Like much of the United States and possibly the world I am on lockdown because of COVID – 19. I have two jobs and both have shut down for the last five weeks due to government orders to prevent the spread of the plague. This has given me a lot of time to catch up on reading. I checked out the biography Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant shortly after the NBA star died and I didn’t get around to beginning the book until the quarantine in March.
I am an NBA fan but Kobe was never my guy. He didn’t play for my team which is the Detroit Pistons. I have chanted BEAT LA in my living room many, many times. Most of that energy was directed towards Kobe. When Kobe died on January 26 I was shocked and saddened. Even though I’ve never been a Kobe fan I respect his success and I appreciate what he did for the game for twenty years.
This biography is very well written, well researched and detail oriented. This book is essentially an NBA history that focused on the late 90s to the mid 2010s. There are accounts of injuries, trades, games and series. The book is a little less than six hundred pages so it is a long and at times dry read.
I enjoy NBA but the minutiae of this book was a bit much for me. I was disappointed that the author only devoted a paragraph or two to the 2004 Laker loss to the Detroit Pistons. I was looking forward to reliving that in print but the author glossed over that glorious event. But overall I enjoyed the book because it cleared up some of the folklore surrounding Kobe’s relationship with Vanessa, his mother and father and Shaquille O’Neal. And yes, the rape trial was discussed.
This book reinforced all of my previous notions about Kobe Bryant. He was an aloof man and fierce competitor. Kobe Bryant was not a nice guy. He didn’t really get along with anyone once he became a star. But that wasn’t important to him. Winning was. He was meticulous in everything he did and was a diligent worker. Kobe had no patience for people around him that didn’t live up to his standards and people were easily discarded.
Kobe also didn’t like to share the spotlight with others. He didn’t want to share the spotlight with Shaquille O’Neal or Phil Jackson. LA wasn’t big enough for all of them. He never wanted it to be said that he needed them in order to be successful. Kobe was a lot like a 1980s night time soap opera villain that was motivated by a single goal and he didn’t let anything get in his way. Even though Kobe wasn’t warm and fuzzy I did like him more after reading this book. I respect the man’s drive and passion.
I also disliked him more after reading this book. By all accounts Kobe was a prick and so is his wife. He stabbed Shaquille O’Neal in the back more than once. He threw his coach Phil Jackson under the bus. He turned his back on his parents and siblings and cut them off financially before marrying his wife Vanessa and buying a beautiful new home for her mother who was in financial straits before her daughter married the NBA star. No one really seemed to get along with Kobe. As an NBA fan I kind of already knew that.
I did learn some new details about Kobe’s life but there wasn’t a lot of new information for me in this book. It’s fun to relive some of the NBA history that was written about in this book. I enjoyed the dirt that the book shared on Kobe’s personal entanglements. The author did a good job of giving us a backstage look at NBA life. I would recommend the book if you’re an NBA fan. You will enjoy it and it might make up for the NBA Playoffs being postponed.
Today I will discuss some pertinent White people news. No, this is not about Trump nor any of his flunkies in Congress. No, this isn’t about unemployment in rural America. This is about two of the best looking White people on the planet: Christian McCaffrey and Olive Culpo. I will be discussing and analyzing their budding relationship or perhaps showmance. This piece is being fueled by irrational jealousy and a distrust of mainstream and social media.
First, let me tell you a bit about my relationship with Christian McCaffrey that exists in my mind. He’s the star running back for Brown America’s Team, the Carolina Panthers. He was my man Cam’s right hand last season. The first time I ever saw him was in a Playoff during Christian’s rookie season against the Saints.
I turned to the game just as Christian was trucking it across the field on his way to the end zone for a Panther’s touchdown. I was stunned. I had never seen a White man move that way. And I still haven’t forgotten it. I refer to Christian as Barry Sanders Jr. In an instant I was struck with an old lady crush. I could easily have a child this man’s age. Easily.
Christian McCaffrey seems to be a very nice person. He helped save an old man’s life last year while he was hiking with his brothers. He has no tattoos, he seems to love the Lord and he is a renaissance man. He’s an amateur musician and has a classic taste in clothing. His fashion sense has a hint of an edge at times. I will credit that to spending a lot of time around Cam Newton. His dad is a Superbowl Champ that played for the Denver Broncos. Christian McCaffrey is a dream boat.
Side note: What’s going on with the Carolina Panthers? They are fine as hell. They don’t even look like a real football team. It’s like they are a movie about a football team. Cam is one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen. Luke Keuchly is a looker. Christian is gorgeous and carries himself with sophistication at a young age. Coach Rivera gives all kinds of mature, sexy Latin vibes. It’s like they were cast by a Hollywood agent.
For the last month or so there have been rumors in the White gossip media outlets about Christian and Olivia dating. It all started when they started following each other on IG and he liked one of her pictures. Someone please explain to me whose job it is to monitor which celebrity unfollows who and likes what. What a job. After that gossip media news outlets said that “sources” say that the attractive pair was spending time together and enjoying each other’s company.
I have been through phases when I watched TMZ religiously and I pored over grocery store gossip magazines like US Weekly. After a while I came to the conclusion that it is all baloney. The celebrities themselves are the “sources” that vague articles cite in articles. And I’m sure that they tip off TMZ crews on when they are going to dinner at a trendy LA eatery with a new, high profile companion. TMZ stakes out in a very small area in LA. So people that hang out in that area are trying to be seen.
I question a lot of these so called celebrity relationships because a lot of the speculation is based on one meeting or dinner date. Imagine having someone write about you every time you had a good time on a dance floor with someone or each time you went out to dinner or a movie with a new friend. One flirtation or evening out does not make a relationship.
But I think the gossip media outlets and the celebrities take advantage of it all and give people something to talk about. Showmances seem like an easy and mutually beneficial way to get your name out to the public. I suspect that a lot of the Kardashian relationships and some of the marriages have been showmances. I have watched reports on TMZ of some of the Kardashian so called romantic relationships. I’ve seen these women supposedly caught by surprise by the paparazzi out on a date or making a red carpet appearance and they had ZERO chemistry with the man in their company.
It was like two strangers just happened to be walking side by side on a busy sidewalk. Or they were out with an employee or business associate. But they wanted us to buy that we were witnessing the beginning of a hot new romance. I’m sorry but I kind of suspect the same thing might be going on with Christian and Olivia.
These pictures prove that they’ve met but that’s about it. Are these really the best image this photographer could have produced? I don’t see any chemistry. I would make a better paparazzi than this person. That is if there was really anything to photograph. And they’re not that famous. I know them because I follow sports and pageants. I don’t think that these two have the kind of clout to be recognized overseas and draw much attention. It wouldn’t be that hard to surreptitiously stalk and photograph them.
Who knows this could be a sweet new romance. It could also be someone holding their drunk friend’s hand so they don’t get lost. That’s sweet too. We don’t really know what’s going on here and neither of them are saying anything. They are Vaguebooking.
Olivia’s friend made an IG story about her time in Mexico with Olivia and Christian. I’ve never heard of her nor her male companion. So how exactly did TMZ and the other gossip peddlers find this so fast? They were tipped off that’s how.
Once again we saw no chemistry or spark whatsoever. You know how social media works. Some people get a tiny bit of a boyfriend or girlfriend and then they make dozens of posts about their new soul mate and everything they do together. This isn’t happening here at all. Or they don’t post about their love life at all and suddenly announce that they are now married. Neither is happening here so I think they are just looking for attention which surprises me from Christian. He doesn’t seem thirst like that. Her yes, him no.
It will be interesting to see how this all pans out. Olivia seems like a nice enough lady. And I loved her Miss Universe dress more than any other contest winner I can remember.
But this woman is media trained and I believe that she is driven and calculating. Evidently she posts a bunch of stuff about going to band camp when she was a kid and getting made fun of for her eyebrows. Girl, bye! Even if it’s true.
She’s dated many well known men in the past. A man that plays for the Detroit Lions had a breakdown on IG over his break up with her a few months ago. And in between his breakdown and the beginning the Christian rumors that she probably started it was said that she dated a famous DJ. This girl is something else.
Anyway I wish them the best. And by that I mean that I hope Christian will be OK regardless of how this pans out. I won’t say that I hope this is real because it’s here nor there to me aside from them both being very nice looking people. I just think the things people do for notoriety and attention are very interesting.
I am Black and a bit of a social media junkie. Social media outlets have pretty much figured out that I’m Black and they suggest pages, channels, people, places and things that other Black people frequent. I follow them as do others in my demographic. It creates little virtual communities and there you have it, the Black social media sphere. It has been fun, entertaining, and educational in good ways and bad. Black social media can be a useful and entertaining tool. But it can be very toxic.
I’ll start off by saying that Black people are not given enough credit for being so witty and creative. When I was a big Facebook and Twitter user my brothers and sisters would absolutely have me cracking up with their unique takes on various hashtags. Some social media users reminded me of the glory days of hip hop when being a little street or ghetto or whatever you call was meshed with intelligence and insight. We don’t get to see that much in the media anymore. I miss it.
Black social media users have also brought attention to injustices in America such as police brutality and racism in common places. Cell phone video and social media has given justice to many Black people that never would have gotten it otherwise. I think that is wonderful and heroic.
But I’ve decided to not follow a lot of Black social media pages due to the nature of the speaker or his or her followers. I blocked The Shade Room on IG years ago and my quality of life immediately improved. I stopped following the 1990s rapper David Banner because I got tired of being a defender of the faith. I blocked The Amazing Lucas on You Tube because he is trying a little too hard to prove that he is a conservative Black man. It’s sad to watch a Black man pander to people that way.
It’s difficult to build a social media following unless you already have some sort of claim to fame, an amazing talent or you fit a particular beauty standard and decide to flaunt your body for the sake social media popularity. I’m guessing that it may even be more difficult for non celebrity Black people to build a large following because I rarely see Black people discussing things that wouldn’t be considered a Black interest on social media. I’ve figured that the best way for Black people to gain a social media following is by being controversial within the on line Black community.
I think Black men have it the hardest in the social media world. It’s a little harder for them to find their social media niche. Many Black women and feminine Black men have gained social media notoriety by creating celebrity gossip outlets, make up and hair tutorials.
But I don’t see many Black men creating channels that aren’t about dissecting matters in the Black community. It seems to me that the easiest way for a Black man to gain a large social media following is by talking about such matters and blaming Black women for them. Some of the most successful Black You Tubers that I’m aware of are men that think that Black women are solely responsible for every single problem in the Black community. Like, seriously every – single – one. The mental gymnastics these guys do is impressive. Actually buying into it is a personality disorder of some sort.
I’ve never followed members of the He Man’s Woman Haters Club but men that follow these ideologies show up in the comment sections of other vlogs such as gossip channels or a channel that is talking about current events to a Black audience. They drop nasty remarks about Black women’s appearances, marital status, “attitude” or whatever. They even put Black women down for going to college and pursuing careers. I would like to think that most of these remarks are coming from trolls in Moscow but I know my people and this can’t all be blamed on the Russians.
It’s like some of these guys (to be fair, I’ve had Black women make rude remarks about my appearance, especially my hair as well) know that Black women are trying to avoid them so they come to where we are in order to insult us in some way. I’ve made what I thought was an innocuous comment and have had my personal appearance attacked by my fellow social media users. People like that are usually hiding behind an anonymous profile so I can’t be sure of who they are but I’m guessing a lot of the insults based on skin color and hair texture are coming from people with similar skin color and hair texture.
After degrading Black women these gentlemen go on to put fairer skinned women on a pedestal. I don’t understand why they didn’t do that in the first place and just left us out of it. No one needs to justify their dating and marriage choices to anyone. And you shouldn’t have to put someone else down in order to express your love for someone else. Black women return the vitriol. They too have set up channels and make comments tearing Black men apart. There is no way to have a community if men and women hate each other.
Another topic that’s caught a lot of traction on Black social media is “woke” Black people telling Black Christians to stop believing in Christ. I had to block the 90s rapper David Banner for this reason. People like him are arrogant and patronizing and always use the same two or three reasons to justify their opinions.
Their reasoning displays their ignorance about the Bible, geography, human history. This “woke”, afrocentric community are the ones that believe in a White, European Jesus. Not those of us with the understanding that Bethlehem isn’t in Europe. Once again, all they need to do is follow their heart. There is absolutely no need to degrade someone else in order to justify a personal choice. Leave us out of your personal choices and I’ll leave you out of mine.
I ran across a You Tuber named The Amazing Lucas one day and I decided to follow him. After watching a few of his videos I blocked him. I don’t need anymore of his videos. He’s a young Black man that would probably describe himself as being conservative. But after a while I guess he had to work harder to prove himself.
He’s too emotional about things that aren’t that big of a deal such as the political opinions of NBA players that he’s never even heard of. Lucas is of the belief that racism is all a figment of Black America’s imagination which I find to be a very condescending and delusional view point. The Amazing Lucas doesn’t seem to understand that racism is an economic and sociological matter.
I don’t know who runs The Shade Room but they are a horrible human being and their followers are complete morons. It’s hard to find a dumber group of people on social media than what you would find on that IG page. I blocked them a long time ago because they were on there making fun of Simone Biles body. That’s right. They body shamed a world class athlete.
People that enjoy The Shade Room only like women that look like strippers. It’s all they care about or respect. They absolutely love people from the Love and Hip Hop Series and various young rappers that I’ve never heard of. But they trash an Olympic champion because she’s not so called slim thick. They trashed Gabrielle Douglas as well. I believe they came for her because she mentioned something about women should dress modestly and they went berserk. I don’t share the values of most people in The Shade Room so I had to block them.
The death and funeral of rapper Nipsey Hustle and the trials and tribulations of TV personality Wendy Williams have dominated Black social media the last few weeks. Meanwhile three Black churches in Louisiana burned mysteriously and the son of a police officer was arrested for the crimes.
I was on a You Tube channel yesterday that fashions itself after a news broadcast. The host discussed the church fires and people in the comments section were talking about their disdain for Christianity, especially Black Christians. They are clearly missing the point. But if they are that stupid why bother talking to them. I blocked the channel. I think we need to shift our values a bit. Our community suffered a terrorist attack and
I understand that the death of Nipsey Hustle is yet another urban violent tragedy but last weekend six were shot at a baby shower in Chicago. I haven’t heard Black social media say a word about that. I didn’t know who Nipsey Hustle was until he died so his death is no different than all the other murders that happen in the Black community.
I think that we should use the powerful medium of social media to discuss that to the point of beating a dead horse like we do stupid topics like fake hair, inter racial dating and twerking. And men that are obsessed with women that they don’t like need to be the ones doing the talking instead of blaming everything on single mothers.
I wish that Black social media communities would just stop trying to tell others in their community what to do. Stop thinking you know what’s best for someone else. If we all do our part, Christians, Israelites, Agnostics, LGBT, feminists, etc. we can all make improvements to build a better future for everyone. But this intra racial at least snarkiness and at most hatred should stop. We need to learn to respect each other more. I don’t feel like Black people appreciate our differences.
Some of these conversations that take place have been going on for years and we have come to no conclusion or made no progress. They are trivial matters anyway so we should just move forward. I think there are a few things we should be able to agree on such as if you’re mad at someone you shouldn’t shoot up their baby shower and let’s discuss those matters. The rest of if is all just drivel and a huge waste of time and I refuse to participate in it anymore.
Tristan Thompson is back at it! He’s making headlines again. It’s not for playing basketball. The Cavaliers are 13 – 46 and in the fourteenth place out of fifteen teams in the east. He’s back in the gossip news for cheating on his baby mama Khloe Kardashian with her sisters ex room mate Jordyn Woods.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m completely in favor of loyalty, fidelity and long lasting, loving relationships between men and women. But this isn’t that. There is no evidence that this is a respectful relationship at all. It all just looks like a big confusing mess from the beginning.
The internet says that Khloe began seeing Tristan while his other baby mama was pregnant with his other child. Shortly thereafter Khloe got pregnant with her daughter. The internet says he cheated during Khloe’s pregnancy as well. After their daughter True was born there was some Kris Jenner manufactured drama on social media. Tristan was the villain, Khloe was the victim and the bystanders discussed what Khloe should do next.
Just like in old soap operas Khloe did exactly what she shouldn’t do. She pursued a romantic future and family life with a notorious philanderer. I don’t know what Khloe expected from this. I’m certainly not surprised that Tristan cheated on her.
I haven’t heard any declarations of love from Tristan to Khloe. I haven’t heard of an engagement between the two. Nor have I heard about an elopement. Tristan Thompson is a single, successful man that can do as he pleases. He’s nobody’s husband.
You see this is what happens when boundaries and lines are blurred. You get confusion and hurt feelings. People get taken advantage of in gray, undefined areas. Gray undefined terms and conditions are like smoke bombs that are intended to cause confusion and make it harder to see clearly. It’s kind of like when the Joker throws smoke bombs in “Batman”.
Romantic partners that aren’t your spouse don’t owe you anything. Hopefully they care about you enough to protect your feelings but you are taking your chances. You aren’t entitled to loyalty and devotion from a person to whom you have not married. You also don’t owe it to anyone. Tristan doesn’t owe any of his baby mamas a thing. If they really wanted Tristan for the long haul they would require marriage. If he was not interested in that type of a commitment they would know that they are barking up the wrong tree and they need to pursue other relationships.
These vaguely defined relationships aren’t doing anyone any favors. Men and women seem to be unhappy with each other and both sides get used and taken advantage of. Women get taken advantage of for sex and other favors. Men get taken advantage of for financial reasons or are pressured to marry because of the child they probably didn’t want.
There are no real winners. There is a purpose behind marriage and we should honor it. If you choose to take the new aged approach to relationships you will probably end up suffering in some regard whether you are a man or woman. Don’t expect old fashioned results with new aged behavior.
