http://theshadowleague.com/articles/kyrie-irving-and-the-death-of-the-ghetto-superstar

While Black America debates whether or not we are “post” anything—black/bougie/modern/racial—what’s not up for discussion is whether or not we are post-ghetto. That answer is a resounding “HELL NO.” That debate isn’t even on the table, it’s not cooking in the kitchen, the groceries haven’t even been bought yet.

We’re six million miles from W.E.B. DuBois and the popularity of the “Talented Tenth” concept. The assertion that “the Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its ‘exceptional men’,” was shortsighted. It’s not reasonably possible that a nation of millions should be led by a contingent of well-heeled, moneyed folks (though considering how many bow down to celebrity culture in this era, that kind of already happened, but let’s save that for another column).

Because DuBois promoted cognitive development over vocational skills, detractors like Booker T. Washington claimed that he was setting up African-Americans for generations of failure and a perpetual second-class citizenry. It wasn’t tangible; people argued that we aren’t gonna “out degree” mainstream America, so we had better learn how to fix the plumbing and install the air conditioners. But DuBois knew better and saw it as a way to lead the misguided out of small-mindedness and combine the cumulative resources of the Jim-Crow-dominated black communities of the early 20th Century. Creating a leadership class consisting of the best the community has to offer made sense, even if it wasn’t perfect.

The problem is, we basically did the opposite.

* * * * * * * * * *

One of the most unfortunate legacies of the Crack Era is that it conditioned two or three generations after it to honor the drug game. And more pointedly, to honor the best-case and worst-case scenarios brought forth from it. Young heads might not recall the ’80s (consider yourselves lucky), but it came with the force of a natural disaster. Reagonomics, AIDS and men wearing mascara were bad enough.Then Crack hit. It upheaved whole neighborhoods and took lives with no regard for culture or circumstance. And it went on for years. Imagine Hurricane Sandy dropping by once a month for eight years. Imagine raising kids in that environment. Imagine being a kid growing up in that situation. The scar tissue goes deep.

The era was full of terror and glamour. Terror being the callous loss of black life and the way addiction fractured the structure of poor and working class family units. The glamour came in the way that drug dealers started producing extreme materialism. People had been hustling forever, so that wasn’t new. And there were always a few guys jeweled up with mink coats, next level rides and pretty women on their arms. But not like this. Project kids were becoming overnight celebrities and hustlers became millionaires.

For young impressionable minds, even if it was known how they secured these goods, this was awe-inspiring. We all wanted a slice of the devil’s pie. How can anyone blame us? So ghetto culture, chock full of intoxicating tales of “they’ll never take me alive” and “ I gotta feed my kids” soliloquies of chaos, became the most regarded celebration of blackness. Even outside of the ghetto.

College kids who had never seen the inner city except via the words of Tom Brokaw, became enraptured by it. The popularity made anything that the hustlers valued (cars, clothes, women, music, basketball, etc.) trendy.

Basketball had already been a mainstay in inner-city communities for decades, but when the hood blew up, it took b-ball with it, and everything else: the slang, the clothes (baggy pants was originally a prison look) and the rep. Being from the streets became, in many circles, the ultimate example of your bonafides. Project guys with low SAT scores became the thing. He became a hero, or an anti-hero; either way, he was exalted. And the hood got the reupholster treatment.

College basketball specialized in recruiting these kinds of players, especially as guards. They were typically quick, steely and hungry. Guys like Stephon Marbury, Tim Hardaway and Allen Iverson became the standard. We shunned black guys from the ’burbs, said their styles weren’t rugged enough. We wanted dudes from the Southside of Chicago, Bed-Stuy, East Oakland, and West Baltimore. Players with nothing to lose. We wanted dudes who married this basketball sh*t; these suburb n*ggas were just engaged.

Shoe companies went through every athlete’s bio in a lustful search of a weed arrest or any sort of brush with the law. Magazines displayed black men with scowls and tats inside their pages and sold it as authenticity. This feeling had a name; theyed call it “street cred.”

It stayed that way for decades, but now, there are chinks in the armor. It’s changing, and now we’re on the verge of a paradigm shift. Why? Because the nastiest guard (not the best, but the “nastiest”) in the NBA is a prep school kid from the tony suburbs of Jersey who went to Duke.

* * * * * * * * * *

West Orange is a small city in Essex County, approximately a half-hour outside of New York City. To say it’s a normal suburb makes it sound too perfect. Too idyllic. We aren’t goin’ there. But numbers don’t lie, and man, the numbers associated with West Orange are dope. The median household income is $88,884, the average price of a house is over $402,000, and in 2011, there was one reported murder. Kyrie Irving spent his freshman and sophomore years at nearby Montclair Kimberley Academy (before transferring to national power St. Patrick’s Academy, in Elizabeth). The tuition for ninth through twelfth graders at Montclair is $ 32,000 a year. They don’t have a principal; they have a headmaster. You get the point.

Kyrie’s father, Dred, played college ball at Boston University and after a stint playing overseas (Kyrie was born in Australia), came back to the states and began a career as a bond broker on Wall Street. Theirs was a life of good living (although sadly, Kyrie’s mother passed when he was four years old) and privilege, but Mr. Irving, knowing Kyrie needed to diversify his competition, made sure to trek him around inner-city courts around the Tri-State area.

Kyrie is Carlton Banks with a handle, but his game is littered with the accoutrements of a guy who played at the Rucker. There hasn’t been any backlash, at all, in regards to Irving’s story. Nobody’s calling him an Uncle Tom like they did to Grant Hill. Nobody is saying his style is fraudulent. At least not yet.

He’s not the first person to make this jump. In this regard, he’s a descendant of Kobe Bryant who made the jump from Philly’s Main Line uber-suburbs, but brought with him a style straight from the Sonny Hill League. The difference between Kobe’s mid-90s ascension and what’s going on with Kyrie today is that there’s an audience for this transformation. Remember, people hated on Kobe, said he was a poser, that he wasn’t “black enough” and all of those warped, slender descriptions that people create when someone’s behavior doesn’t fit into their assumed definition of black identity politics. As a community, we’ve lamented about these descriptions for years and held umpteen community outreach seminars hoping to unearth a way to change the direction.

Kyrie is as, if not more, polished a player as Kobe was at the same age (but he has much better shot.) It’s the flair he plays with that makes him stand out. Right now, he’s picked up the baton from Brandon Jennings and Chris Paul––he has the sickest handle in the NBA . It’s beyond filthy. During last weekend’s All-Star festivities, he turned himself into a household name. Casual fans are now aware and his bandwagon, which was steadily adding new passengers, will become standing-room only. They saw him break Brandon Knight’s tibia bone on Friday and caught him stuntin’ in the All-Star on Sunday.

Undoubtedly, someone will discover that he’s not cut from the same cloth as everyone else. Will they assail him because he didn’t grow up on W.I.C.? If they do, they’ll have to go after a bunch of other guys, too.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine said the problem with the NBA is there are too many middle-class ballplayers. But that hardly matters. There have always been guys from “circles” and “lanes,” even while it was the dudes from “avenues” and “streets” who controlled the narrative. But in recent years, we’ve seen a change from that type of glorification. Players like Steph Curry, Blake Griffin and Chris Paul didn’t come up from some hardscrabble existence. They grew up with their fathers around and never had to skip any meals. To my knowledge, they’ve never had their ghetto pass revoked because, frankly, they never needed it anyway. These guys are amongst the most popular players in the game and nobody gives a crap about their credibility. For years, guys from nice neighborhoods had to feel ashamed, some even hid this fact and created fake scenarios filled with rats and roaches. The fallacy of associating black male authenticity with inner-city blues is a trap for suckers and punks. Basketball has seemingly turned the page on this mentality. If only mainstream hip-hop could do the same.

Kyrie’s success will be the latest test. If he can come out of this unscathed, then we might be on to something great. If the crabs drag him back down into their bucket, then it’s more proof that we haven’t yet learned from our mistakes. The inner-city isn’t a place to be embarrassed about, it’s a geographical construct. The mistake is allowing it to become a mental construct, where we somehow punish players who don’t have that history. Finally, that seems to be changing. Used to be that we only wanted players with a certain kind of story, but now, we accept them without the hardship background as an attachment. We’re getting away from penalizing guys and assuming they are soft because they come from money. This archaic notion is on the way out. This deserves a slow clap, so let’s give ’em one

as it relates to NBA players. I agree with the central thesis that black America glamorized hood culture, and to a certain degree, made it one of the central components of blackness, however I reject that any NBA player not named Kobe caught shit being middle-class.

Black folk always liked Grant Hill. He was the only to get a pass until Magette came around. C-Webb, Shaq and a bunch of those first post-Jordan stars had plenty of street-cred despite their middle-class backgrounds.

Any and all people who suggest otherwise are liars.

I grew up poor and trying to emulate the middle class.

A lot of middle class kids try to emulate the poor.
(white and black).

You fetishize what isn't in your backyard/on your block. Its
really not that difficult to grasp.
]
Iverson was beloved by whites at least as much as he was by
blacks (this board a perfect example), for those reasons.

Its funny -- I'm one of the most people most critical of
Iverson on this board, and its because all that song and
dance shit isnt new or cute to me.

And the Stephon Marbury point is outright offensive: he wasn't
a prospect because he was from the hood and hungry.
He was, ironically, a supreme prospect SPECIFICALLY because
he did all the little things well, had a sound fundamental
base, was relatively articulate and a nice kid. He had an up
and down pro career (mostly up), but rewriting the past just
for the sake of the article is pretty unforgivable.

And the Kobe argument:

Problem with Kobe wasn't his middle classness, its that he's
an awkward sociopath who, for the duration of his 20s, was
actually doing a body snatching imitation of Michael Jordan.
The Kobe acceptance argument is relegated to Philadelphia's
fanbase, and they are notoriously touchy about authenticity
(see: how they feel about Michael Vick vs. Donovan Mcnabb).

Lebron was raised by a single mother with substance abuse
problems. Black people's love/hate relationship with him
has nothing to do with any of this.

Not sure what the point of this piece is.

in the middle class black areas
its definitely there

i grew up poor as well and yes most people do look up to the middle class as where they wanna be. why not?

but when i lived with my dad for a couple yrs, it was a more upper middle class situation and I noticed a difference

Black kids around there used to straight try to be hood dog.

everyone did now i ended up moving back w/ moms and it was more of typical middle class

when i would go over my dad's
his neighborhood had ball players, doctors, lawyers etc.
but all the black kids out there were straight on some tryna be hood shit.

i mean this neighborhood has million dollar cribs dog.

i guess im just looking from a kids perspective not so much the entire community.

he had something but when he started down the scouting path he lost it.

>in the middle class black areas
>its definitely there
>
>i grew up poor as well and yes most people do try to emulate
>the middle class
>
>but when i lived with my dad for a couple yrs, it was a more
>upper middle class situation and I noticed a difference

Upper middle class is different.

There a legions of fuckup upper middle/rich kids of all
races. The Kardashian kids fuck basketball players,
rappers and only one bothered to go to college. And they
probably have *good* values compared to most rich people
that I know.


>Black kids around there used to straight try to be hood dog.

Yeah, this argument transcends basketball and isn't a
particularly fun or interesting conversation to have.

Back to the Cosby debates of the early 2000s about what
type of "culture" do African-Americans have, and whether
it fosters failure.

There were data in support of it saying that middle class
blacks do.

There were data against it saying white kids look down on
nerds as much or more as black kids.

Not very interesting.


And definitely has nothing to do with basketball specifically.


Because its well known that white kids love these hood acts
just as much as black kids.


>everyone did now i ended up moving back w/ moms and it was
>more of typical middle class


>when i would go over my dad's
>his neighborhood had ball players, doctors, lawyers etc.
>but all the black kids out there were straight on some tryna
>be hood shit.

Nah, I hear that. I don't disagree. Its disgusting

>i mean this neighborhood has million dollar cribs dog.

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O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

as if the GM for the T-Wolves is sitting at his desk like "GUN CHARGE? BRILLIANT, SPEND A FIRST ROUNDER ON HIM!"

>as if the GM for the T-Wolves is sitting at his desk like
>"GUN CHARGE? BRILLIANT, SPEND A FIRST ROUNDER ON HIM!"

a) Iverson was pardoned of all charges prior to him
enrolling at Georgetown. Other than that case, Iverson
was widely understood to be a good kid out of high school,
which helped his pardon case -- he hadn't done shit wrong.

If anything, Iverson's behavior got more reckless in the
NBA because prison made him bitter and angry (understandibly so)
and he didn't have a Big John father figure around (Larry Brown's
passive aggressiveness is THE WORST personality for a player
with issues: its the reason Brown could only win with a team
comprised of 5 SOLID personalities/grown ass men).

b)Iverson didn't have any of the tattoo/braids stuff BEFORE
he was drafted. That all came during his rookie year. At the
time he was drafted, he was coming off of two years under
one of college basketball's great disciplinarian/father figures.



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O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

Rich kid comes in the league and produces...

somehow he is accepted

>Rich kid comes in the league and produces...
>
>somehow he is accepted

I was at the ESPNZone in Times Square the
night of Spice's draft

It was about 50% full of hood niggas thinking they were
doing it big by being in midtown

Cats was in there DEVASTATED when the Knicks ain't
get Spice

I'm talking, place went SILENT when Golden State took
that nigga




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O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

>Kyrie’s father, Dred,

was surprised it didnt make it on here then

the appeal of the bad-ass, underdog, rebel who STARTED FROM THE BOTTOM NOW WE HERE is pretty universal.

DuBois? Iverson? Washington? Irving?

Ha. DuBois is somewhere in Accra, rolling in his grave at this....

as someone who lived through the era this article is talking about

I watched the NBA crown the 'next Jordan' year in and year out

I don't know what income level he was raised in

but I know he wasn't from the inner city sellin crack

and went to college

I know Kobe wasn't hustlin' either

Bron has also managed to project a different image

despite probably being raised 'poor'

oh, and I stopped reading at 'nastiest'

Most people like Kyrie. Black or white.

They did the same shit with Jason Williams with trying to play him up as the anti-thesis to the urban ball player, and that made people dislike dude. And maybe that had to do with how he wanted to market himself and his personality, especially telling from that recent article where he's throwing teammates under the bus.

But don't do it to Kyrie. I didn't even know his dad was well off until I read this. Just knew he was a former player. Didn't know about Montclair either.

Just let that kid cook. Not pass for shit. But cook.

I remember that rash of articles, based on nothing,
about how the Clintons had a stronger foothold in the
black community and Obama's mixed-ness/non-descendent-of
-slaveness/educatedness, etc meant that ordinary black
folks wouldn't identify.

Like, none of that was true. None. Zero.

The "Black Americans don't support well-spoken, not-from-the
-hood black people" is one of the most hilariously pathetic
lies in modern cultural criticism.

Most of its authors are black men who are lame, get clowned,
and then throw the black community under the bus. Its true.

Poor blacks actually love educated blacks. They are just
sensitive of wealthy niggas who look down on them and blame
them for every problem in the fucking galaxy. I'm with them
on that one.

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O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

philanderers.

And they tried to say minorities didn't like the Cosby Show cuz they couldn't relate.

What a moron.