If your child had a choice between leaving college to join the NBA or the NFL draft and potentially make millions of dollars or stay in college to earn a degree but risk hurting his/her draft status, what would you encourage them to do? Take the money or get the degree?  My advice would be to make a smart decision based on the statistically best likelihood of success because the numbers don’t lie.  Maybe we need to be teaching our young African-American men and women the same thing.

The real question is not about choosing between getting a degree or cashing in on a multimillion dollar contract.  That is for the rare professional ready athlete.  It is about preparing young African-American men and women for a bright future.  Getting a college degree can  be one step toward that bright future.  In order to get a college degree, first they must go to college.

Everyone likes to debate whether a teenage college athlete should stay in college or pursue a profession career.  No one seems to be concerned with the thousands of young men and women who never get the chance to even attend college due to falling prey to their bad environments and making horrible decisions that serve to ruin their lives.  Believe it or not the NCAA may be in a better position than the President of the United States to save some of those children from their bad environments.  How?  The NCAA is in a position to send ambassadors to underprivileged communities to have direct contact with young people of color where they can sell them a dream!

A dream is the first step to success.  Numbers do not lie. Yes. Less than 1% of high school athletes ever make it to the professional levels of their perspective sports.  Yes.  Less then 2% of college athletes (baseball is the only exception with an outrageous 11.6%) make it to the professional level.  The dream the NCAA can sell is moving out of poverty through education.  It is not all about being a professional athlete as opposed to being a professional.  Because the numbers do not lie.  Anything that works to motivate young African American men and women to strive to go to college is a good thing.   Plus, approximately four out of every five or three out of every four college athletes leave school with a degree.  College graduates make significantly more money over the course of their lifetimes than non-college graduates.  The unemployment rate for college graduates, even African-American college graduates, is significantly lower than for non-college graduates.

The bottom line is this: dreams keep you alive, focused, and energized.  A dream is the first step to success, but a belief in your dream is the second and most important step in that march to success.  It is easy for young African-American men or women to engage in risky, foolish, and/or criminal behavior when they do not value their future.  It is easy to throw away something that no one seems to value: their lives and their future.  It is a different story when they value tomorrow.  The NCAA can help young men and women of color recognize the value of their tomorrow. The NCAA through ambassadors can help cultivate dreams and also show how the dreams can come true by staying away from trouble, making good decisions, developing conflict resolution skills, and taking advantage of all the educational opportunities available to them.

In Chicago, the most dangerous time for young people of color is the summer time.  That is when much of the violence occurs.  It has been repeatedly shown that small things like summer basketball camps have helped lower crime and steer teens away from crime.  Can you imagine if the NCAA stepped up and set up summer football, basketball, and baseball camps in underprivileged areas around the country?  Can you imagine how many young lives would be saved simply by placing teenagers in a positive and safe environment instead of on the streets in the middle of danger?  Then factor in the effect of exposing underprivileged teens to a plan to show them how in a few short years they can go from being in grade school to playing in the NBA or on a college campus where there are no bars, guards, or judges.  It also can be shown how even if they do not make it to the pros the skills and education they earn in college can translate to a financially secure and emotionally satisfying career in various different ways.

It is one thing to have a wish.  It is entirely another thing to have a dream.  In order to have a dream it takes faith in your ability to achieve it.  Sometimes in order to have a dream it is first necessary for someone to plant the seed of faith by revealing a plan to potential success.  NCAA sports camps can provide that plan.  It can make a big difference to a teenager being told by a college player that is the same age as their older sibling how to use school as a tool for their success and how to make smart, strong, and good decisions to guard their future.  The first key to unlocking any prison is the mind.  Selling underprivileged teenagers on a future that is within their grasp is the first step to walking away from bad decisions and bad habits onto a path of good decisions and good habits.  It is the truth.  The numbers don’t lie.

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Speaking of which, watch the following before continuing:

That said, check out Don Lemon’s diatribe below:

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I would always dance around the question or evoke some cleverly evasive answer to placate the query, because potential friendships, opportunities, or social settings always seemed contingent upon whether you attended a church or if you were willing (without question) to attend a prospective friend’s church. I’ve never alluded to or written about my religious affiliations or lack thereof, because quite frankly, I never felt comfortable having these sorts of conversations.

Whenever the topic of religion would casually make its way into my interactions, I’d often go out of my way to pacify people’s egos (at the expense of my own ego and comfort) and would feign interest with the proverbial “I don’t go to church, but I’m a spiritual person” political answer, when in fact I’m not. I’ve never been religious (even as a young girl) or had any inclination towards the rituals of worship. I’m finally comfortable enough to publicly state this fact about myself.

As this current cult of personality continues to move forward, so are attitudes within the Black community about religion. Despite the backlash and collective gasps from family members, friends, and even work colleagues; the trepidation many of us feel about not being… well… holier-than-thou is starting to ebb as more of us are finally saying the controversial ‘A’ word out loud; and yes, I identify as an atheist and have been one for years (officially since high school, in fact), even when I never actually said it out loud, due to the concerns I had from the backlash I’d undoubtedly experience.

The disdain most of us receive from some folks is palpable at times. I’ve heard horror stories from folks, who divulged that some of their family members were more forgiving of the criminal infractions committed by incarcerated family members or that one creepy pedo-uncle, than they were of their college educated, gainfully employed, skirmish-free son or daughter/niece or nephew/granddaughter or grandson who came out as an atheist.

Fortunately for me and many others like me, what you think no longer matters.

I’ve gotten beyond the point in my life, where I’m willing to compromise who I am as an adult woman, because someone else is incapable of accepting that people are different, have the right to live in the splendor of their true selves, and have a difference of opinion. I am an atheist and have no desire to condescend to anyone else for being devout in their religious belief; nor do I wish to explain why I don’t believe. Moreover, I have zero interest in listening to someone list all the reasons why they’re Christian or whatever other affiliation they adhere to. Atheism (to me) is simply suspension of belief. I don’t care one way or the other whether or not some God or some other similar entity exists because, well, none of it exists in my world. There. My “dirty little secret” is out. So the likelihood of me ever attending your church or praying with or for you, isn’t very likely; despite the recent study about Black women being among the country’s most religious groups.  My suspension of religious belief has absolutely no bearing on my social mores or cultural universals and I’m not dancing around a fire, naked and conjuring up spells, contrary to what some folks think of non-believers.

In a recent installment of the documentary web series, “Black Folk Don’t…“, where the filmmakers set out to explore stereotypes about what many Black people collectively don’t do as a community– (because you know, we’re a monolith and all)– they conduct interviews about Black spirituality, because most “Black Folk Don’t: Do Atheism”.

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Systemic racism? What the hell is that? They ain’t burning crosses and hanging Black folks anymore. Hell, we’s post-racial now, RiPPa! Yeah I know, stories or studies like the following and the one I shared recently about Black folks and bankruptcy are all made up. Yep, studies such as this one aren’t valid. That is, unless they come from white comedians in Blackface on college campuses across America. I mean, why even listen to complaining Black folks, right?

A new academic study of 58,000 federal criminal cases has found significant disparities in sentencing for blacks and whites arrested for the same crimes. The research led to the conclusion that African-Americans’ jail time was almost 60% longer than white sentences.

According to M. Marit Rehavi of the University of British Columbia and Sonja B. Starr, who teaches criminal law at the University of Michigan Law School, the racial disparities can be explained “in a single prosecutorial decision: whether to file a charge carrying a mandatory minimum sentence….Black men were on average more than twice as likely to face a mandatory minimum charge as white men were, holding arrest offense as well as age and location constant.” Prosecutors are about twice as likely to impose mandatory minimums on black defendants as on white defendants.

In federal cases, black defendants faced average sentences of 60 months, while the average for white defendants was only 38 months.

The report concludes that sentence disparities “can be almost completely explained by three factors: the original arrest offense, the defendant’s criminal history, and the prosecutor’s initial choice of charges.” (source)

At any rate, what does it matter to have information like this if nothing is going to be done about it? Yep, simple-minded readers will say this is yet just another reason for people like me to “hate whitey,” I suppose. Rather than act in the interest of justice and equality. I’m pretty sure someone will digest this info and suggest that it’s better that Blacks are locked away longer, because we are genetically predisposed to commit crimes. Sounds crazy, but people actually believe we are.

The issue of mass incarceration is almost never discussed within our political discourse. That is with the exception of the occasional racist Willie Horton ad if you’d like to give the impression that as a candidate, you’re tough on crime. This is one issue that I suppose many see as a political liability. I mean how dare anyone running for president speak about the racial disparities in sentencing, the prison industrial complex, or even the opportunity cost of it all, right?

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