Tuesday, October 31, 2006

The Psychic Scars That Shaped an NBA Star


By Mike Wise
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 29, 2006; Page A01

Mary Francis Robinson stood behind a security guard a few feet from where the players shoot layups before games at American Airlines Arena in Miami. On the jersey of the player she last saw when he was 3 1/2 years old was the number 0. She heard once he wore that number "because people always said he wouldn't amount to nothin'." · "Gilbert!"

Robinson yelled. · The fledgling NBA star settled on the woman's gaze. · "Gilbert! I'm your mom! I'm your mom!"
In a league with its fill of huge personalities and oversized egos, Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas stands apart because of his nomadic journey from a Miami housing project to the streets of Los Angeles, a caring father and a forgotten mother.

Gilbert Arenas froze, did a double-take and returned to the layup line, shaken by the woman's words. After the game, Robinson persuaded one of his teammates to bring her by the team bus to meet Arenas. She collapsed in his arms, Arenas recalled, hugging him by the waist as he held the sobbing woman upright. Ashamed that she had abandoned him 18 years earlier, continuing to cry, she handed him a piece of paper with her telephone number on it.

It was Arenas's second season with the Golden State Warriors. He was not yet 21 years old. He kissed Robinson on the cheek, turned and walked away.

Four years later, Gilbert Arenas has yet to call his mother.

"All I asked for when I was younger was to meet her," said Arenas, who on Wednesday begins his fourth season with the Washington Wizards. "That was it. God gave me that chance to meet her that day. I didn't want to know why, I didn't want to know all the things that happened. I just wanted to meet her. That was my only wish."

Before Gilbert Arenas became the antidote to Michael Jordan's bitter end in Washington, before he spun the District on his fingertips and carried the Wizards to their first consecutive playoff appearances in two decades, before he emerged from an unheralded high school career in Southern California to enjoy unexpected success at the University of Arizona and then in the NBA, there was this: a nomadic journey from a Miami housing project to the streets of Los Angeles, a caring father, a forgotten mother.

In a league filled with huge personalities and oversize egos, Arenas stands apart. A two-time all-star who last season scored the fourth-most points in the National Basketball Association, Arenas, 24, is one of the league's most enigmatic figures, an idiosyncratic loner, a charmingly candid young man who freely admits he pushes away those who get close to him.

To understand Arenas, you have to go back to the beginning. To understand his journey, where he has traveled and how he came to light up a moribund basketball team in Washington, you need to start over. To understand the player who gallops off the Verizon Center floor bare-chested after tossing his jersey into the stands following Wizards home games, who likes to practice alone in the middle of the night, who must own every DVD and collectible jersey he can buy, who is such an extroverted performer that he leaves work to become a solitary homebody, you have to go back to the rundown Overtown section of Miami. You have to go back to apartment No. 9.

You have to go back to the mother who gave him up there. And then you have to come forward, to the mother of his 10-month-old baby girl and the opulent red brick home he bought for them on a cul-de-sac in the Virginia suburbs.

"Whatever happens in your past, you get second chances," Arenas said. "Basketball is where I put all my pain and let it go. The court became my sanctuary, my outlet. Most males, we don't have outlets. A lot of females don't realize we can't go and tell our friends our problems. We don't talk about that. That's why a lot of men have stress. Some golf, some do strip clubs or whatever. Mine was going on the basketball floor.

"By showing up in the gym and looking at the rim and holding the ball, I got some of that out."

* * *

'Come get your boy'

Gilbert Arenas Sr. got an offer he couldn't refuse in 1985.

"Come get your boy."

"One day I get a phone call: 'Hey, look, you don't know me and I don't know you. But Francis is not raising your son,' " he was told.

He did not remember the woman's name, but he recalled that she said she was the grandmother of a child Mary Francis Robinson had had by her son.

"She said: 'I just happened to find your number through the agency. But I'm giving you an opportunity to be a father. I have your son with me right now in Miami.' "

"They found both of the babies in a crack house," Gilbert Sr. said.

"She had left the kids there. I said, 'Hey, look, say no more. I'll be down there."

He left Tampa immediately and drove through Alligator Alley. Four hours later, he arrived in Overtown. He drove down a side street until he reached a steel-fenced housing project, found the apartment and knocked on the door.

A rambunctious child of almost 4 greeted him as he walked through the door.

"He was full of smiles," Gilbert Sr. said. I could see that glare in his eyes, that glare that, normally when you around good things and good things about to happen, I seen it. He had this big smile on his face."

"Do you know who I am?" Gilbert Sr. asked.

"Yeah," Little Gil replied.

"Who am I?"

"My daddy."

"You, you -- right."

"I said, 'So you have all your clothes?' He said, 'Yeah.' I look in the bag. He had like three pieces of clothing. No underwear. No nothing.

"I said, 'You ready to go?'

"He said, " 'Yeah.' "

Gilbert Arenas Jr. walked out the door of apartment No. 9 and, in the late summer sun, got into his father's car to begin life anew.

"You could tell that was the best day of his life," his father said.

Gilbert Sr. drove his son to West Tampa, to the same house on Cherry Street he and his two brothers grew up in and two blocks from where his grandfather, Hippolito Arenas, a first-generation Cuban American, rolled cigars at a now-decaying brick factory. Fannie Lee Arenas, Gilbert's grandmother, cared for Gilbert the next few years as his father tried to kick-start an acting career.

Three years after gaining custody of his son, Gilbert Sr. decided to move across the country. "Gil, let's go," he told the 7-year-old boy. "We goin' to California."

An industry guide, the Ross Reports, Gilbert Sr. recalled, had said the movie and television studios were in Hollywood and Burbank. He took the Burbank exit off the 101 Freeway until he reached Olive Park. First day in Southern California and there Gilbert Sr. was, playing softball alongside the cast of "The Days of Our Lives," who just happened to need a catcher.

"What's the guy's name, 'Wax on, wax off?' " Gilbert Sr. asked. Pat Morita, the late actor from "The Karate Kid" movies? "Yeah, he came out, too," he said. "I'm thinking, 'This is great. I'm out here with some stars.' "

The only problem was, he and Gilbert had no place to live. Gilbert Sr. saw a 7-year-old boy playing on the swings who needed a Happy Meal. He had $25 to his name.

He slept on the windshield of his blue Mazda RX-7 part of that first night and opened the hatch so some air could get in while little Gilbert slept in the back. "I'm sitting there, thinking, 'Man, this is not a good move.' "

He recalled a police officer knocking on the car window around midnight, telling him he could not sleep in the park with his son. He drove to a Thrifty drug store and parked behind the building. For the next three days, Gilbert Sr. and his young son spent their mornings and afternoons at Olive Park and their nights in the back of a parking lot, trying to sleep in a coupe on the outskirts of Hollywood.

"Me and Gil used to have this game we used to play called, 'Fly-Away,' " Gilbert Sr. said. "I don't know why, but the sound used to make him smile. 'Woo-Woooo!' Well, I wanted to fly away. The sun set and I would think to myself, 'What the hell am I doing here?' I didn't have anything, including a clue. He didn't know what I was thinking. Tears are about to start rollin' out of my eyes.

"Then Gil said, 'Daddy, what's wrong?' I said, 'Nothin'.' He said, 'We goin' be all right.' "And I looked at him and said, 'Yeah, we are.' He's telling me that at 7 or 8 years old."

Within 12 hours, Gilbert Sr. had an $8-an-hour job, $1,500 through a loan company to put him and his son into an affordable apartment, and free day care; the boyfriend of the apartment complex manager volunteered to take care of Gilbert after spending three minutes with him. Strangers who overheard Gilbert Sr.'s woes would slip $20 bills into little Gilbert's hands. The Brookstree Apartments in Van Nuys became their home for almost nine years.

"Gilbert was my good-luck piece," Gilbert Sr. said. "Everywhere I went, people fell in love with him and wanted to do things for us."

On a tour of Arenas's childhood haunts in July, Gilbert Sr. pointed to a bench at Olive Park, which is now called Izay Park. Across a freshly mowed field where he and young Gilbert had sat is the park's signature feature, a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.

The baby blue jet arches toward the sky, rising up from the grass, its nose pointed toward the heavens. "Gil would play on that and try and climb it," he said.

When he was 16, the Wizards' star recalled recently, he began dreaming about a big spaceship in a park. "My life was good when I saw that spaceship," Arenas said. "I just wanted to ride away on it and I knew everything would be okay."

Told that the jet and the park were not his imagination, Arenas smiled in wonderment. "That wasn't a dream? The ship was real? That's where we stayed?' "

While his father escorted a visitor around the old park that afternoon in July, Arenas was in a studio called the House of Moes in Marina del Rey filming an Adidas commercial in which a robotic Arenas dominates the basketball court and, ostensibly, the world. Between cuts, Arenas rose from a nap in the star's trailer, yawned and declared, "Man, this is work."

Gilbert Sr. never starred in a movie. But he got a speaking part on "Miami Vice" once and, at age 45, has done a couple of commercials and occasionally auditions for minor roles. But he seems content in his modest North Hollywood apartment, where he's lived since Arenas left for college.

"People might look at my dad like, 'Oh, you wasn't an actor, you didn't do this.' Maybe he came to California for me, to give me a chance. Maybe he didn't do what he wanted to do, but I did," Arenas said. "So, he actually did get big in Hollywood because I got big. Sometimes, back home they can look at him like, 'Oh, you didn't become that movie star on television like you said.' Well, he can say, 'My son's on television every day.' "We're both goofy and we're both hard-working," he added. "You always try not to be your father, you know, 'I'm nothing like my dad.' But I am my dad."

Gilbert Sr. said, "A big piece of Gil is me and I'm sure a big part of me is him."

* * *

'What's my mother's name?'

The day after Arenas met Mary Francis Robinson, he said nothing about the encounter to anyone. Then he told his Dad.

"We went to the Cheesecake Factory the next night and that's when he pulled me aside and said, 'Dad, what's my mother's name?' I said, 'Why?' "

"I'm just curious," Arenas told him.

"I said, 'Mary Francis.' "

"Well," his son said, "I just met this lady last night at the game who gave me this phone number and said she was my mom."

"And?"

"Well, that's all. I didn't say anything. We just hugged each other and she started crying."

Gilbert Sr. took the piece of paper from his son and phoned Robinson, the woman he remembered as a long-limbed, pretty teenager at Jefferson High School in Tampa, back when he had the same athletic dreams his son lives today.

They dated for about a year, and sometime before Gilbert Sr.'s graduation he found out she was pregnant. A multi-sport star who was known on the West Tampa courts as "Gil the Thrill," Gilbert Sr. had an uncle coaching at Florida Memorial College outside Miami who had offered him a baseball scholarship. He left Tampa and his pregnant girlfriend to better their future.

"I knew it would be a crossroads between me and her trying to make the baby thing work," he said. "I had worked it out for her to stay with my family, but Gil's mother decided she wanted to make her own life and make her own decisions. When she got out on her own, she met certain people. Certain people got in her head and convinced her to do certain things. That's where her problem lies."

He came home from spring break after Gilbert was born. Mary Francis had moved to the projects in Tampa. "I remember thinking, 'Man, this isn't good for my son,' " Gilbert Sr. said. "But I couldn't do anything at the time because I didn't have full custody.

"One particular time I was at her house, and Gil and I were asleep. I woke up and had to come down the stairs for something. She had one of her girlfriends over and they had this aluminum foil on the top of the car. I think they were doing snow at the time."

"What the hell are you doing?" Gilbert Sr. recalled asking them.

"You don't want to know," Mary Francis replied. "You don't want none of this."

"You got a kid upstairs," he told her. "You don't need to be doin' this crap."

Their son was not yet 2 years old.

"I left the house," Gilbert Sr. said. "That was the last time I ever saw her."

* * *

'He comfort me so much'

Twenty-one years after Gilbert Sr. picked up his son, the door to apartment No. 9 in the Town Park Plaza North Condominiums in Overtown opened again, this time for a visitor.

"You wanted to meet Gilbert's mama?" said Virginia Huggins, the woman who had phoned Gilbert's father and asked him to come get his son two decades earlier. "She's upstairs. She'll be down in a few minutes."

A slim woman of 43 in a casual jean skirt, lime green floral-print blouse and seashell necklace sheepishly walked into the living room and sat down on the plastic covering of Huggins's sofa. "I don't go by Mary, I just go by Francis," she said.

She began to peel back the layers of a hard life, which changed dramatically, she said, after she got pregnant with Gilbert and his father left for college.

"I just felt abandoned," Francis said. "I was so angry, I just moved out in my own apartment instead of trying to work at it with Gilbert's father. I just . . . if I knew what would have came of things, I would have done things differently."

She spoke in a raspy, weathered, sometimes unintelligible voice, and wept often between sentences, pausing to laugh when the 22-year-old man comforting her on the sofa gave her grief about her tears.

"Stop cryin', Ma," said William "Blue" Robinson, Gilbert's half-brother, the kid Gilbert once accidentally bounced off a water bed and dragged behind him while teaching Blue to walk.

"Shut up, Blue," she said, wiping her eyes and laughing. "Gilbert changed your Pampers."

Blue never met his father. He was shot and killed in Tampa, bleeding to death in Mary Francis's arms a month before she gave birth to her second son. By then, she had fallen into drugs and depression.

Huggins, 66, was so traumatized by her son's death, she moved the family to Miami, and Francis followed. "I just stopped caring after a while," Francis said. "I lost the strong side of me."

"He comfort me so much," she said of Gilbert. "Even when he was so little, Gilbert was the man of the house. He would hold me and tell me, 'We'll be all right.' He couldn't have been more than 2 years old, but he used to bring me something to eat. In all my dreams, he was still 3 years old coming across the street to see me."

Wanda Huggins, Virginia's daughter, was awarded custody of Blue, whose jocular gait, soft complexion and sinewy body frame today make him a spitting image of his older brother. Wanda also is raising Wanisha, Gilbert's 14-year-old half-sister. "She love Gilbert," Wanda said. "She always see him on TV. She want to get to know him."

In all, Arenas has five half-brothers and two half-sisters. They range in age from 7 to 22. He has never met them.

* * *

'I don't need his money'

On the way to a buffet restaurant a few miles from the housing project, Blue spoke about his desire to become a detective despite forgoing college for a job at a Publix grocery warehouse. He proudly showed a cellphone video image of himself at a shooting range, and spoke to his mother about the second firearm he had recently purchased.

"You got two guns, Blue? I didn't even know you had one," Francis said.

"Mom, it ain't like we live in the damn suburbs," he said, pulling a silver-plated, 40-caliber Taurus handgun from the pocket of his oversize jean shorts.

"Can I hide this under your seat while we go in the restaurant?" he asked, politely.

Francis relies on men on the street in Overtown, men with nicknames such as "Kool-Aid," "Cornbread," "Wine" and "Bonnie," to keep her abreast of her eldest son's exploits. "Mostly Kool-Aid," Francis said. "He always tellin' me, 'Oh, Gilbert on the injured list,' or 'Gilbert got selected to the all-star team.' Kool-Aid always say, 'If you ever do meet him again, get me a jersey.' Everybody on the streets tell me, 'Girl, you crazy. He got all that money and you his mama?' I tell them, 'That's his money.' I don't need none of it. I just want my kids to get together one day and meet each other."

Francis said she lost track of Gilbert for several years until a family member told her that her son was a star basketball player at the University of Arizona. It would take a couple of more years until she reached out to him at that game in Miami.

"I feel like since I abandon him, I didn't know how he was going on with his life and if he wanted to hear from me," she said. "I barely came up to his waist when I saw him that day in Miami. I was cryin' and so ashamed."

Under the alias Alexandra Delphing, Francis has a criminal record in the Miami Police Department database dating from 1989, according to a public information officer at the department. "I came up with that name 'cause I didn't want things to keep going back to my name," she said. She has been drug-free for some time, though would not elaborate. "I still drink my beer now and then," she said.

"The life I been livin', I ain't happy with it," she added. "I'm trying to maintain on the outside. I joke to make people laugh. But little do they know I'm hurting inside."

Outside the restaurant, Francis broke down again. "I scarred Gilbert real bad," she said through her sobs. "I know I did. Not just him, but myself, too. I scarred myself.

"I don't need his money. I just want him to know I love him regardless. Regardless. I know it's not right for me to ask, but if he can ever find it in his heart to forgive me. . . ."

* * *

'I don't hate my mother'

Gilbert Arenas says he's not interested in reconnecting with his mother at the moment.

People close to him say this is not because he carries any animosity toward her. In fact, those who know him best say his encounter with her had deeply traumatized him.

"It's definitely caused some issues," said Howard Levine, Arenas's coach for three years at Grant High School in Burbank, Calif. "Just imagine you don't have the love of your mother. This is a kid who doesn't trust people too much. This is a kid who thinks people will abandon him."

Arenas says his father once tried to tell him the story of how he came to Miami to pick Gilbert up as a child. "I was watching TV and told him, 'I really don't care. If you want to, get it off your chest,' " Arenas said. "He's like, 'You don't want to know how I got you?' I never even thought about it. It's the past. You move forward.

"Everyone is not built to be parents," Arenas continued. "You can't judge anybody. I don't judge her because my Dad did a great job with me.

"I'm here. I could have been against the world. 'Oh, my mom left me,' and blamed everything on that. But I can't be like that. She had me at 17. . . . Seventeen, you're still trying to become a young lady." [Robinson was 18 when Arenas was born.]

Told of his mother's wish for forgiveness, Arenas paused and thought.

"Everyone forgives," he finally said. "But you go 24 years without somebody, it's like a stranger, you know. What can you say? I don't hate my mother [or] hate women because of what happened in my childhood."

* * *

'I'm always in the middle of life's problems'

Laura Govan lives in a new, 7,000-square-foot home in Northern Virginia that Arenas purchased for her and their 10-month-old daughter, Izela Semaya, whom Gilbert calls "Iza" and "Cheyla." His place is about a three-minute drive away.

They met about five years ago, as he was emerging as the best player on the Golden State Warriors. Half African American, a quarter of Mexican and Hawaiian extraction from her mother's side, Govan is an attractive 27-year-old, 2 1/2 years older than Arenas. She grew up in a prominent family of nine in the affluent Bay Area community of Orinda.

They dated for about two years, but slowly grew apart after Arenas signed a six-year, $65 million contract with the Wizards in the summer of 2003 and moved to Washington. She was working in the public relations department of the Sacramento Kings at the time after having worked briefly for Los Angeles Lakers star Shaquille O'Neal.

Such was the on-and-off nature of their relationship that Arenas was surprised last year when he learned Govan was carrying his child. But Arenas, having secured permission to quietly leave the Wizards during a Western Conference road swing, was on hand in the birthing room in Oakland last Christmas Eve when Govan gave birth to their daughter.

Within weeks, though, Arenas and Govan were arguing over issues of custody, paternity and the fragile state of their relationship. Govan hired an aggressive Bay Area law firm, which threatened to embarrass Arenas by serving him with a paternity suit on national television during a game in Sacramento on March 28.

Arenas was advised by his attorney to avoid being served a subpoena in the state at all costs, noting that he could suffer a severe personal loss of wealth because of California laws governing paternity and child support.

Arenas said Wizards owner Abe Pollin agreed. "Abe Pollin was like, 'This can't happen,'" Arenas said.

The team concocted a story: Arenas had the flu. "I called my teammates. They said: 'Don't worry. We're going to win this game. We'll meet you on the plane.' " Arenas watched on television in his hotel room as the Wizards beat the Kings without him. The team spent the night in Sacramento, but Arenas flew to Houston with at least two teammates, he said.

The Wizards did not deny the episode. When asked about it last week, the team issued a statement by Pollin. "We're proud of Gilbert as a player and as a person," he said. "He has overcome a great deal in his life, he has exceeded most people's expectations, and he has become an integral part of the Washington, D.C., community. Most importantly, Gilbert is a member of our family, just as everyone is that works for me."

What began as a lovers' spat morphed into a cross-country, cat-and-mouse game in which the Wizards' star hid in hotel rooms under aliases to avoid being served in person. The entire Wizards organization played its part to keep the matter out of the public eye.

Arenas believes his personal troubles actually helped unite the Wizards last season. "I think that's when my players looked up to me," he said. "They knew everything I was going through and I'm going out there fighting, doing everything I'm doing on that floor and it doesn't look like it's fazing me. I told my teammates: 'I'm not going to worry about what's going on now; we have to worry about what's going on on the floor. Don't think I'm thinkin' about something else. I'm going to deal with that after the season.' So I was like, 'You guys just protect me here and we'll work that out after the season.' "

The ordeal went on so long it actually became a running gag with some of the Wizards. "We made it into a big joke," Arenas said. "My teammates would say, 'Gil's on the run again,' or, 'You dodged that one like "The Matrix." ' Oakland, Sacramento, Houston, Chicago. They were trying to serve me everywhere. I would stay under an alias."

In Oakland, Arenas narrowly escaped being served when teammate Donnell Taylor was mistaken for him at a practice, giving Arenas enough time to flee.

"All I heard was: 'We're going to get him by any means necessary. If he's shooting a free throw, we'll run on that floor and embarrass him, that's what we're going to do.' It got that crazy and nasty," Arenas said.

Arenas finally called Govan and asked her to pull back. "I said: 'Why are you doing this when I told you if you give up custody I will take my daughter. I want my daughter. I will do anything for her. I don't understand what you're trying to do.' "

Govan now regrets what she put herself and Arenas through. "I called the lawyer one day and said, 'I didn't want you to serve him, I just wanted you to scare him,' " she said. "He took it to World War II extremes."

Arenas called Govan's father, with whom he says he is close, and negotiated a mutually beneficial plan that would allow her to live near Arenas with her own house, car and financial allowance. After Govan's attorney had been paid off -- Arenas said it cost him about $10,000 -- and they had agreed to raise the child together, the two met face-to-face.

"We realized how much money we wasted, how much time we wasted," Govan said. "In the end, we just sat down and looked at each other."

Arenas took a paternity test two weeks after the season to ensure he was the father.

"I'm always in the middle of life's problems, I'm so used to the chaos," he said. He refers to himself as a single parent and says he is unsure whether he and Govan will ever work out as a couple. "We're in hot water right now," he said. "It's so hard to be a parent when you're not with the woman. Especially when you see what you don't want to be. I don't want to be like my mother. I don't want to be like every NBA player that sits there and pays child support. Never meet your kid."

"We're still working on this," Govan said. "Today, we're on. Tomorrow, we're not. One of the problems is, Gilbert and I are both so stubborn."

She is almost five months pregnant with their second child, a boy.

One day during an argument, she said, Arenas stormed out of the house. He came back minutes later. "He said: 'I'm sorry. I can't help it. Everybody I love, I push away. That's who I am.' "

"It's true, I catch myself doing that all the time," Arenas said. "I think that's the only way you know who's true. If you push them away and you push them to where they hate you, and if they're still around, those are true people. But if you push them away and they leave, it was never meant to be. You're just a leaf on a tree that just blew off."

Friday, October 20, 2006

'The Wire' Calls Out Destructive Culture


Show Unmasks 'New Black KKK' Role in Genocide
Alex Haley’s TV miniseries "Roots" set Nielsen Ratings records, won numerous awards and made the whole country take part in an uncomfortable-but-healthy conversation about race and racism.

For a lot of people, "Roots I" and "Roots II," released in 1977 and 1979, put the Black condition in context for the first time. It was largely a story about what institutionalized, white racism did to black folks and how one black family chose to fight it.

America, it seems, takes great satisfaction and perverse pleasure in watching black people battle systematic disenfranchisement imposed by white people.

We apparently have little interest in watching or learning about how black people participate in their own disenfranchisement.

Yes, this is AOL Sports, but I told you at the outset that Real Talk would stray into more important areas than sports. We want to be a vehicle for change, a place that sets the standard for honest, intelligent conversation about the issues that separate us.

Today I want to talk about my favorite TV show – "The Wire" – because it chronicles a self-imposed enslavement, and it’s being ignored by viewers and the Emmys. Worse, David Simon’s powerful HBO series about black youth caught in America’s war on drugs and our collective indifference to the bloodshed has sparked little healthy conversation.

"The Wire" details a genocide in poor black communities that in some ways is much sadder than anything in Haley’s epic. Roots focused on Kunta Kinte’s legacy of fighting back against the oppressor. The Wire meticulously details that political forces, black and white, work in conjunction with what I like to call the new Ku Klux Klan (black gangstas) to keep black youth uneducated, strung out, parent-less and unprepared for a life that doesn’t include prison bars and a same-sex life partner.

Like Haley’s Roots, Simon’s Wire, especially season 4, should be hailed on the cover of Time, analyzed on Nightline and discussed on Oprah’s couch.

Instead, we’re ignoring it because black people are embarrassed by it and still think the solution to our problems is the responsibility of a white daddy. White people are ignoring the discussion because they don’t want to appear racist and they don’t want the responsibility of fixing a problem they acknowledge white racism created but they know has a black-led-and-created solution.
It’s on us. Begging white people to give us jobs and wallowing in victimhood won’t stop black men from going to jail at an alarming rate or slow incredible divorce and child-illegitimacy rates or improve our performance in school.

If begging white people to take care of us worked, Jesse Jackson would be president and Michael Jackson would be the First Lady.

What will work is a sea of change in black American culture. We’ve lost our inner Kunta Kinte. Too many young (under 45) black men and women are on the payroll of the new Ku Klux Klan. Oh, Klan wages are high. A talented rapper can make a fortune sucking on the N-word like a Tic Tac at an onion buffet and promoting crack dealing to single black mothers. And TV networks are passing out phat contracts to black men and women willing to Flavor Flav and Nat X for dollars.

But just because I understand the temptation doesn’t mean the submission to it is any less repulsive. The white guys under the white hoods succumbed to the exact same temptations. There’s money and power in exploiting the poor, selling self-hate to black people and maintaining a permanent underclass.

What I don’t understand is why we’re disturbed by white Klansmen and unmoved by black ones.

It’s like we went back to the future and awakened to a world where black people are the oppressors of black people – call it “Black To The Future.” The KKK used to ride in the middle of the night, snatch strong black men from their families and beat and/or lynch them.

In episode 5 of "The Wire," David Simon illustrated how the new black KKK operates much like the traditional Klan, snatching strong black men in the middle of the night. Chris and Snoop, enforcers for drug kingpin Marlo Stansfield, strolled down a dark alley to recruit Michael Lee, a natural leader, a good kid who looks out for his little brother. Chris made the sales pitch. Snoop backed it up with some intimidating words. And then Chris handed Michael money.

We don’t yet know which direction Michael will go. The season is only half over, but Simon has foreshadowed the inevitability of Michael’s decision. His mother is strung out on crack or heroin. At age 14, he’s already responsible for his little brother. One of his best friends, Namond Brice, is being raised by a mother who is forcing him to become a dope dealer and a behind-bars father who was a pathological killer for the old drug kingpin Avon Barksdale. Michael’s other best friend, Randy Wagstaff, lives with a foster mother and is prone to making horrible decisions in pursuit of money.

If you watch "The Wire" and understand the reality that’s being depicted, you’re forced to wonder why black people tolerate the hip hop music that celebrates and glorifies the drug-dealing and anti-education culture.

We’re celebrating our own genocide!

We’re promoting a culture that is destroying us!

I can’t believe we’re not watching and talking about "The Wire." It’s the most important TV show about the condition of disenfranchised American blacks since "Roots."

As comforting as it is to blame our woes on white people, we must break that debilitating habit and deal with our own contributions to our murder, divorce, incarceration and illegitimacy rates and our collective failure in school.

They are not byproducts of skin color. They’re a byproduct of a culture of self-hate. No doubt institutionalized racism ignited the American black culture of self-hate. Only we can stop it.

Stopping it begins with standing against the black KKK, the people turning a profit by selling black buffoonery and criminality. Stopping it begins with recognizing we truly control our destiny.

Stopping it begins with having a real discussion about what we’re doing to ourselves. "The Wire" is putting it out there for everyone to see. Why ignore it?

By Jason Whitlock AOL
http://sports.aol.com/whitlock/_a/the-wire-calls-out-destructive-culture/20061013131409990001

Friday, October 13, 2006

The Making of a Black American Millionaire


The Making of a Black American Millionaire

An inspiring man he made a way for himself when there was no way. Born Arthur George Gaston in the racially segregated Demopolis, Alabama, he never went beyond the 10th grade in school. He founded the Booker T. Washington Insurance Co. in Birmingham in 1923 with $500 and began selling insurance policies to steel workers. .

Gaston’s business empire grew to include two radio stations, two cemeteries, the Citizen’s Federal Savings Bank in downtown Birmingham, and more. Added to his business sense, he had a passion for equality. Gaston once posted the $5,000 bail for Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., following his arrest for marching without a permit. (It was while in jail that King wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham City Jail.”) .

Gaston sold his insurance company in 1987 and worked at his bank until 6 months before his death. A. G. Gaston died in his hometown in 1996. He left behind an insurance company, the Booker T. Washington Insurance Company, a construction firm, the A.G. Gaston Construction Company, and a financial institution, CFS Bancshares. The City of Birmingham owns the motel, which it plans to make into an annex to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, built on the former site of the Booker T. Washington Insurance Company. His net worth was estimated to be more than $130,000,000 at the time of his death.

HOLY HIP HOP ADVOCATE CHRISTOPHER 'PLAY' MARTIN: Former actor teaches the lessons of Hip Hop in new college course

Old school rapper, Christopher "Play" Martin (of rap duo Kid 'N Play) is now a professor at North Carolina Central University schooling students about the history of Hip Hop.

In addition to being an integral part of Hip Hop history himself, Martin is also a key supporter of the Holy Hip Hop Movement.

Good Morning America, Co-Anchor Charles Gibson recently interviewed Professor Martin regarding his college course titled "Hip-Hop In Context." To View interview of Christopher Martin on Good Morning America, Click Here.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

The KKK's Last Meeting

Check out the story at the link below.
http://blackartemis.blogspot.com/2006/09/kkks-last-meeting.html

Friday, October 06, 2006

Jay-Z "Assists" NBA Live


Hip-Hop heavyweight Jay-Z will make an appearance in EA's new NBA Live '07 video game for Playstation and Xbox 360.

Consumers who purchase the new Reebok S.Carter Basketball IV shoe will receive a unique unlockable code to access the exclusive Jay-Z character, his S.Carter All-Stars and Rbk/S.Carter Arena for use in the game. The new edition of the S. Carter Basketball IV shoe hits Champs Sports stores on Wednesday, October 11, 2006.

The opportunity will mark yet another first in the multi-faceted career of the Brooklyn rapper.

"I always want to reach out to people in new and ground breaking ways and this collaboration with Reebok and EA does that by combining several things important to me: basketball, gaming and footwear," said Jay-Z. "NBA Live has always been one of my favorite games and I'm excited to play the latest edition and to be a part of it."



The Jay-Z character will encompass the skills and traits of many of the rapper's favorite pro hoopers, making his character one of the most skilled in the game. Jay-Z will boast the quickness of Allen Iverson, the leaping ability of Baron Davis and the three-point touch of Peja Stojakovic, among others.

"The players Jay-Z chose to have his character modeled after would be on the ultimate wish list of any basketball fan," said Brent Nielsen, Senior Producer of NBA Live '07 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 console. "Fans will have fun and enjoy the opportunity to play with a character with super hero- like qualities that we have created for Jay-Z."

The unlockable Jay-Z character will also be available as a free agent to join gamers' favorite NBA team in both Season and Dynasty modes in NBA Live '07.

For more information, gamers can log on to nbalive07.com.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Wolverine debuts ESP portable multimedia player


Wolverine debuts ESP portable multimedia player

By Peter Cohen

Wolverine Data has introduced its ESP — a portable multimedia player that’s Mac and PC-compatible. It plays music and video, displays pictures and more. It’s available in 80GB and 120GB models for $399.99 and $499.99, respectively.

The Wolverine ESP features a 3.6-inch TFT LCD display and weights 10.2 ounces. It features a built-in 7-in-1 flash media card reader that makes it compatible with CompactFlash, MicroDrive, Secure Digital, MMC, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro and XD Card formats.

The Wolverine connects to a Mac or PC using USB 2.0, and can display JPEG, BMP, TIFF, text or RAW images. It can also play back MPEG-1, MPEG-4, WMV-9 and XviD-encoded video files. It can play MP3, WMA, WAV, unprotected AAC and CDA audio formats. It also features a built-in AM/FM radio.

An optional $79.99 ESP Cradle enables the device to record video directly from TVs, DVD players, VCRs and other analog video sources.

The ESP comes with a replaceable lithium ion battery, AC charger, USB cable, auxiliary cable, earphone, carrying case and documentation.

http://playlistmag.com/news/2006/10/03/esp/index.php?lsrc=mwrss

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

'Class of 3000' TV Premiere Scheduled


Class is in Session

The long-awaited animated television series co-executive produced by industry leading musician André "3000" Benjamin, has finally been granted a television premiere on its home network, the Cartoon Network. The story of a popular musician named Sunny Bridges who gives up the life of a superstar to teach children the wonders of music, the new animated television series Class of 3000 will be filled with audio interests and much more. André Benjamin, one-half of the popular musical group OutKast, has expanded his repertoire with various acting and production projects and efforts in recent years; and as such, contributes a great deal to the look and feel of Class of 3000.

This new primetime half-hour program will focus on the efforts of Sunny Bridges to teach, inform and have fun with a diverse group of musical prodigies in Atlanta, Georgia. When children gifted in the musical arts are in need of a caring mentor, one Sunny Bridges steps into the equation. Voiced by André "3000" Benjamin himself, Bridges devotes his time and energy to priming the creativity of today's youth. Class of 3000 will integrate Benjamin's unique style and flair with the world's fondness for impressionable music. Those curious for exploring more of what it is like to confront new social interests with a passion for the musical arts should definitely keep an eye out for this new program.

[click to enlarge]
Class of 3000 will join the continually expanding and continually evolving FRIDAYs programming block on Cartoon Network this fall season. The new show will have a one-hour premiere on Friday, November 3rd 2006 at 8:00pm (ET). But anxious viewers should be sure to tune in an hour earlier, because at 7:00pm Cartoon Network will begin airing a kick-off special for Class of 3000 with a special musical event. Taking place at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, GA this will feature special guest star performers.

The series, which currently has twelve half-hour episodes in production in addition to the premiere, will reportedly feature a new song every week from show creator André Benjamin in the context of a music video. Benjamin wrote and performed the series' theme song while additionally assisting in production, writing, voice, and music and video direction. And as previously mentioned, his own voice over work as lead character "Sunny Bridges" is icing on the cake. Television viewers curious about the general look and feel of this new Cartoon Network series can catch the half-hour mockumentary, "Sunny Bridges: From Bankhead to Buckhead," on Friday, October 27th at 7:00pm (ET); a week before the series premiere, which chronicles the life of fictional music star Sunny Bridges with interviews and insights.

The cast of Class of 3000 includes veteran voice actors Tom Kenny ("SpongeBob," Camp Lazlo), Phil LaMarr ("Foster's," Justice League, Samurai Jack), Crystal Scales (Static Shock, "Adventures of Jimmy Neutron"), Jennifer Hale (Samurai Jack, The Powerpuff Girls), Janice Kawaye (Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi) and Jeff Glen Bennett (Johnny Bravo, Camp Lazlo).

Class of 3000 is produced by Cartoon Network Studios in association with the Tom Lynch Co. and Benjamin's production company, Moxie. Thomas W. Lynch and André "3000" Benjamin are the executive producers of Class of 3000. Twelve half-hours and a one-hour premiere are in production at Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank, Calif. The show's co-executive producer and head writer is Patric M. Verrone, a writer for Futurama, The Critic and Pinky and the Brain and a supervising producer on Futurama. Joe Horne (The Boondocks, Teamo Supremo, The Oblongs) serves as supervising producer.

About Cartoon Network: Cartoon Network (www.CartoonNetwork.com), currently seen in nearly 91 million U.S. homes and 160 countries around the world, is Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.'s ad-supported cable service offering the best in original, acquired and classic animated entertainment for kids and families. Overnight from 11 p.m.-6 a.m. (ET, PT) Sunday-Thursday, Cartoon Network shares its channel space with Adult Swim, a late-night destination showcasing original and acquired animation for young adults 18-34. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company, is a major producer of news and entertainment product around the world and the leading provider of programming for the basic cable industry.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Forty Million Dollar Slaves


Forty Million Dollar Slaves

Arts: How sports stardom has brought black athletes wealth without progress and prosperity without freedom.

Book Review By Elizabeth Gettelman

July 5, 2006


$40 Million Slaves : The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete
By William C. Rhoden
Crown. $23.95

Sports, for some, represent the best in humanity, where talent and muscle can transcend difference and prejudice: Jackie Robinson, Muhammed Ali, Althea Gibson—pioneers whose accomplishments beyond sports are legend. But these legends, says William Rhoden in Forty Million Dollar Slave may be just that, amounting to a crutch for modern day race relations. A New York Times sports columnist for decades, Rhoden chronicles a sweaty history that has meant wealth but not always progress, and prosperity for the black athlete—the $40 million slave—who is far from free.

Rhoden gives the bench players of history their due. Like Arthur "Rube" Foster who created baseball's Negro League in 1920, which still stands as the only sports operation owned, managed and played by blacks. Says Rhoden, "Integration in sports—as opposed to integration at the ballot box or in public conveyances—was a winning proposition for the whites who controlled the sports industrial complex." Foster was a pioneer of a different sort, "an uncomprising guiding light," ultimately undone by a nervous breakdown in 1926.

Today's legends, those with perceived "black power," like the deified Michael Jordan, seldom wield it. "What [Jordan] did to inspire the multitudes—that core of black people estranged from power, the seemingly permanent underclass—beyond hitting game winning jump shots, is hard to find," Rhoden writes.

Peppered with historical gems and did-you-knows, 40 Million Dollar Slaves weaves together the twin strands of innovation and struggle that today define adrenaline-filled arenas. Jackie Robinson actually integrated baseball in Canada, signing with Montreal in 1945, (the Dodgers bought his contract in 1947). The alley-oop was actually a football invention and horseracing and cycling were once dominated by African Americans.

It's the unsung heroes from Robert Molineaux to Foster to Curt Flood, dozens of stories of men (nearly all) whom we don’t know precisely because they sought change and often lost. And thus today Americans, of all races, pour $34 billion a year into sports—from ticket sales to merchandise—while just a sliver of those revenues go to the "black muscle" that creates it, and next to nothing goes into the communities from whence that muscle came.

Elizabeth Gettelman is research editor at Mother Jones.
http://www.motherjones.com/arts/books/2006/07/40_million_dollar_slaves.html

Florida police shot suspect 68 times, discharged 110 rounds


http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/01/deputy.shooting.ap/index.html?section=cnn_us

LAKELAND, Florida (AP) -- Officers fired 110 rounds of ammunition at the man suspected of killing a sheriff's deputy, according to an autopsy and records released by the sheriff's office Saturday.

Angilo Freeland -- who was suspected of fatally shooting the deputy after being pulled over for speeding Thursday -- was hit 68 times by the SWAT team members' shots, the examination showed.

He also was suspected of wounding a deputy and killing a police dog. (Watch the wooded area where the manhunt ended in barrage of gunfire -- 1:52)

Freeland's death ended a nearly 24-hour manhunt that forced schools to lock down and families to stay indoors as about 500 officers scoured the woods.

The wounded deputy had pulled Freeland over for speeding and became suspicious of his identification. The suspect got nervous and bolted into the woods, officials said.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said he was not concerned by the number of shots fired.

"You have to understand, he had already shot and killed a deputy, he had already shot and killed a K-9 and he shot and injured another deputy," Judd said by phone Saturday. "Quite frankly, we weren't taking any chances."

Ten SWAT officers surrounded Freeland on Friday as he hid beneath brush and a fallen tree in a rural area. Authorities say he raised the gun belonging to the deputy he had killed, prompting nine officers to fire.

"I suspect the only reason 110 rounds was all that was fired was that's all the ammunition they had," Judd said. "We were not going to take any chance of him shooting back."

The SWAT officers who shot Freeland have been placed on paid administrative leave, standard procedure in all police shootings.

Also released Saturday were autopsy results for the deputy, Vernon Matthew Williams, 39, which showed he had been shot eight times. He was not wearing a protective vest, but shots hit him in his right leg and behind his right ear, among other places.

Diogi, his German shepherd police dog, was also killed. The dog had been shot once in the chest.

Authorities said deputy sheriff Doug Speirs, also 39, was fired at several times and shot once in the leg. A sergeant and an officer from the Lakeland Police Department were also fired at, authorities said.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.