Jim Brown doesn’t give lip service to solutions; he finds ones that work
By JASON WHITLOCK
The Kansas City Star
All the things we allegedly loved about African-American athletes of the 1950s and 1960s, Jim Brown still represents in 2008.
You see, Jim Brown was never a symbol, an unwitting pawn in someone else’s movement or an agitator. And that’s not written to denigrate the value of symbols, pawns and agitators in the fight for social equality and freedom.
It’s written to put Jim Brown in proper context. He is not as revered as Jackie Robinson, as celebrated as Muhammad Ali, remembered as glowingly as John Carlos and Tommie Smith or respected intellectually as much as Harry Edwards.
America still doesn’t understand Jim Brown. Oh, we understand Brown the football player and athlete. He’s the greatest running back the game has ever seen and arguably the greatest athlete the world has ever known. We get that.
We don’t get the man. We fail to recognize the substance of his life.
I asked Jim Brown to visit Kansas City and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum today and this evening so that we could learn more about him, his life and his life’s work. Jim and I are friends. I want him to be friends with all of us. He’s a different kind of Buck O’Neil. Jim Brown loves people with ideas and courage and the resolve to be self-responsible and have a commitment to community.
Jim is Buck O’Neil and Ollie Gates rolled into a football player/movie star.
This afternoon, Jim is going to have lunch with Mr. Gates and city councilman Terry Riley. They, along with UMKC and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, helped me bring Jim and members of Jim’s Amer-I-Can staff to Kansas City.
This evening, Chiefs running back Larry Johnson will join all of us at the Gem Theatre (7 p.m.) for a public discussion with Jim about football, economic development, life-management skills training and the possible implementation of Jim’s Amer-I-Can program here.
I met Jim Brown years ago. He came to Indiana University to speak, and I was a reporter in Bloomington, Ind., covering the event. Jim doesn’t remember meeting me. Our paths crossed several more times over the years, but there was no real connection. Two years ago, I called Jim’s cell phone to ask him a favor about an idea Spike Lee and I worked on. Jim didn’t think much of the way I presented my plan, he snapped on me, and I got off the phone after a quick apology.
Six months later, Jim and I spoke in Atlanta at a forum whose host was Spike Lee. After the forum, a large group of us chatted into the wee hours about issues facing black athletes and impoverished communities. Jim and I finally hit it off. Since then, we’ve become good friends. I’ve been to his house several times, met his wife and kids and learned a great deal about his philosophy and Amer-I-Can program.
For lack of a better description, Amer-I-Can is a legitimate no-child-or-man-left-behind program. It addresses the fundamental problem that many young men and women simply lack the life-management skills decision-making to prosper in America.
You have to be taught how to think. The erosion of family, the absence of fathers in the home and the influence of prison culture have deprived many men and women of the necessary foundational blocks necessary to make good decisions.
You can’t embrace education (even a low-budget form) if you have no concept of how it will improve your life. It’s difficult to avoid abusing alcohol and drugs if you do not comprehend how they damage your progress into the mainstream. You don’t value being a part of the mainstream if no one has explained how to be a part of it and maintain your identity.
To reach Jason Whitlock, call 816-234-4869 or send e-mail to jwhitlock@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com.
