[Steeltrap]

I disagree with the author's take on Jackie Robinson. You can't compare 1947 to 2004.


Trickin' white folks: Why the hood loves Ron Artest

by Kevin Weston, Pacific News Service

Oakland - Ron Artest, the Indiana Pacers forward suspended by the NBA for a year after a fan-and-player melee in Detroit on Friday, gets love in the hood because Black people have a history of rooting for the anti-superhero who butts up against the establishment - tales that go back past slavery to African lore.

Elegua is the trickster in the pantheon of the Yorba religion. Kidnapped Africans brought Yorba to the Western Hemisphere and continued to worship Orishas, or gods, like Elegua. While the religion stayed largely intact in places like Haiti and Cuba, Africans brought to America, where African ways and religions were more harshly punished, had to mask the archetype of the trickster god while adapting his legend to our North American experience. Elegua became High John the Conqueror.

According to Julius Lester, author of the book "Black Folktales," High John is a "Be man - be here when hard times come, and be here when hard times are gone."

High John, Julius writes, is a slave on a Mississippi plantation ruled by "white folks so mean that the rattlesnakes wouldn't bite 'em. 'Fraid they’d poison themselves."

But John, because he is a Be man, "made up his mind to do as much living and as little slaving as he could ...."

"He used to break the hoes, accidentally of course. Set the massa house on fire. Accidentally of course. He always had a hard time getting to the fields on time ..."

Then this African god in Mississippi would flip it. "Ol’ massa was never sure whether John was doing it all on purpose, because some years John would work hard and make a good crop. The next year, though, it seemed that everything he touched got destroyed. But the following year, he'd pick more cotton than anyone thought possible. So the white folks were never sure what side John was on. And you better believe that that was the way John wanted it."

Ron Artest is known as a head case in the NBA. Unpredictable. Dangerous. At the same time, he's the league's most dominant defender, a premiere rebounder and a better-than-average scorer. A week before the Detroit brawl, where he jumped into the stands after being hit with a beer, he was suspended two games for asking for time off to promote an R&B group on his record label.

For years he was known as a cheap-shot artist because of the hard fouls he would deliver to opponents in the paint. Annually, Artest would be among the league leaders in technical fouls. But mysteriously, last year he cleaned up his act, wound up as an All-Star and won Defensive Player of the Year. In large part due to Artest, the Pacers were one of the favorites to win the NBA title this year.

Then Artest burned his massa's field house - the Conseco Field House, where the Pacers play - to the ground. (Or at least their championship prospects this year.)

While he ruined his short-term prospects for making money in the NBA (eventually some NBA squad will pay him to play; he's simply too good to pass up), he's made his hood legend. Everyone and their momma is talking about this, from the one-way streets to Wall Street. His #23 (after Jordan) blue and gold pinstriped jersey will be sold out worldwide by the end of the week.

This has been a bad year for the NBA. Detroit Pistons coach Larry Brown also coached the U.S. Olympic Team. That team of NBA stars was hated at home and abroad. At home because it had no white players ("roll players" or "pure shooters"), and because it did have Allen Iverson, a perennial target for scorn in the media (the cornrows, the tats, the rap CD, the "I Don't Give a F---" attitude). As well as a bunch of youngstas, including the two high school-aged kids, Carmelo Anthony and Lebron "100 million dollar man" James. Team USA got the Bronze.

Kobe Bryant beating a charge of raping a white woman - something that just a generation ago would get a ni--a hung so quick, so fast, innocent or guilty - didn't help, either.

It is widely felt in the Black community that these players get hated on because of their fame and fortune, attitude, gender and skin color. It is also widely felt among Blacks that a lot of them bring the negative attention onto themselves. (See Kobe and O.J.)

I've watched as the media and dominant culture has become less and less tolerant of these coddled multi-millionaires. Much of the criticism stems from perceived "lack of effort" or "selfish play" or "too much attitude" and "too street/ghetto."

We've also seen these well paid, attractive and well conditioned negroes self-destruct, blow their money, turn their backs on the community, build hospitals and community centers, take care of legions of their extended families, do gang prevention and anti-violence work, get hooked on dope, sell dope - whatever. They are the best and the worst of who we are, living their public and private lives in front of us. We root and boo. But it's with love.

The Black athletes who get love in mainstream America are molded after Jackie Robinson, the pioneer Brooklyn Dodgers second basemen who broke the color line in baseball over 50 years ago. Jackie got called ni---- so many times he probably thought it was his name. He was loved because he took it.

Who knows what Artest was thinking as he punched his way out of his $6 million yearly salary. He wouldn't take the disrespect, and he's paying for it. The upside is, he can focus on his independent record company and his Destiny's Child-esque group Allure. Their single, "Uh Oh," featuring Dance Hall reggae superstar Elephant Man, is aight. If they happen to go platinum, Artest could make back much of his lost salary.

High John the Conqueror is watching this somewhere, smiling. So am I.