Who's the Real Terrorist?: On Wit Lost by Jason Whitlock

Not Tavis, not Reverends Al or Jesse—but a sports reporter from Kansas City will lead Black folk to the promised land.

Or, at the very least, save us from rap music.

Jason Whitlock seems to be an intelligent, thoughtful, and charismatic individual genuinely concerned with the Black American crisis. His platform for reaching the masses isn't protest or the pulpit—it's the sports pages.

From playoffs to pregnancies, lewd touchdown celebrations to lewd rap lyrics, Whitlock pretty much has it covered.

But even "Big Sexy" can get ugly.

For awhile now, Whitlock has had a running feud with hip-hop culture. He has referred to rappers as thugs, coons, and bojanglers on a regular basis, and has even gone so far as to refer to specific rap artists as "the Black KKK."

Now he's set his sights on the Don Imus flap, and particularly the involvement of Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson.

In a recent interview on MSNBC, Whitlock referred to Sharpton and Jackson as "terrorists," and accused them of "starting fires and creating divisiveness" with their involvement in the Imus incident and the Duke lacrosse scandal.

Not an outrageous claim, necessarily—but coming from a man who was fired by ESPN after criticizing a fellow African-American broadcaster in Michael Irvin, and a fellow African-American sportswriter in Scoop Jackson...

Well, you know what they say about kettles and that pesky color-complex they can have.

Whitlock has made a career of analyzing and elaborating points that go against the general consensus. Anyone can be a contrarian, but it takes a special talent to make a living off of it.

Now Whitlock's penchant for playing devil's advocate has made him a leading voice on America's Racial Problem. Unfortunately, while Whitlock is very good at eliciting thought and emotion with the same column, he has yet to master the art of analyzing his own arguments.

The crux of Whitlock's problem with hip-hop is the lack of responsibility in its misogynistic and violent lyrics. Bitches and hoes, gatts and blow—that's all a young brother knows in the African-American community, according to Whitlock.

Single moms, delinquent dads? Yep, that's hip-hop's fault. More Black men in jail than in college? Yeah, mixtapes have been known to have adverse effects on decision-making and SAT preparation.

Obviously, Whitlock misses the deeper implications here. They don't call pimping and hoeing the world's oldest professions for nothing. Materialism and greed? American ideals that Black folks just happened to pick up when we didn't have much else going for us between slavery and Ronald Reagan. Broken households, devalued education, a reliance on crime? Institutionalized for much longer than they haven't been.

Surely no one can expect hundreds of years of injustice to be undone with less than half a century of "equal rights."

Or maybe we're supposed to.

While Whitlock's perspective is easily understood, it's also completely unfounded—and he's smart enough to know that. In his position, with his level of experience, I'm sure he gets that he's vainly railing against symptoms, not actual problems.

Think of it like this: Whitlock wouldn't criticize a quarterback who throws interceptions with a broken wrist for being unable to read coverages. So why would he assign blame for the crisis in Black culture exclusively to hip-hop?

Oh, I know: because hip-hop gets on TV and generates millions of dollars in revenue.

Something I'm sure Whitlock wouldn't mind doing himself.

Could you really blame Whitlock if he found a way to get in on some of that action—particularly if the folks most interested in his views were nervous, conservative white folks willing to pay him to tell them what they wanted to hear?

Interestingly enough, rappers and coons have probably made more money shucking and jiving than Whitlock will ever earn by criticizing them.

Let's face it, Whitlock is capitalizing on his moment in the sun. And I'm not saying his views are totally wrong—in fact, I'm as conservative a brother as there is for someone who uses the term "nigga" and listens to rap music.

But I'm also smart enough to know that nobody wins when you play the blame game.

I won't make excuses for hip-hop here. But if Italians don't have to worry about Tony Soprano representing them, and Jewish brothers and sisters don't have to worry about Larry David representing them, I'm not tripping off anyone who looks at me and hears "Straight Outta Compton" in his head.

I respect Jason Whitlock's attempt to help our people. Still, you wouldn't walk up to a screaming child and call him a Sambo for being so loud. The problems Whitlock pins on hip-hop are in fact symptomatic of a true American crisis, and his brash and undeveloped approach to the discussion makes him as big a terrorist as Revered Al.

A big, media-sexy terrorist.