Donovan McNabb/Bernard Hopkins Controversy Speaks More to Ignorance

Stop me if you've heard this before.

Donovan McNabb is sitting around minding his own business. (Insert name of idiot offender here) says something personal and/or professional about McNabb that's way out in left field, and a heated debate over the validity of the claim/complaint ensues.

Just another day in the life of the most misunderstood quarterback in the National Football League.

In case you've completely ignored all things NFL since the lockout, former middleweight boxing champion and Philly sports fan Bernard Hopkins said at a workout this week that basically McNabb isn't black enough—as if there's a sliding scale to determine how much you fit into the nice, neat little package of what society thinks your race should be like.

Ironically, this galactically stupid statement says far more about the ignorance of Hopkins than anything real or perceived about McNabb.

In my opinion, McNabb's agent Fletcher Smith hits the nail on the head:

"It perpetuates a maliciously inaccurate stereotype that insinuates those African-Americans who have access to a wider variety of resources are somehow culturally different than their brethren...Donovan's parents are proud Americans who worked hard to give their sons the best childhood they could provide. He is unapologetically proud of sacrifices they made for him."

As a black man in these United States of America, I've been where McNabb is. I'm educated, I speak proper English, I grew up in the suburbs and not the projects. I've never thought it makes me better than anyone, just that I'm fortunate.

Still, I've been told I'm "not black enough." At one point, I was a total outcast because I went to a predominantly white school and a predominantly black church. I wasn't accepted at the white school because I was black, and I wasn't accepted at the black church because I went to a white private school instead of the small, black church school with a fraction of the resources.

Somehow, at the age of 10 and through no fault of my own, I managed to be both too black and not black enough at the same time.

The main problem with this foolishness is that race isn't a mindset or a way of life, it's your ethnic background.

A black man liking country music and NASCAR doesn't make his ancestors any less slaves or his skin any lighter than a black man who likes hip-hop and NBA basketball. We're all individuals and our tastes should be acquired not through society's idea of what we're supposed to like, but through our own experiences and personal preferences. McNabb's upbringing compels him to be an asset to his community and those who employ him, and to live his life within the bounds of the law.

Last time I checked, that's a good thing. How that could be construed as "selling out" or being an Uncle Tom is totally baffling.

The sad irony here is that the one doing damage to black folks here is Hopkins, not McNabb.

Why does black have to be associated with struggle? Why does "being black" have to mean speaking exclusively in slang and dressing a certain way? What's wrong with a black man aspiring to be like Cliff Huxtable or Phillip Banks rather than James Evans or Fred Sanford?

Just because McNabb and Hopkins come from different classes, doesn't make one "more black" than the other.

Whatever you think of McNabb as a player, you can't deny he's a solid individual and a positive influence in the locker room. No matter what Hopkins or Rush Limbaugh or Terrell Owens have to say about him, he's the most accomplished and winningest QB the Eagles underwhelming history has ever seen.

Only the most illogically biased Philly fans (assuming another segment of that fanbase actually exists) deny him that.

So out of respect for a guy that by all accounts is a good guy who's had a good career, let's give this topic (and the fool who brought it up) the sort of validity it deserves.

None.