When being first can hurt, Jackie Robinson and President Obama have been there and done that. And now the children of Chicago!

Jackie Robinson Major League Baseball’s first black player

Chicago Little League Champions first black team to win it all

Barack Obama the first black President

 

In the summer of 2014 the Jackie Robinson West Little League team became the first all-black team to win the United States Little League Championships.  The windy city team’s victory — amid a deadly summer marked by gun violence — won the hearts of many, including President Barack Obama.  He invited the team to the White House. Their dramatic triumph ended in scandal when Little League International concluded that coaches had knowingly falsified records in order to include ineligible players who lived outside the team’s residential boundaries. The players apparently did not know.

“The president is proud of the way that they represented their city and the way they represented the country,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “The fact is, you know, some dirty dealing by some adults doesn’t take anything away from the accomplishments of those young men.”

President Obama was exactly right, I feel sorry for the kids, once again some over zealous adults who wanted to bend the rules ruined a great run for the first all black team to win the league championship.  When are we going to understand that no one is playing fair but us?  I will bet you a dollar to a donut the Jackie Robinson team is not the first to use disqualified players! The problem, we cannot do what they do and expect to use The Race Card to explain our bad behavior as some parents have already tried to do.

When the great Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 they were not playing fair then and they are not playing fair now.  Sixty-eight years later after Jackie Robinson and 47 years after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Major League Baseball, NFL Football, NBA Basketball and NHL Hockey still resemble “The Last Plantations” when it comes to black ownership in pro sports.  In 2015 our theme song is still “We Shall Overcome”.

So called Minority ownership by the likes of James Brown (CBS) Washington Nationals and Magic Johnson (NBA) Los Angeles Dodgers is nothing but a joke and cover-up for no black faces in “The House”.  They make no baseball decisions (trades, hiring and firing coaches, etc.).  They will allow James to announce the Opening Day Line-up from the pitcher’s mound (look at me)!

In the NFL, the “State of the League Message” delivered by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell before the Super Bowl XLIX was highly anticipated. It fell short like a 50 yard winning field goal at the end of the game.  The Domestic Abuse (Ray Rice), Inflate-Gate (NE Patriots) and Marshawn Lynch (Seattle) issues were like end run treatments and out of bounds.  Goodell tap danced his way around these important issues. But the real crime, there was no one in the media who thought about asking him about the business of his sport, “Why in 2015 there are not any minority owners”?  He beat the media like a drum, the owners should have given him a raise.

Back to Jackie Robinson, he and President Obama must have been very proud when the little league champions from Chicago were recently honored at the White House.  But Jackie must have turned over in his grave when the team was stripped of the championship because some adults decided to cheap their way to the top.  We cannot cry foul because some parent from a neighboring jurisdiction got wind there was something foul going on with the champions and went on a hunt for the truth and found it.  Don’t blame the messenger, blame “The Torch Bearers” who are sending the wrong messages to our children.

Unlike Jackie’s unbelievable odyssey through Major League Baseball, he cleared the way for these young people to never have to experience black cats being let loose on the field of play, the word nigger yelled at them from the opposing team or disgruntled fans.  All they had to do was play the game fair and follow the rules.  But the adults after bending the rules cried foul and then wanted to use the race card–are you kidding me?

Our children are victims of the needs and wants of adults.  Their negative behavior is learned from adults who are always looking for shortcuts in the game called life and will be the first to ask what is wrong with our children?

You show me a child that came out of his mother’s womb with an AK47 and I will show you a born killer, show me one wearing a Klu Klux Klan robe and I will show you a born racist, show me a child coming out of his mother’s womb using the words, MF, bitch and with a kilo of cocaine and I will show you a criminal on the way to hell in a hurry.  There are no such children, their bad behavior is all learned from adults—like the ones in Chicago.

When my grandmother told us as have other black parents growing up in the racial climate of America in the 40s, 50s and 60s told their children “You are going to have to be threes times better than the white man or woman you have to compete against”.  Nothing has changed, but we don’t have to cheat to be better.