nixluva wrote:It sounded to me like Larry was trying to say more Blacks needed to OWN teams and thus have more power and control over conditions and treatment. I doubt that he was calling for simply a league with just black players. No one is that stupid. He just did a bad job of expressing what he was trying to say I think.Race is always a touchy subject. It may sound crazy but back when segregation forced Blacks to own their own businesses in every area, they were doing very well. Just look at how things turned out in Tulsa and what they called "Black Wall Street".
The Dollar turned over within that Black community more than 6 times before leaving the community. They had professionals of all kinds, owned hotels, movie theaters, Air Planes!!! It was of course destroyed by racist Whites but it was a very successful community that was built on self reliance. Every since then Blacks have scratched out a very tough life at the bottom of just about every metric of American Society. If you don't know go look up "Black Wall Street".
I feel like I knew what he was trying to say and if that were the case, I'd agree with him. Black people need to do a better job of building wealth and in keeping as much of it as possible within our communities. There is so much talent that exists and has existed, yet others have been the ones who have profiteered from it.
I remember reading a statistic that articulated for every dollar spent by an African American, only $0.10 remains in the hands of another African American. Meanwhile, for every dollar a Jew spends, $0.70 remains in the hands of another Jew. That has to be the model we follow as a fellow minority and the only way to accomplish that is to build a better business infrastructure that is also more mainstream. Money talks and is exactly why narratives develop of us that are often adversarial and antagonistic. For example, when Blacks access social programs, they are perceived as "takers", "lazy", etc. AUIPAC lobbies our government to send billions of dollars to Isreal, the most of any country, and all they are are "God's people" and "loyal friends" who share a mutual interest with our great nation. The point is that making money in the right industries is key to all of this.
Back to Larry, he needs to realize that he's in a public forum and express himself accordingly. I'm sure he's going to have to issue an apology and he needs to better articulate himself in it.