Dad’s, with all of the cheating that is going on in sports these days, how do you talk to your kids about this issue?
It’s hardly new. “Back in my day”, I wanted to throw a knuckler like Phil and Joe Niekro and a spitball like Gaylord Perry. Those were fun guys and Joe and Gaylord were cheaters, but hey, it was funny right? Did George Brett really mean to run Pine Tar that far up on the bat?
Come on! Lighten up!
Now this was before we really got serious on baseball cheaters like McGwire, Sosa, Bond (allegedly), A-Rod and the list goes on and on in that sport. But then there’s “Stickum” in football, anabolic steroids, growth hormone in almost every Olympic sport, blood doping in cycling, academic cheating from junior high through college for basketball and football players, car modification cheating in racing…maybe it is true, if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying!
So we really shouldn’t be tripping out about Tom Brady.
But this article in The Root breaks down that we do view and talk about cheaters differently, I highly recommend giving it a read.
Here are some of the highlights:
“If he were black, people would be calling him a criminal and saying that his behavior reflected some innate values. They would blame hip-hop, single mothers and the culture of poverty. If he were a black player, the conversation wouldn’t be about Goodell or the system but how the lack of a work ethic and morals led him to cut corners, to win “by any means necessary.” If he were black, the conversation would turn to affirmative action and how he was forced to cheat because he lacked the skills needed to excel at this elite level….Brady demonstrates yet again that whites are innocent … until proved innocent. Any evidence to the contrary proves that the system is flawed, that we have a miscarriage of justice.”
Dad’s when you’re having this discussion with your kids, do you unknowingly talk differently based on the color of the athlete?
It’s something to think about and it’s how we teach our children about so-called race, without ever talking about race in our homes. Then we proudly exclaim to the world, “I teach my kids that skin color doesn’t matter, everybody should be treated the same!”
So do you treat everyone the same in your actions and judgements on who’s a cheater and who isn’t? Perhaps this is a good discussion to have with ourselves first, and then our children as well.
I’ve been saying this for a year now. We are entering an environment where all the Nation of Islam has to do is just open its doors to the many young African-Americans who want to come in. These “kids” are not atheists or agnostic. Most will be Baptists, Methodist, Catholic, Church of God in Christ or just plain “Evangelical”, and the roots they’ve received from their respective churches all their lives are likely as shallow as a puddle on a sidewalk.
Therefore, to give them an opportunity to just talk, let alone mobilize about white supremacy will pull like gravity.
So I was not surprised at all to see the following:
EXCLUSIVE: The Nation Of Islam Speaks On Involvement In Baltimore – “America Will Never Be The Melting Pot We Want It To Be”
“Political leaders, athletes, and musicians headed to the city of Baltimore this past week, making headlines for their kind words, ideas, and inspiration after peaceful demonstrations turned violent following the funeral of Freddie Gray on Monday. Gray, 25, died from a spinal injury while in police custody. While the chaos of arson and looting took over headlines, one group’s efforts to prevent it all peculiarly went unnoticed – The Nation Of Islam.
Since its formation more than 80 years ago, the Islamic religious movement has dedicated their mission to bettering the mind, heart, and economic state of African-Americans. While the group has faced criticism for its harsh militancy position during the civil rights movement, some group members were seen on the front lines of the Baltimore riots, preventing possible looters from invading stores and bringing together Crips and Blood gang members in a photo that went viral over the weekend.”
If God allows you and I to live long enough, we’ll see another “race riot” in two months or two decades. History has shown that “race riots” in the USA are just as predictable as the weather.
The response of the Christian community is, well, as I said on social media to my wife:
“Forgive me as I don’t want to jack your post. But it jumped out at me that this article was written on a site who’s worldview is much different from ours. However, as it was during Ferguson, the vast majority of Christian sites/commentators are once again silent. I can’t help but reflect once again on the Good Samaritan parable, MLK’s comments about the silence of The Church during his protests/persecution, and 1 John 4. It confirms yet again, if I were on the side of the road unjustly beaten, in jail for protesting (not because my hockey team won a game) or just feeling troubled and saddened by the actions of my nation, comfort would be far more likely to come from those who need the gospel themselves, not by those who claim to share my belief in the gospel and its power. That in and of itself may be more shameful than what’s going on in the nation today…for at least I know where “they” stand, but I’m forced to ask on Sunday (e.g. within the Christian community), “who is my brother?” – 4:19, “We love, because He first loved us. 20If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.”
Yes, sometimes as a so-called “Black Christian”, you feel quite alone during these times in our lives. It was this same environment in the early ’90s, that resulted in a rise in the number of African-Americans turning to the Nation of Islam. So many just wanted someone spiritual to speak up about crack in our communities, police brutality in our neighborhoods that resulted in a video of a man named Rodney King being beaten worse than a dog, and later riots in the streets of L.A..
But the Nation of Islam need the gospel, they do not have an answer.
The message below from Thabiti Anyabwile resonates with you African-American Christian. The NOI, Bahia, and now Kemet may make our flesh feel justified, but it will not justify our souls. Only Jesus Christ can do that, and I thank God that even when things seems to be at their worse, He still has men out there saying, “The Bible DOES deal with race! God is not a white-devil used to enslave your minds!”
Check out the message from this brother. He broke IT DOWN (some of y’all know what I mean when I say that). I can truly say he’s my “favorite” dude right now and I’m so glad God is using him to teach me at this time in my life, when I’m even standing out wondering, “Lord, am I missing something? Can people not get rid of their ethnic identity to be one with my people group in the Church?”
The Justified Life with God is a Compassionate Life Toward Men – Thabiti Anyabwile
Get the order in and add this to the family library!
Just in case you think the story is less true because it’s being told by African-Americans, you can read Tulsa’s very own report yourself done decades later (yes, it’s easy to find online if you want to make the effort).
Or I’ll give you a freebie, as you can listen to the short podcast HERE by two Caucasian women on a show called, you guessed it, Stuff You Missed In History Class.
Well, truth be told, I can’t miss something I was never taught.
My kids know all about it though, and that’s why we love home schooling!!!
“Resurrecting Black Wall Street” not only tells the story of what happened, but discusses the aftermath. We discuss the fight for reparations that was never answered by the Oklahoma legislature. The film also discusses ways that the black community can learn from those who had the vision to create a kingdom of cooperative economics unlike anything seen before or since that tragic period in 1921.
The film features several expert commentators, including Finance PhD Dr Boyce Watkins, Dominique Reese, Michael Imhotep of the African History Network, and many more. You MUST (emphasis theirs) share this story with your children and we must learn from this tragedy in order to build a better tomorrow.” – http://store.yourblackworld.net/products/resurrecting-black-wall-street-dvd-pre-order
Once again, I really can’t add any commentary to this one.
All I’ll say is that when you get into “those conversations” (some of you know what I mean) at work, school or church. Just have this vid loaded and ready to go on your phone or computer.
The “discussion” will likely be over pretty quickly without you having to hardly say anything.
Tonight I was talking to a young man who’s about to be a father and wonders if his life is over. May I encourage all of you single dads that actually, your life has just begun. If you think you’ve never accomplished anything in school, at work, or wherever…now you can. If you didn’t have a father in your life, now you can show your child what it’s really like to have one. What can seem like something that has destroyed your life, can be what saves your life. If you’ve been living that “do-nothin” life in this country, they have a cell and/or grave waiting for you. But your child can give you something to set that alarm clock for in the morning. Someone to make you say, “Nah, I’m not going there or doing that…”. Someone that you can put your legacy and values on FOREVER. You will never do that at a job, never do that at a school, but you have an opportunity to do that in your child’s life…and that’s why God allowed YOU to be a father. Everybody else in your life may have said, and may still say, “That ___ isn’t ever going to do anything with their life.” But one day you’ll realize that other people’s opinions don’t pay your child support, hold your kid’s hand, teach them how to catch, or touch you in ways that will have you in tears like you’re the baby. You fellas get up in the morning knowing that you got something to live for, and die for, and be thankful not sorry, that your life will never be the same.
First, thanks so much to Rob’s USC family for putting this together!
A little over a month ago, God called our Brother Rob home and you can read more about him HERE.
Someone from Rob’s days at USC made a video that I wanted to share here as well. This is fantastic, and I think it captures the special guy Rob was, his infectious joy and laughter, and his determination to always “keep it real”. Don’t believe me? Watch Rob not get star struck at Morris Chestnut! We hated Rob’s stories about all the movie stars he met at USC and thought he was exaggerating. Then one day we went to see House Party 2, filmed at USC, and all of a sudden it looked like he walked past in the movie. You never saw his face in the shot, but we all knew that “Robert walk”. Guess the brother wasn’t lying!
Proverbs 20:23 – Unequal weights are an abomination to the LORD, and false scales are not good.
I think this video sums things up in less time it would take me to type up a post.
However, I’ll just say that personally, I’ve witnessed this long before I ever knew about “The Pipeline”.
In my suburban high school, our basketball team got into a major parking lot brawl with another suburban high school. Cops were called, no one went to jail, and guys were bragging about the action the next day in school.
Fast forward a few years…my brother was attending a high school in the city. He got involved in a food fight in the cafeteria. School staff broke up the fight, called the police, and my parents got the call to pick him up from jail. The story didn’t end there, as he later had a court case (ironically held in our neighborhood middle school with a bunch of other school “court” cases), and had to have his recruiter vouch for him that he was a “good kid” and would soon be in the military, so don’t punish him.
Perhaps his biggest crime was not getting into a fight when he went to a school in the ‘burbs instead.
Perhaps it is a waste of time to focus on the lives of those being killed at the hands of those who are supposed to be protecting and serving the community. No matter what the case, someone is bound to say, “Yea, but what about…”. The problem with those “what abouts” are numerous, but the two main one’s are:
1.) They never warrant the death penalty
2.) They are false rumors spread by the police, internet trolls, or the media to taint the jury, gather public support and slander the dead.
That’s it, plain and simple. The latest example is this. At this point in 2015, who has proven to be the real thug, Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman?
So let me make an appeal from this angle. What about the children left behind after their father’s have been killed?
What about the parents who have to bury their sons? Don’t we always say, “The worst thing in life is for a parent to bury their child.”
I bet the pain of death stings even more when they can’t even find out the facts of the case because of police cover-ups and/or false testimonies. When justice is not given, where do you turn next?
Please read the latest killing HERE of Calvon “Andre” Reid in Florida. This story is quite disturbing. Another father is dead, leaving behind two sons and has to be buried by his parents. What’s also disturbing is that eyewitness testimony has sent many black men to prison, where some have died or remain AFTER it is found out the person committed perjury. However, eyewitness testimony is nothing when given against a police officer. Even after lies seem to be told following the incident by the police, they receive the assumption of innocence.
Big Rob is on the far right. It was Rob who encouraged us (the fellas who all would later attend different churches) to go to the mission, have our own men’s bible study, home church, radio show…and those were just the few of the things I jumped in on!
I’ve always believed that God has blessed me to have true friends, that are like fingers to my hand. Today, I lost my first finger, my boy Rob. I’ll never forget this dude walking up to me in 7th grade, to ask me, a new kid in his school, to be in a group skit. Only God knew that for the next 33 years, he and I would be asking each other to “help over here” or “join me for this”. I think our last conversation was me asking him to join me in mentoring men at a pregnancy center, and encouraging them to be fathers. Why? Because Rob said in the early 90’s, “I want to write the definitive book on Black Fatherhood.” He said this before he had any kids.
It was Rob that encouraged me to be a father when I didn’t know how to be one. It was Rob who encouraged my wife and I to have another child when we were drowning financially with the ones we already had. It was Rob who encouraged us to homeschool. It was Rob who told me I was stagnant in my life when I was all about getting paid on Friday and hanging out. Rob got his first degree in Sociology, I got mine in Sociology. I didn’t even know how to apply at a college, but he taught me the game.When I graduated at 33, I let the brother know I could not have done it without him as he would say, “You’re going to be that age whether you go back to school or not, so just do it man!” It’s Rob’s influence that makes me post topics in this venue and others that hope to promote dialogue and make us think, because that’s what he was always all about. “We need to stop jaw-jackin’” was his common phrase, and he always threw stuff out to get an argument going. Even if you didn’t agree, you left the debate smarter and with a sharper argument for your own position, because he’d force you to get it tight.
I found out the news, sharing the gospel at my church. How fitting. It was Rob who pushed me and the other “Mission Men” to preach the gospel whenever we had the opportunity, to do it boldly, and know our Word. It’s now Rob, seeing Christ face-to-face. We talked about death more than most, and Rob knew that when he died, he’d spend eternity with Christ because he had repented for his sins and trusted in the Cross for his salvation. There was no doubt in his mind.
But what about you reading this? If Rob was a fool and believed in a made-up religion handed down by the white man to enslave the masses, he lost nothing, but you gained. You gained because he lived his life from the time I met him at 12 until 45 always knowing that whatever he did, he’d have to answer to a Holy God some day. Therefore, you have benefited from his “ignorance”, as it was that belief that made him such a good friend to many and want to reach out and build relationships.
I will use Rob’s passing to do just what he was all about every day, and that’s to preach the gospel yet again, and ask you to examine yourself. If you do not know God as your Savior for your sins, that you should turn to him, because your good deeds can never make you righteous. Logically, ANY sin against a holy and righteous God deserves death. But salvation has been made available through Jesus Christ, not your tithing, your singing, your skin color, or anything you have only because God gave them to you. Only through Jesus Christ.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. – John 3:17-18
I’m going to miss Big Rob, aka Dr. Chill of our unknown rap-group called the Benny-Boys. I’m going to miss our racial conversations, church discussions, or walks down memory lane and life in the ‘hood. We were beyond “punk” or “hard” status and could say, “I love you man”. If you’re saved, please pray for his wife and their three children, his mom, and his brothers and sisters.
Who is the Robert in your life today? Who can you be a Robert to, who can you mentor and encourage?
Ecc. 4:910 says, Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!
I’m so thankful God gave me so many years with this brother to pick me up whenever I needed him. Christ is there to pick you up from whatever mess you find yourself end today as well. I didn’t have a chance to tell my boy goodbye, and you may not have a chance to say a word before you leave. Repent and believe in the gospel, while you still have breath.
ButGod, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. – Eph. 2:4-10
3/25/15 – Someone from Rob’s days at USC made a video that I wanted to share here as well. This is fantastic, and I think it captures the special guy Rob was, his infectious joy and laughter, and his determination to always “keep it real”. Don’t believe me? Watch Rob not get star struck at Morris Chestnut! We hated Rob’s stories about all the movie stars he met at USC and thought he was exaggerating. Then one day we went to see House Party 2, filmed at USC, and all of a sudden it looked like he walked past in the movie. You never saw his face in the shot, but we all knew that “Robert walk”. Guess the brother wasn’t lying!
Furious Fathering 