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    The Beneficial Yet Harmful Impact of Sports On The Black Community

    By Wattree on Wed, 01/21/2015 - 6:09pm |

    Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

    The Beneficial Yet Harmful Impact of Sports On The Black Community

    I’ve been debating the pros and cons of the impact of sports on the Black community with my good friend, historian, and political commentator, Playthell Benjamin for several years now. Playthell is a huge sports fan and is of the belief that sports have been invaluable in their impact on helping to move the Black community forward. I, on the other hand, see sports as a two-sided coin. While sports have undoubtedly been of great value in helping many young Black people to build character, obtain an education, and financially prosper, in terms of the overall Black community these people represent a limited few. For the greater part of the Black community, however, the lure of sports often serves as a distraction that prevents many from investing in their intellectual development and pursuing more realistic goals.
    .
    I view sports much like I do morphine. In small doses it can be of great medicinal value against pain, but if you overdo it, it can destroy your life, and it seems to me that many in the Black community are about to overdose from substance abuse as a result of its affects, both literally, and figuratively.
    .
    So I’m not against sports, per se, but I do think that sports should be kept in perspective. It’s perfectly natural for kids to want to indulge in games, but while they are indulging in these games it’s very important that the adults in their lives constantly remind them that sports represent the "Toy Department" of life, and that there are many other things in life that are much more important. But due to our mass societal fixation on sports, and the virtual "worship" of sports figures, they’re rarely getting this instruction. As a direct result, we’ve become a society of easily manipulated, undereducated, and totally distracted sports junkies.
    .
    Many in this country can tell you the starting lineup and various statistics of every football team in the country, but they can’t tell you who their congressperson is, how they voted, or what they voted on. That’s not good, and it’s having a negative impact on not only the Black community, but the nation as a whole.
    .
    What many people fail to realize is how profoundly their thinking can be shaped by social manipulators through the use of sports and other forms of public "entertainment." The passion engendered through sports allows social manipulators to circumvent an individual’s cerebral cortex, or intellect, and exploit a direct line to the fan’s brain stem, or the most animalistic and condition-receptive part of their brain. That allows manipulators to condition an individual’s thinking and attitudes without the individual even recognizing it.
    .
    Thus, it’s no accident that some of the most rabid sports fans are found in the most bigoted parts of this country, and neither is it an accident that Black people were discriminated against in sports until quite recently, and they still haven't been fully accepted. It's only been a relatively short time since Black players were accepted as having the intellectual agility to be a quarterback. There was a huge controversy over the issue, as though it takes an intellectual giant to throw a ball. The actual problem was ignorant, backward, and "tribal-like" thinking (when Rush Limbaugh entered the controversy that said it all). Black people were - and still are, in many cases - considered a part of the "wrong team," or tribe.
    .
    You see, sports appeal to, stimulate, and feed upon the very worst characteristics in human nature, or what’s referred to as the "Seven Deadly Sins" - wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. "Each is a form of Idolatry-of-Self wherein the subjective reigns over the objective." The very point of sports is to prove that "I’m better than you." Sports also promotes the "Us against them" mentality that’s at the very root of every form of bigotry - racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc.
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    Sports are based completely on man’s need to be competitive, and competition has been so deeply ingrained in our societal psyche that many Americans can’t even imagine life without it. Yet, man’s animalistic need to be competitive is the most thoughtlessly malevolent characteristic in man. It’s not a part of man’s higher intellectual development. The need to be competitive is an animalistic brain STEM behavior that’s a throwback to our instinct to be territorial as apes before we gained the capacity for higher intellectual cognition. Thus, it’s not based on anything constructive. It’s based purely on greed, self-centered idolatry, and swag, and it’s serving to kill us off as a species. It’s directly responsible for ALL of the wars in the history of humanity, crime, bigotry, bligotry (Black-on-Black bigotry), and even global warming. In short, it’s complete insanity.
    .
    But most Americans have blindly accepted the proposition that it’s our "competitive spirit" that makes this nation great. But what evidence do we have of that? How do we know that we wouldn’t have been even greater if we’d embraced a philosophy of enlightenment and the pursuit of excellence with the same amount of zeal as we’ve pursued the need to say, "I’m better than you?"  And why must our national motive be to be "the greatest nation on Earth?" We'd UNDOUBTEDLY be much greater if we’d resolved to compete against who we WERE to become the greatest nation that we can BE. How many minds do we have locked up in the nation’s prison systems who may have the unique intellect to solve the world’s problems? Is it possible that due to this nation’s "us against them" mentality that they might have lynched the very person who might have found a cure for cancer?  
    .  
    So personally, I believe that our overzealous need to be competitive is both childish, dysfunctional, and less than efficient in moving the nation, or humanity, forward. It would be interesting to see the results of an experiment where they took two footballs teams and trained one in the traditional way, and trained each member of the other team to focus on nothing but improving on their last best effort. They should be trained to forget all about "beating" the opposing team, and simply focus on beating their last best effort. If a given player’s last best effort was gaining 30 yards, he should be exclusively focused on gaining 31 yards in the current game. I'm virtually certain that the latter team would prevail if all other things are equal.
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    Now, if you’re a lifelong sports fan, you’re probably reading this and saying, "That’s ridiculous." But it’s not surprising that you feel that way, because your conditioning is so ingrained, and so deeply seated at this point that you can’t even recognize the dysfunction in something that you've embraced and loved all of your life. It's like a religion, or someone raised to believe in Voodoo - sticking pins in dolls seems like a perfectly natural way of life to them. So let me give you an example of how the system works, and how you're being manipulated.
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    When a fan goes to a football game, what a fan THINKS he sees are two teams on a football field with the coaches and their staff on the sideline. But what the fan’s subconscious and emotions see are two armies on the battlefield preparing to go into combat, with two generals on the sidelines. And that’s not by accident, because the spectacle is DESIGNED to psychologically condition every male in the stadium to be willing to go into combat and sacrifice his life in a blaze of illustrious glory for "The Gipper" - or The Standard Oil Company. The very same is true of the "All-American" pastime of baseball and other sports.
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    Social manipulators also use sports to condition unsuspecting Americans to believe that thinking is for whimps - and this has a particularly negative impact on the Black community. Have you ever noticed how they portray college football "heroes" in the movies? They always show them standing next to their shiny new pimped-out cars, wearing their letterman’s "uniform," and with adoring girls hanging all over ‘em. Then they’ll invariably contrast them with their portrayal of the "intellectual whimp" - or the guy who’s ultimately going to end up the school’s valedictorian - as a nerd. Again, they invariably portray the school’s intellectual as a small little guy wearing oversized horn-rimmed glasses, walking all bent over with a arm full of books, and with his sweater buttoned improperly, or Steve Urkel. That sends an unmistakable message to young boys - thinking’s not cool; if you want to get the women and the best things in life, you should aspire to be a dumb and clueless gladiator who’s willing to give your all on command. That serves two purposes - first, it keeps America clueless and ignorant; and secondly, it keeps the military recruiter’s office full.
    .

    In contrast, look at these young people at George Mason University come together to combine their personal growth, skill and knowledge - a knowledge that they'll possess and be able to call upon for the rest of their lives - to produce excellence.  Then once you've seen it, take a moment to ask yourself, who do you think is getting the most funding, this fine band, or the football team, and why? And ironically, the tune they're playing is called  "Rage Against The Machine."

     
    .

    Thus, sports are DESIGNED to appeal to the emotions and a man’s most basic, animalistic, and infantile need - the need to be macho, and the need to prove it by showing that he’s better than other men. That’s fine when you’re a kid, because a kid needs to test his or her resolve, and to learn what it’s like to hone new skills, face challenges, and overcome disappointment. So there’s nothing wrong with sports for a kid, as long as they’re being instructed against allowing themselves to be brainwashed, and they are taught that participating in sports is just a MEANS to an end, and not an end in itself. They should also be helped to understand that participating in sports is not about "beating" the other guy; it’s about testing their own limits.  It's merely a dress rehearsal to prepare them to face the REAL challenges of manhood, like raising a family.
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    Thus, young Black people need to be taught very early in life that the only mature and constructive form of competition is to compete against the person they were the day before. If they learn that lesson well, they’ll spend their lives investing in THEMSELVES, and becoming their own heroes, instead of wasting their lives trying to live vicariously through the meaningless exploits of some guy on a football field.  If that's what a person's life is about, by definition, they don't have one.
    .
    But I agree with my good friend, Playthell, in one sense - sports can be a very valuable asset to the Black community, but only if we teach Black youth to keep that "one for the Gipper" nonsense in perspective. If we manage to do that, sports can provide the Black community with a great opportunity. We are currently living in a political environment where powerful interests have a vested interest in dumming-down the American people, and one of the Black community’s most valid complaints is that Black people are not afforded the opportunity to "play on a level playing field." Thus, if while the powers that be are hard at work dumming-down the rest of America - and they're using sports among other things to do exactly that - if Black people begin to focus on education, intellectual development, and the power of knowledge, the impact of sports on the rest of America can help us to level the playing field to our advantage.
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    So the point is, we can’t out-scream the system, because it controls the media, and we can’t out-fight the system, because it controls the military, but we can out-think the system, and that’s exactly what we should focus on doing, not playing frivolous games in the mere pursuit of some kind of meaningless personal "glory(?)." So yes, we should take advantage of the opportunities that sports represent, but while doing so, we should never lose sight of what they actually are - GAMES.  So in this case, instead of keeping our eye on the "ball," we should make it a point to keep our eye on the big picture.
    *
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    "Giant Steps" - John Coltrane
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kotK9FNEYU
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    Is Our Competitive Spirit Helping or Hurting America?

    Eric L. Wattree
    http://wattree.blogspot.com/
    [email protected]
    Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
    .
    Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

    Comments

    I do not know why, exactly, but you triggered a memory from long ago.

    The Vikings got to their first Superbowl in 1965? The Twins hit their first World Series at the same time.

    I may be off by half a decade.

    Fran Tarkington had to  have been one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL.

    I used to just scream at the TV screen in the olden days.

    I never have bet on any single sports event in my entire life.

    But I used to go nuts.

    WHY?

    At least the Packers represent a real socialistic ideal.

    I did mope a little watching the socialists lose a chance at the BIG GAME the other day.

    Otherwise, I could care less.

    I am sure that I will have crackers and dip ten days from now and watch the Super Bowl on mute. hahahaha Frankly, I do not care who wins and I probably will be watching Hulu at the same time streaming some nonsense. 

    There will be more folks interested in the GAME than in any election results. hahahah

    I do not understand this public reaction.

    Why?

    But, I do not understand my own reactions, most of the time.

    This is a good post.

    Thank you.


    by Richard Day on Thu, 01/22/2015 - 3:31pm

    Richard,

    Both my son and my daughter were star athletes, and now my grandchildren are excelling in sports. While I love watching them excel at something they love, I instruct them of the pros and cons that I brought out in this piece. Personally, I rather spend a day in jail than at any sporting event.  At least in jail I could either read or sleep and wouldn't have to do the wave. Watching grown people doing stuff like that while the world is falling apart is really scary to me.


    by Wattree on Thu, 01/22/2015 - 6:46pm

    I think playing sports is great fun, and I definitely would watch my children or grandchildren play, if I had any. However, I've never really understood the allure of watching total strangers play in such games. (That said, I do check the scores for the Georgia-Georgia Tech football game the day after that game has been played.)


    by Verified Atheist on Fri, 01/23/2015 - 8:37am

    Verified,

    I'm in complete agreement with you. You seem to have a way of placing life in perspective.  We need more of that, and much less of this group mentality.  Some of these people get overzealous when it comes to things like sports. I'm going to have to do an article about when my son, who was the school's basketball star, got sick and send to bed by the doctor a week before the playoffs.  I came home from work and he was gone, so asked my daughter where he was. She told me that the coach came by the house and got him. He told my son that "Dedicated players with school spirit are willing to play sick."  So I went up to the school and he had my son running up and down the court with a severe case of the flu.  Needless to say, all hell broke loose. 

    First, I read the coach the riot act, and then I went to the principal and read him the riot act. Then, when I went to the superintendent he tried to defend the coach - the superintendent was also a former jock. He told me that my attitude was threatening my son's chances of being picked up by a college. So I also went after the superintendent, and took on the entire school district for the right to take Eric out of the school without his having to sit out a year, and I not only won, but after doing an article in the local paper regarding the incident, many of the people in the area was clamoring for both the coach and the superintendent's head. 

    Some of these people are crazy, and just don't seem to understand that you have to keep the importance of sports in perspective. But the irony of all this is, Eric became one of the star players of the university that he attended, and upon his graduation, the superintendent was a speaker at the graduation ceremony. So he was sitting on the stage when Eric received his degree.

    The assistant coach at Eric's old university is now a head coach at another university, and he's now after my grandson, Eric Wattree, III.

    Eric Wattree III, South Kitsap pull away from Bellarmine Prep, 59-52
    http://www.thenewstribune.com/…/3588963_eric-wattree-south-… See More

     
    Wattree netted a game-high 21 points as the Wolves outscored the Lions 18-11 in the fourth quarter behind...
    thenewstribune.com

     

    by Wattree on Mon, 01/26/2015 - 7:22am

    As a former teacher, it's reassuring to hear from a parent with their priorities straight. I don't have the heart to share some of the stories from parents of students who cared more about short-term appearances than long-term benefits. (That said, for some reason it's far easier to remember the bad ones than the many good ones.)


    by Verified Atheist on Sat, 01/24/2015 - 10:55am

    Verified,

    Thank you for your service.

    One Good Teacher is Worth a Boatload of Politicians

    http://wattree.blogspot.com/2013/06/one-good-teacher-is-worth-boatload-of.html

    Keeping sports in perspective has become a tradition in my family. My grandson, Eric III, wants to become a doctor, and basketball is just a free ride through college. My son and I are constantly talking with him to make sure that he doesn't lose sight of that. But what I'm more apprehensive about is his relationship with women. He's one of those "pretty boys" and bears a striking resemblance to a very popular celebrity, so I'm more concerned about his hormones leading him astray than I am sports. His participating in sports just adds to the problem.  But he's pretty level-headed, and he assures me that I don't have to worry about that. However . . .  The beautiful young lady below is just one of many beautiful ladies that he's associated with, of every race, shade, and hue.  I think the only thing I haven't seen him with is an Eskimo, but give him time.

    He tells me that he has a steady girlfriend now, so he's settled down. I hope that's the case, and he has some of me in him, because his grandmother and I started going together when she was 14 and I was 16 years old (our families brought us together, but that's another story). We got married when she was 19 and I was 21 years old, and the relationship lasted until her very untimely death after 33 years of a very happy marriage.

    So I'm tempted to move in with my son so I can monitor the situation, but I guess that would be a little over the top. But I'm so passionate over this situation that it's not beyond me. I talked my son out of following some of his friends into the NBA, and he tells me that he doesn't regret it for a moment, because, while he's not rich, his life is much more fulfilling at this point that all of them.  His friends have wealth, but it destroyed many of their family lives:
    .
    MEMORANDUM FOR OFFICER TRAINING SCHOOL SELECTION COMMITTEE
    FROM: 92 SFS/SFO
    2 E. ARNOLD STREET
    FAIRCHILD AFB, WA 99011

    SUBJECT: Recommendation for Staff Sergeant Eric L. Wattree

    1. I wholeheartedly concur with Staff Sergeant Wattree’s request to attend Officer Training School. He represents the enlisted ranks with the highest standard and will bring that dedication and professionalism to the officer corps.

    2. Eric continues to lead a stellar military career; his enlisted performance reports speak for themselves. His leadership and experience, especially in contingency environments, remains a vital asset to our unit and wing. As one of my primary Phoenix Raven team leaders, he’s propelled to the forefront of all major deployments throughout the world. He’s repeatedly secured aircraft and crews, supporting a wide variety of missions, in the most austere and terrorist-ridden environments where security is severely inadequate. The diversity of these missions never limited SSgt Wattree’s capacity to adapt to each situation. For this reason, Eric was selected as our 2000 Outstanding Phoenix Raven Member of the Year and the 2001 Air Force Reserve Component Airman of the Year for the 92d Security Forces Squadron.

    3. Whether operating under peacetime or contingency operations, Eric easily assumes control and tackles every situation with meticulous tenacity, a quality highly desired in our Air Force officers. Requested by name, Sergeant Wattree, provided security for presidential Banner missions throughout Greece, Peru and Viet Nam. While deployed to Afghanistan, he flew numerous combat missions in our nation’s pursuit to eradicate terrorism through Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. Additionally, he provided round-the-clock force protection for aircraft in other high-threat environments including Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Oman.

    4. Sergeant Wattree motivated his personnel during the worst conditions and raised the level of esprit de corps to integrate personnel from other Air Force specialties into a cohesive team. His leadership, integrity and devotion to our Air Force play an integral part in our future leadership. Eric has what it takes to become a commissioned officer and earns my full support to attend Officer Training School.

    FRANK HELLSTERN, JR., Captain, USAF
    Operations Officer
    *
    Eric is currently a senior federal agent, and we're discussing a possible run for congress - one of his good friends is the Chief of Staff of Congresswoman Maxine Waters - while the glory days, and the children, of many of his friends who went into the NBA are behind them.

     
    Eric L. Wattree's photo.
    Eric L. Wattree III

    Remove


    by Wattree on Mon, 01/26/2015 - 8:10am

    I can definitely understand the trouble with hormones. I decided against applying to MIT because of a girl (well, because of my infatuation with the girl — I can't really blame her for that stupid decision). And, not too surprisingly, we had broken up before I'd graduated college (I'd caught her cheating on me). It wasn't my only hormone-induced misstep, either.


    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 01/26/2015 - 7:57am

    Verified,

    We make many dumb decisions in lives. It was my plan to become a clinical psychologist, but life also got in my way.  But there's a funny thing about life.  It often intervenes to push you in the direction that you're suppose to go. So even though I don't know you personally, I'm willing to bet that as a result of your need to compensate for that "mistake," that you're a much more competent and formidable person today. Because adversity makes us MORE, rather than less. 
    .
    After my wife died I ended up going with a woman that I grew up with.  We lived across the street from one another as kids, started kindergarten together, and had classes together through high school. She became a medical doctor, and then a psychiatrist, and my association with her showed me just how bland and meaningless my life would have been had I realized my dream.  So think about that, and think about what your life might have been like had you gone to MIT, as opposed to who you are today - and not in terms of just income, but character, knowledge, and quality of life. Who might you not have met, and which one of your kids might not have been born?  Many times we benefit from not having realized our dreams.

    I got married so young that I had to make a decision between my personal ambition and my young family, and I made it, and I don't regret it for a moment. Because it caused me to strive to make up for that lost dream, and that, in turn, has made me a much more formidable person than I would have been had I achieved it.

    After I got together with my current woman (one of the greatest jazz singers alive today) - and an entire year after I broke up with my psychiatrist girlfriend, because I refused to leave the state, and my grandchildren, to move in with her - she sent me an email saying that one of the reasons that we didn't get together as teenagers, and we couldn't stay together as adults, is because "You were insecure and didn't have the courage of your convictions then, and you continue to suffer from that flaw in your character today." That closed the book on any lingering regret I might have had about following my ambition.

    It was the longest email that I've ever received, paragraph after paragraph, citing Freud, Adler, Jung and many others, analyzing my "flawed and insecure character," and how I feel insecure among her circle of friends, and chauvinistic regarding our relative earning potential.  In spite of all of her analytical skill, she was completely wrong on every issue. When we were teenagers, I was directionless, and I didn't know that she even gave me a second thought. I was also running with her older brothers, who were two brutes who would have taken a very dim view of my messing around with their younger sister (they're are both dead now, one was shot and killed before my eyes by a guy I knew well, and who pushed me aside to kill him, and the other died of a drug overdose), while she was the kind of studious, focused, and beautiful young lady that seemed to be beyond everybody's reach, and especially mine. Her attitude toward me seemed to make that clear. So I didn't pay her any attention because I simply assumed that a young lady of her caliber wouldn't be interested in me. So I wasn't being insecure, just realistic (she later told me that she had an attitude toward me because she didn't like the way I was squandering away my life). But as an adult, that didn't have anything to do with it. She wanted me to move from Los Angeles to Atlanta where she has a thriving practice - I went to visit her for ten days, and we argued over the issue for the last three of them -  so I had to choose between her and my grandchildren, and I chose. So while the lady is brilliant, highly educated, and everything and more than I've ever aspired to become, she's clueless about what's important in life, because she doesn't have any children.

    What Louise didn't know was, I agonized over the decision to break up with her, but she forced the issue. She didn't want a long-distance relationship, and forced me to choose between being with her, or my grandchildren. But she knew that I'd been a musician all of my life, and when she read an article that I wrote for "Jazz Times" a full year later about my current woman, somehow she assumed that Rita was more than just the subject of an article, and she also came to the erroneous conclusion that Rita played a role in our breaking up, which wasn't true. The fact was, I was still agonizing over her when I wrote the article, which did lead to Rita and I getting together after she called to thank me for what I'd written.

    So Verified, just like with you, sometimes we have one plan for our life, but life has another plan for the direction lives are going to take. It happens all the time but we just don't notice it. Sometimes the direction of our lives change simply because we made a left turn instead of a right.  So while Louise was, and is, every man's dream of what they want in a woman - beautiful, sophisticated, brilliant, highly educated, and successful, life had something else in store for me, Rita - beautiful, talented, sophisticated, but very, very, emotionally fragile - but I wouldn't trade her for the world, because the one thing she has that Louise didn't was, she NEEDS me, and I never got that feeling from Louise, and as the head of a family for so many years, being needed was one of the things I missed the most, other than my late wife, of course.  And I think my daughter saw that. Because while she seemed to hate every woman who I even had lunch with after my late wife died, it was different with Rita. She said, "I think momma sent Rita to you."

    And man, the way we met, and fit, is the stuff that movies are made of. She was a daddy's girl. He was a political activist and a huge jazz-lover during the 60s. He fawned over her, recognized her talent, and started her musical career when she was just a little girl. She went on to have a very lucrative career as a background singer at Motown Records for many years, but left to pursue what her late father wanted her to be, a jazz singer, and when we met, I had everything she needed, and she was everything I needed. I have the knowledge of music theory and jazz to help her achieve her dreams, and she's reignited my lifelong passion for music - I'm helping her to improve her scatting, and I've written three songs for her current CD.

    She did the tune below for her late father. It was almost pulled because she started breaking up, and her voice began to crack in the second chorus, but the producer wanted to leave it in. The composer, multi-Grammy winner, Artie Butler, contacted her and told her that she made him feel like she was singing his song just for him, and she's made it her own (Barbara Streisand, Shirley Horn, Joe Williams, and many others have also done the song). And former New York detective, Serpico, told me that he was listening to her in his car and broke-down crying like a child. But he also said,  "If you ever tell anybody I'm going to have to kill you. Lol!  Wow, I hope he wasn't serious.
     

     

     


    by Wattree on Mon, 01/26/2015 - 12:45pm