a person’s true ability to grow and become an individual while maintaining a strong connection to his or her culture.
The boxing champion, however, isn’t the only black man in the United States with these beliefs. Jalen Rose, the former NBA star and Michigan Fab-5 alum, in March criticized Duke University’s basketball team for not recruiting black youth “like him,” contending the Blue Devils overlooked black athletes who grew up in tough neighborhoods.
He specifically pointed to former Duke standout Grant Hill, a black player who grew up in a suburb and whose parents were both well-educated. Rose called Hill an “Uncle Tom” because Hill speaks eloquently and took advantage of opportunities to succeed.
Thinking as Hopkins and Rose do will not benefit black people or our culture. It instead creates a divide within a culture that has historically struggled and still struggles to level the playing field with white society in the United States.
Instead, supporters of Hopkins’ and Rose’ beliefs should listen more to Wilbon and encourage black youth to continue to fight for equality through finding opportunities to advance in life. They should also teach the lesson that improving one’s lot in life or being born to parents who have financial success does not make that person any less a member of black culture than those who grew up poor. Black culture in America is truly defined by its art and music and its tradition of perseverance in the face of overwhelming obstacles, not by poverty and violence. Wilbon, Hill and others should be held up as role models, not pariahs.
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Questions? Comments? Contact Managing Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski by calling 282-1535, Ext. 322, or via e-mail at kristenm@journaltribune.com.
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