nba where risks aren't taken

with nba all star weekend now behind us and black history month still with more days to go i began to think about how many brothers were running up and down those courts. now my favorite moment of the weekend had to be a tie between shaq dancing and reporter craig sager calling the jabowockeez or however you spell it the "wackojabeez"
in honor of black history month i thought about revolution and progressive thoughts. all things that are not prevalent within the nba. but along the years there have been some brief moments. here are my top 5 revolutionary moments by black men in the nba.

5. lew alcindor not trying out for the 1968 olympic games
at this point in his career lew straight outta nyc was the most dominant and impressive college basketball player in the nation. he was a straight lock but chose not to try out for the team due the treatment of the black community. these olympic games are often remembered by john carlos' and tommie smith's black fist in the air, but we forget to about young kareem. now the fact that i had to use lew's example shows how much nba players over the last few years have not made moves.

4. ron artest fighting fans
now many look at this moment as a pure act of thuggery. i on the other hand look at this a the disgruntled slave having enough. he was being taunted, cursed at and these mofos were even throwing things at this dude. they were sitting there with their expensive tickets, yelling out all types of disturbing shit but they can do so because the nba allows. god forbid a player or coach criticize the hierarchy of the nba. right into the pockets. now i think ron ron is indeed a lil crazy, but what he did was show the people that he'd had enough. i bet you fans won't be throwing things at his ass again. if you taunt the oppressed long enough, one day they are gonna break free and bust your shit. see ron artest

3.craig hodges calls a spade a spade
so the bulls win the title and craig visits the white house. craig throws on a dashiki. craig slides president bush the first, a note that expresses how tight he was about the administration's treatment of the poor and the minorities.
a few years later craig goes at mj. he calls out mike for not taking more of a stand on particular social and political issues. i'm with craig on this one.

2. larry johnson and slavery
one of my favorite knicks over the years was my man lj. larry johnson was no longer grandmama by the time he came to the knicks and especially wasn't grandmama during his last years. fast forward to nba finals 1999. "what we have is a lot of rebellious slaves on this team" and when bill walton called him a disgrace lj would go on to say "damn bill walton. tell him to trace his history and see how many slaves his ancestors had."
larry had his full beard and hair grown out. he was not playin and in doing so provided one of the most poignant and i believe advanced statements involving black athletes in a long time.

1. mahmoud abdul-rauf and old glory
now we've all been to an event where the national anthem has played. sometimes we don't take our hat off, sometimes we talk during the playing or singing and sometimes we are singing the theme to "fame" in our heads. that last one may only be me but whatever. regardless we always stand. not mahmoud. he didn't stand, no hand over heart and back to the flag. he stated the flag represented tyranny which conflicted with his islamic beliefs. reckless? i say revolutionary. he eventually compromised and stood up but prayed during the anthem. big boy moves and oh yeah he could ball!

balllinnnn!
peace.love.funk.

grammy's baby!!!

so it's the grammy time. the grammy's were full of some ill moments. coldplay's performance, jay and chris martin duet, radiohead who was great, the four tops tribute, the bo diddley tribute, jennifer hudson's performance and the rock's lil monologue in the beginning. a show filled with dope moments must include my top 5 moments of the 2009 grammy awards

5. chris brown and rihanna - the lost performance doing perhaps their ike and tina impression, apparently chris brown is gully or actually not gully at all. apparently rihanna wasn’t the victim but it looks as if the lovable mr. brown assaulted a woman on his way from a party. so no chris and no rihanna but what did we get instead: al green!!!!!!!!!

4. swagger like us so m.i.a. comes out in black and white colored television and yes pregnant! 9 months pregnant! despite this she still killed. dancing, moving, grooving, im sorry haters she looked great. then the fellas come out and i must say they straight rocked. this was the first time they did this live so i actually wanted a lil more swag but maybe i just wasn’t ready. kanye’s black mullet =swag. jay’s turning his back to the audience=swag. lil wayne’s height=swag. t.i. no swag. sorry im just not a big fan of him live. dope overall show though i was a little hyped i won’t lie.

3. neil diamond doing sweet caroline i am a hip hop head through and through. but then there are those songs that cross all boundaries. songs that a young black man from queens only learns at such corner bars possibly named gantry’s. we all know that type of bar. the black folks only show up on the crazed college night (wed or thurs). when there they drink beer that never would, holla at white folks they never would and sing songs that they never would. one of those songs was sweet caroline by mr. neil diamond. we have all caught ourselves doing the OH OH OHHHHHH” part of that song and so did the grammy audience. neil diamond was havin a blast and so was i. feelin so good so good so goooood

2. lil wayne's performance the band the dancers alan toussiant i loved his love for new orleans. i loved how he didn’t hit ya with the cliché hip hop performance at the grammy’s (see t.i.). i love his song selection with Robin thicke and not tpain. no lollip or a milli which i enjoyed but i think he took to chance and succeeded. hate it or love lil wayne is dope.

p.s. did we peep, "shawty get low" being played to introduce tpain and will. i. am. right after? we’ll never escape it those apple bottom jeans or those boots with fur.

1.presentation of r&b album of the year what a way to open the show! newarks finest herself ms. whitney houston shows up. now i must say i was very impressed with whitney’s look. she showed some leg looked healthy a little too much makeup but overall was killing it. then she spoke. she started talking bout how she should’ve worn her boots. then came the slurring and the light stumble in speech. (__insert crack joke here____). then jennifer hudson won and we all knew she would. there’s no way the grammy’s wouldn’t give it to her after her terrible tragedy. she did have a dope album but the competitors had no chance. my fav moment though of this part though was being able to see dave (aka punk from the infamous “i love new york”). jennifer is a long way, long long long way from ms. new york and the grammy’s are a long way from vh1 reality.

as cool as this show was nothing beats my favorite grammy moment of all time: