Could you imagine the level of denial had my column not been written?
We would still be running around pretending that NBA All-Star Weekend was some sort of glorious black holiday, and anyone who dared mention the nasty elements of what transpired in Vegas would be shouted down as a racist.
Denial is a problem's No. 1 enabler.
We have a problem in the black community, and it didn't make its debut at All-Star Weekend Vegas. What was impossible to ignore in Vegas was on display in Houston, Atlanta and previous All-Star locations.
With the exception of Louis Farrakhan's 1995 Million Man March, it's been on display nearly every time we've gathered in large groups to socialize in the past 15 or so years.
The Black Ku Klux Klan shows up in full force and does its best to ruin our good time. Instead of wearing white robes and white hoods, the new KKK has now taken to wearing white Ts and calling themselves gangsta rappers, gangbangers and posse members.
Just like the White KKK of the 1940s and '50s, we fear them, keep our eyes lowered, shut our mouths and pray they don't bother us.
Our fear makes them stronger. Our silence empowers them. Our lack of courage lets them define who we are. Our excuse-making for their behavior increases their influence and enables them to recruit more freely.
We sing their racist songs, gleefully call ourselves the N-word, hype their celebrity and get upset when white people whisper concerns about our sanity.
And whenever someone publicly states that the Black KKK is terrorizing black people, black neighborhoods, black social events and glorifying a negative, self-destructive lifestyle, we deny and blame the Man.
I don't want to do it anymore.
This must be the way Rosa Parks felt on that bus. She was just tired of eating white racist (spit). I'm tired of eating black racist (spit).
I'd like to kick it with my friends without worrying about the Black KKK opening fire in the parking lot. I'm tired of reading the about the drive-bys (modern-day lynchings). It gets old waking up and hearing about the Darrent Williamses, the Tupac Shakurs getting cut down in a hail of gunfire.
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Wednesday I received a troubling e-mail from a fan, someone who writes me frequently. She was upset by my All-Star Weekend column.
"Why are you hating so much these days and why do you sound so bitter," she wrote. "As I always say to you, you are my favorite. I am always looking for your articles, but lately you are just hating. I still love you though!"
The whole All-Star Weekend just put me on edge; it left me in a sour mood. I can't deny what I saw.
When I arrived at the Vegas airport Tuesday afternoon, All-Star Weekend gave me one final kick in the stomach, and I'm not talking about the long lines at the Southwest baggage check-in.
I stood in line for 75 minutes in the Southwest A boarding group. I was fourth in line behind three elderly white people (ages 60 to 75). They beat me in line by three or four minutes. The A, B and C groups were all filled an hour before the flight's scheduled departure.
Twenty feet away from where we all waited in line, a middle-aged black woman (45 to 55), what appeared to be her two sons (22 to 30) and an elderly black man (60s) all sat together and randomly slept, ate and talked.
When it was time to board the flight, the group of four stood, approached the elderly white woman standing in front of me and told her, "We're second in line. That's my bag on the floor."
The elderly white people were obviously intimidated. I wasn't and told the group they were crazy, and they needed to head to the back of the A boarding group and get in line behind all the people who stood for an hour.
Of course, they disagreed. I walked over and told the Southwest boarding agent to fix the problem. He witnessed the whole thing and came over and told the group they needed to move to the back of the A group. Words were exchanged between the agent and the group.
Eventually, and I'm not making this up, one of the young men told the agent that this was racism and they were being to asked to move because they were black. The other young man said that people like me were the reason black people couldn't get ahead.
Could you imagine the level of denial had my column not been written?
The rest of the story is boring. I bring the story up to illustrate the mindset that has infected some of us in the black community.
Rosa Parks is a hero because she got tired of white people feeling a sense of entitlement to a seat on a bus wherever they wanted it. They didn't have to respect us. It didn't matter if we were there first and were just as tired. They took what they wanted from us and dared us to do anything about it.
Forty years after Parks' bravery, why would any of us think to heap this kind of disrespect on anyone else?
Why would we fight the white KKK and forty years later embrace the black KKK?
