What Makes A Black Athlete Popular?
” Would Michael Jordan be as popular an athlete if he were a Black Power advocate? Would Magic Johnson, Bill Russell, Arthur Ashe or Ken Griffey, Jr.? Will Venus Williams? Would Jim Brown have been better received if he had not been so protective of and at ease with his Blackness? It can hardly be denied that Jim Brown was as great a football player as Michael Jordan is a basketball player. But when Brown made his excellence clear to the world, he was not greeted with open arms, especially after it became clear that he was not going to abandon his Black value system. Sure, some of the resistance he faced was probably due to the time period, but to leave it at that would be dis-educational. Brown was honored to be Black, he didn’t want to be white. That was the key to Jim Brown being less popular than an athlete of his calibre should have been. There is probably no documentation stating that Craig Hodges was prematurely released by the Chicago Bulls because of his openly expressed dissa
