So many injustices

Praise the Lord Saints.

Never before that I can immediately recall there ever being a time in our history since lynching was outlawed and we were given the “right” to be 100 percent human has there been such an all-out attack on us.

So many injustices, one after the other, every week it seems, a black man is being killed and in most cases the one committing the offense has an entourage of supporters to back his actions.

There is a term in the military called es·prit de corps and it means, a feeling of pride, fellowship, and common loyalty shared by the members of a particular group.

Simply put, bro, I got your back. But NEVER will we decide to have ones back when we know they did wrong.

I wanted to start off with that because I have seen how it seems that most of the incidents involve a white cop committing the acts against black men. I got it. It seems to be the order of the day.

Now, fast forward to the 2015 NFL draft held this past week and the Bucs chose the obvious pick, well if they are serious about getting into the playoffs sometime this century. But all I read on all the social media was how bad a choice it was; he has no character; he will bring the Bucs down; I hope they just picked him to trade him for someone else, so forth and so on. My point out of this is these comments were written by… you guessed it “us folks!”

Sad, so sad that you are being influenced by what you read or see on certain media outlets instead of shouting “Awesome,” “great pick,” “now the Bucs will have a chance of winning more than 50 percent of their games.”

Anything except what you people, yeah, I said it, you people wrote about this kid, who was carrying over a 3.0 GPA and is just a kid. Shame on you who said these negative things about this kid, like your kids are all that! I didn’t name no names so if the shoe don’t fit, move on.

And as if that wasn’t enough, arguably what was to be pegged as the greatest fight in the century took place this weekend. And some did it again. This guy is on the cusp of doing what only two other boxers in the history have done–gone undefeated for more than 48 fights (Rocky Marciano & Ricardo Lopez).

I hardly doubt he will stop if he wins this next fight. He doesn’t have any real reason to. Hate and racist acts didn’t stop Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, Lee Haney, Ronnie Coleman, so why should it stop Mayweather.

But back to my point, “us folks” bashed him saying all manner of things about this guy but nothing about the greatness to which he has performed. And to add insult to injury, after he totally and completely dominated supposedly the “real” pound for pound greatest in Manny Pacquiao, y’all had the nerve to say it was rigged, fixed, he ran the whole fight, Pacquiao landed the harder punches, etc., etc., etc.

Fact – Floyd 148 punches landed, Pacquiao 81 punches landed. Fact – Floyd 34 percent landed, Pacquiao 19 percent. In the sport of boxing contact equal points. Pacquiao landed less than 10 percent of the easiest punch in all of boxing, the jab.

Floyd is a computerized technical boxing expert in the ring and made Pacquiao look old, slow and aged.

They were saying that Pacquiao was stronger, faster, a better fighter in every way compared to Floyd, but they forgot one thing, Pacquiao never fought anyone on Floyd’s level.

We really need to take a closer look and the political movement that they are attempting to portray when it comes to us achieving greatness and we should be giving more praise to our great athletes and not fall into the snare laid before us.

Trust me, there is a connection between this falsehood and what is going on in society.

The Black Lives Matter movement is attempting to get us to see us for us. Not what others say.

Did you know they base their logistics of building prisons greatly on the math and reading scores of our third grade black boys? Pipeline to prison is not a myth but a practice being perpetuated by us and we don’t even see it under our own noses.

The next time a young, black, gifted athlete does something extraordinary, applaud them. I will be training my grand babies and will make them champions in the classrooms or home school rooms and on the sports fields, courses, courts, etc., just like I did my son Xavier.

In spite of the hating and lying coaches here in south St. Pete, he became PCAC 100 and 200 champ. Something only a handful of sprinters did here in Pinellas County. He also ran one of the greatest anchor legs of the 4 x 100 I have ever seen, YouTube 2011 PCAC 4X1 ALMOST.

Till next week,

God Bless.

Rev. Dr. Rob Harrison, PhD – pastorrobharrison@gmail.com, @drrobharrison

Chaplain – Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Pinellas

The Apostolic Open Door Church of God & True Holiness – 2800 41st Ave. N., St. Pete

PSFEC Board Member | DJJ Chaplain Circuit 6