The Legend of Stephon Marbury...

                        'Don't talk about it, be about it.'

                         --Hip Hop culture proverb

Stephon Xavier Marbury was born and raised in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York City in 1977. He is the sixth of seven children born into the tenements of public housing who had discovered a penchant for the game of basketball at an early age. So much so, Stephon took to combining his first and last names to come up with an alter-ego called 'Starbury'; the basketball savant who could make the winning 'clutch' shots and win over the hearts of his team-mates and his city alike in one fatal swoop...or swish.

His playing 'street ball' since he was in his pre-teens helped him excel on his high school's team at Abraham Lincoln High which was known for producing 'powerhouse' basketball players city-wide. Stephon also had the advantage of his father Don, who knew the cruelties of street ball, helping him to navigate the rough waters of his early career. Stephon was eventually named 'New York State Mr. Basketball' for his exemplary work on the court in his senior year.

In 1995, he was named a 'McDonald's All American', and he was listed as one of the top five recruits in the country. He was courted by Georgia Institute of Technology's basketball coach Bobby Cremins who he eventually agreed could take him to the next level.

At Georgia Tech Marbury excelled as a starting point guard; and for his accomplishments, he was named a 'Third Team All American' by the Associated Press and he won several other conference honors. After a year at Georgia Tech, he made himself eligible for the NBA draft.

He was picked fourth in an NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, and was traded a short time later to the Minnesota Timberwolves. He, along with star draft pick and player Kevin Garnett, led the Timberwolves to the playoffs in 1997 and 1998. Between the years of 1999 to 2004, Stephon came into his own and became the 'clutch' player he'd always dreamed of in the New Jersey Nets and Phoenix Suns organizations. With the Nets, in a 2001 All Star game, Marbury hit two clutch three point shots to win the tournament. In 2004, Marbury was traded to the New York Knicks, and this was a dream come true; it meant he'd have a chance to play in his hometown and in Madison Square Garden with his parents in the stands watching. It was wish fulfillment on steroids. 

Now, this is really not why I'm writing about Stephon, sure his athletic accomplishments are great within themselves, but Stephon had a consciousness that neither his coaches or franchise club owners could or would have suspected he had. 

Ya' see, Stephon remembered the days of his young adulthood, where he couldn't afford the coolest cloths and had to endure the taunts of his peers for wearing hand me down attire and how he was 'ragged on' for his decrepit looking sneakers. This always stuck in his craw, not only because of what he went through, but for how he saw young Black men especially getting into fist fights or even shoot outs behind trying to own the latest, hottest footwear...especially when the new 'Jordan' Nike sneakers came to market. 

For anyone who's not 'in the know' about Michael Jordan's sneaker franchise, a pair of these highly in demand tennis shoes could run in excess of $200 to $1000 dollars, or more, depending on how exclusive the particular shoe model is. And for young brothas growing up in public housing, these sneakers were more than footwear, they were status symbols. So young brothas were liable to do anything under the sun to get these 'kicks'. And Mike Jordan himself knew this, but sat idly by and did nothing about it.

So instead of complaining about how unscrupulous and immoral the Black youth are for indulging in the pursuit of these outrageously priced sneakers, Stephon actually did something to stop it. 

In 2006, Stephon teamed up with retail clothing magnates Steve Shore and Barry Prevor, owners of the retail franchise 'Steve and Barry's', to put out his own sneaker named after his celebrity moniker 'Starbury' (there's a pair of these displayed in my header's triptych...it's the middle sneaker). These sports shoes offered the latest design and comforts of the most popular sneakers on the market...but here's the real 'coup de grace' of the product, you could purchase a pair for $14.98. 

Young Black men especially had a real choice now, of a sneaker that was comfortable and stylish and one that didn't empty out their own wallet or their parent's. I remember listening to radio ads for this shoe when they were relatively new, and they literally said, "...no more breaking the bank to get a fresh pair of kicks..." And not only did Stephon produce a sneaker, but he had a whole line of clothing including shirts, pants, hoodies, etc. that were all under $10.00 to add to the experience of buying his sneakers. 

Now, this is what I'm talking about, a brotha who's actually building a brand and looking out for his people simultaneously. 

And Stephon had other athletes like Ben Wallace, who's another celebrity basketball player endorsing the shoe. Stephon went on Oprah, Good Morning America, Good Day New York, Live with Regis and Kelly and a lot of other talk shoes promoting the sneaker, and when the Starbury's first run came out, they did very well, in spite of people's thoughts that the sneaker wouldn't appeal to the youth because of the low price.

But this presented a problem. Ya' see, the white supremacist executives in the corporate offices of Nike, and other sneaker brands who basically charged exorbitant prices for their shoes, couldn't have someone they considered a dumb-founded Black athlete making their pockets any lighter; and they weren't about to close their 'sweat shops' to accommodate some idealist who wanted to charge fair prices for tennis shoes. So, the powers that be engaged in a little 'damage control' in regards to Mr. Marbury and his 'Starbury's'.

Firstly, they had to find a way to undermine the shoe in a public forum or periodical; so the corporate elites went to the magazine 'Consumer Reports' and paid for an article saying how the Starbury's were fine for casual use, but when they were tested by athletes, they under-perfomed due to the sneaker's being less comfortable, less stable and having less impact absorption compared to one of their other favorite brands of sneaker...namely, the Nike Jordan's priced well over $100 dollars. 

On a segment of the news show 20/20, John Stossel cut open a pair of Starbury's when Stephon made the claim that they're of the same quality as his higher priced competitors, and even though they were produced in China, he'd made sure they weren't constructed in any 'sweat shops'. John found that they did indeed look similar to another 'higher-end' brand of sneaker, namely, again, Nike Air Jordan's; but John never commented on the performance of the shoe or whether or not the shoes materials would last as long as other higher end brands. Then, the retail chain Steve and Barry's filed for bankruptcy and closed all of its stores; periodicals say this wasn't due to being associated with Stephon's brand, but I'm sure this had everything to do with it. The inbreeding elite had to make an example of any retailer who'd help a brotha challenge the dominance of white corporations.

Not only this, but as par for the course for any Black man who attempts to challenge the white supremacist status quo, rumors of Stephon being mentally unstable started to surface. Sports mags and other periodicals were saying he was suffering a 'breakdown', and a video of a shirtless Stephon crying came to the fore. But in one of these videos, he says emphatically how people had backed away from him since he put out the 'Starbury's'; this shouldn't sound unfamiliar folks, 'cause they ran the same game on Dave Chappelle and Katt Williams when they wouldn't conform to whitey's wishes. And with Marbury's dwindling popularity and performance stats on the court, the inbreds of fascist white america thought Stephon would be reduced to nothing more than  an afterthought in the annals of the NBA.

But something else happened...

Stephon persevered through these series of travails and is now playing for a basketball team in Beijing, China called the 'Beijing Ducks'; and in the years 2011 through 2014 he's led them to two Chinese Basketball Association Championships almost single-handedly. The added bonus to this is Stephon can be closer to his manufacturing centers to supervise the production of his attire and footwear. Also, Starbury's are now being sold through Amazon.com. 

So, if you get a chance SUPPORT THIS BROTHA!

I GOTTA' PAIR OF STARBURY'S AND IF YOU GIVE A DAMN ABOUT SUPPORTING THESE KIND OF BLACK NATIONALIST POWER MOVES, YOU SHOULD HAVE A PAIR YOURSELF.   

Let's show Stephon that he's made the right decision banking on his people; 'cause you know how the pale-skinned degenerates of the corporate world would like nothing better than for him and his products to disappear without a trace. 

SO I SAY MA'AT HOTEP AND KEM WESIR TO THE NEGUS/NAGA/GOD STEPHON MARBURY! KEEP STRIKING A BLOW FOR BLACK NATIONALISM!

MontUHURU Mimia

P.S. 

Here's a bit of background on the streets reaction to Stephon's Starbury's...check this out!

The most insidious effect of the Donald Sterling 'scandal'...

Truthfully, I'm already sick of hearing about the so-called 'scandal' associated with Donald Sterling, the owner of the L.A. Clippers.

Unfortunately, the media won't let this story die. And that's because this story is being used as a mental trigger for the Black Diaspora.

Just like the Trayvon Martin verdict, this story is meant to keep us in a state of constant anger and emotional instability; thus, we react emotionally instead of rationally. And, it's a reminder that the american Black Diaspora are descendants of slaves, which keeps our minds mired in white supremacy (i.e. Donald is the slavemaster, the Black basketball players are slaves and the NBA is the plantation). 

Case in point, there's a brotha I've been conversing with recently about these matters; and I was telling him about the ways he talks so disparagingly about Black people. 

He'll often say that Black people don't think critically and without him knowing it, he'll always attribute the worst character traits to his own kind. 

I told him to stop doing this, lest he turns those thoughts inward and starts subconsciously feeling this way about himself. He agreed I had a point.

The other day he told me when he sees the Black youth engaged in something negative, he immediately thinks about what I said about the subconscious. He went on to say, now he understands why Black people do the things they do; it's 'cause subconsciously, they don't know any better.   

See, he's so mired in white supremacist thought, he's completely perverted my whole argument about the Black Diaspora's self-hatred and how we've been so conditioned to hate ourselves by white people.

He's now using my rationale to continue hating his own kind, and subconsciously, himself. 

I've also noticed he loves to talk about his 'lighter skin'; and just the other day, when we were talking amongst some other people, he confessed to loving the american government. 

Meaning, he's doomed to be a self-hating anglophile for the rest of his life. 

If you've read my last Blog post, I told you how seductive white supremacy is; 'cause it doesn't require any thinking. You just do what whitey tells you to do.

And there's something else I'd like to share about this brotha, even though I shouldn't. 

Over the course of the last few weeks, while this brotha and I were talking, he's confessed two things to me. One, that he's homeless and living with his daughter, and two, that he's a white supremacist freemason. 

Now, let me repeat that; this brotha is a homeless, white supremacist freemason!

You see, this is a clear example of how much the american or white fascist status quo is a dead end for the Black Diaspora!

Whether you're mentally tethered to thoughts of white supremacy or physically tethered to a white supremacist fraternity; the outcome is usually a life relegated to feelings of inferiority and an existence where you're living paycheck to paycheck. 

But back to Donald Sterling...

When I first heard about these goings-on, I thought, okay...another bigoted white man who owns a sports team; what else is new?

But what really incensed me about this whole debacle was the Black Diaspora's reaction to it.

A year or so ago, Uncle Tommy Sotomayor had a fall-out with another fellow who had a show similar to his called 'The Advise show'. And truthfully, this show directly copied from Tommy Sotomayor's format and style. So the fact that they had this contentious beef was laughable. 

Now, to this day, my most popular posts are still the ones I've done about Uncle Tommy Sotomayor; and recently someone told me that both Tommy and The Advise show had videos dedicated to this topic. 

Being that I'm a reformed fan of Uncle Tommy's, I watched The Advise show's vid on this instead. And The Advise show played the audio footage of what Don said about our people attending his team's games. 

For those who don't know, Don was caught saying that he didn't particularly care for the Black Diaspora's  appearance at the stadium; now, he didn't mind having Black athletes playing the game, but he'd rather not sit next to a Black person in the stands.

In response to this, The Advise show's narrator said he was not only outraged at Don, but he was doubly outraged at the Black athletes for not staging some sort of strike against the team and the NBA. And I agreed with him on that point.

Then, he began his diatribe about how Black men are the only type of men who don't revolt in the face of white fascism. And I thought, here we go again with the Black Diaspora's self-hatred rearing it's ugly head. 

For those who subscribe to The Advise show's point of view on this; I'd like to offer a counter analysis of this guy's dumb-founded diatribe. 

In March of this year, Congressman Donald Young (another white male Donald), said of his father who owned a ranch, that: "My father had a ranch, (and) we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes."

When a journalist asked Marco Rubio, a spanish Florida senator, what he thought about the statement, Marco responded: "I'm concentrating on the Easter holiday (It was close to Easter at the time)...no comment."  

Let me give you an even more absurd example of how other people, besides us, don't challenge the white supremacist status quo. 

In 2006, Japan’s 'Memorial Day Association' declared October 6th ‘Tom Cruise Day’; supposedly ‘cause he’s been the highest profiled american actor who’s made the most trips to the island nation.

Mind you, in 1945, two atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by people who look just like Tom Cruise...and now they're celebrating a 'Tom Cruise day'?! *shaking my head* 

So you see, forgiving the rapacious nature of white supremacy and its institutions, isn't something that's exclusive to Black people. 

Side note: The 'NAGAS' were not only an ancient Black tribe who ruled in asia, but the very word Naga means divine in our original language the Medu Netcher. Furthermore, this is how the japanese city of NAGA-saki got its name. 

The name 'Naga-saki' translates into the words 'Black snake'...and the chinese actually dubbed 2013 as the year of the 'Black snake'; google this if ya' don't believe me. 

And Mr. Advise show (what a dumb-founded name), also raved about how Black men never physically stand up to white supremacy or take any actions to eradicate it. 

And if you believe this, then let me tell ya' about a brotha named Chris Dorner. 

Chris Dorner was a Navy reserve and L.A. police officer who witnessed how the white supremacist, gestapo like police abused and were abusing people in Black neighborhoods; and in response, he took his gun and shot down several white police officers. 

This was not a Black man who turned a blind eye to white supremacy; he used the resources at his disposal to wipe it out; unlike what Mr. Advise show says about us.  

And I'm not even gonna' talk about the contributions of The Black Panthers in California. 

So, let me reiterate, if the Black Diaspora doesn't find a way to recondition itself out of thinking the worst about ourselves, the white supremacists win and we've lost. 

Now, if you can reconcile hating yourself for being Black, then I'm not talking to you; I'm talking to the brotha and sista who want to make our reality better by healing the rift between us. And this starts with understanding, consciously and subconsciously, how we've been been conditioned more than any other person on the planet to hate ourselves by these white people we adore so much. 

And moreover, if you can reconcile this, you don't deserve the privilege of being born a Black man or woman, and I'd rather you didn't come back to this Blog!

But if you're truly about the work of making Black people love themselves and want to see them returned to a place of prominence, then stay tuned and hang in there with me...I've got more to show you in the posts to come. 

Later,

MontUHURU Mimia

P.S.

If you'd like to read about one aspect of how The Black Panthers worked to the betterment of the Black community, read my former post about Dr. Huey P. Newton here.

P.P.S.

Here's the 'Advise Show' video that inspired this Blog post; and again, if you're a fan of this insipid show, you might wanna' be a bit more selective about what you're watching. 

Why the NBA made Lebron take off his mask...

Lebron Raymone James was born in Akron, Ohio on December 30th, 1984 to a sixteen year old mother, Gloria Marie James.

Gloria struggled to put food on the table as she and Lebron moved from apartment to apartment in the more improvished areas of Akron; so she decided to let Lebron stay with a youth football coach, Frank Walker, who introduced Lebron to the game of basketball at nine years old. 

James played in a youth basketball league dubbed the 'Amateur Athletic Union' with three friends who called themselves the 'Fab Four'; James' friends in the Fab Four included Sian Cotton, Dru Joyce III and Willie McGhee.

Now it's said there was some controversy with the 'Fab Four' because unlike their local peers, they were afforded the privilege of going to a private, mostly white school, St.Vincent-St. Mary High School. Now, anyone who's paid attention to the proliferation of 'charter' schools in Black communities won't see any controversy at all; meaning, the real agenda of charter schools was always to siphon off resources from local, predominately Black public schools so they could 'cherry-pick' the Black students who'd be afforded a better quality education.  

White elites saw these young men were gifted athletes, and they knew they would be NBA prospects in several years, so they were given access to this private institution. They were ripe for exploiting. 

James averaged 21 points and 6 rebounds for St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in his freshman year; and he averaged 25 points and 7 rebounds during games in his junior year. 

It wasn't long before talent scouts came calling, and soon after, he appeared in 'Slam' magazine, and was called 'the best high school basketball player in america'. 

James even played football for St. Vincent-St. Mary High School and excelled to the point where he was named 'first team all state'.

Right out of school, James was recruited to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA draft of 2003 and scored 25 points in his first pro game. This set an NBA record for the most points executed by a prep-to-pro player in his first outing; he was eventually named 'Rookie of the year' for his accomplishments. 

I think we all know what happened later, but I'm not really wanting to write Lebron's bio, I want to speak on something that happened a bit more recently. 

In February of this year, Lebron suffered a broken nose from colliding with another player during his game with the Chicago Bulls. As a result he wore a mask to protect himself against further injury.

Now, this is the original mask Lebron wore after being discharged from the hospital. 

And when the white elite saw this, they were like...Oh, hell no!

So, after Lebron debuted this mask, NBA commissioner Adam Silver had a little chat with his boss, the Miami Heat's CEO, Nick Arison. 

And what a surprise...Lebron was ordered to wear this 'clear', white mask.

Now, maybe you're thinking I'm seeing too much into this, but if ya' think I'm trippin' a little too much on an ethnic tip, I'd like you to look at another pic of Lebron on the Vogue magazine cover below. 

Now, if you look closely at Lebron here, you'll see how the fair-skinned model, Giselle, was 'photoshopped' into this cover's photo. She's made to look like she's being cradled in Lebron's arm, like the photo of 'King Kong' beside it (reference Denzel Washington in 'Training Day' saying, "...King Kong ain't got nothin' on me.")

Also, if you look at the 'O' and 'G' in back of Lebron's head, it's made to resemble something close to horns or antlers; or something feral to make him look like an animal. 

See, no matter how many products Lebron sells for major corporations, he's still considered a menace by his white benefactors. 

This is what the white elite really see when they look at Lebron...especially with his Black mask on.

And again, no matter how genial his image, the sheer fact that he's a pure bred looking Black man who stands at six feet and eight inches, makes him a threat to the very existence of white men and women everywhere.  

It's bad enough america has a Black man as president, they don't want to be reminded that Lebron, and his kids, could literally breed these white elites out of existence; especially with white birth rates falling below replacement levels.

The moral of this story is, as a Black man or woman, don't ever think white supremacists in this country really have your best interest at heart, no matter how much money your making with, or for them.

The end game will always be, the riddance of pure bred looking Black people. 

So, here's two questions I'll keep posing as long as I Blog, and that is: how can Black men and women heal the rift between them? And, how committed are we to healing this rift?

'Cause white supremacists don't sleep when it comes to their agenda...just ask Lebron.  

Ethnicity first!

MontUHURU Mimia