Few would deny that blacks have become very dominant in athletics: football, basketball, track, now dominant in tennis and dominant in golf.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Tiger had the advantage of high school, college, and a father who knew golf. I was self-taught. Blacks really won't play golf in great numbers until some of these basketball and football stars buy some golf courses where blacks can play.
If I was the Jackie Robinson of golf, I sure didn't do a very good job of it. Jackie was followed by hundreds of great black ballplayers who have transformed their sport... But there are hardly any black kids coming up through the ranks of golf today.
I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American.
It was the Michael Jordan/Nike phenomenon that really let people see that athletes were OK, and black athletes were OK. Defying a previous wisdom - not only that black athletes wouldn't sell in white America, but that the NBA as a predominantly black sport could not sell in white America.
Money has changed today's black athletes. Those who have the ability as African men to bring a change in a community that so desperately needs it are concentrating only on their own careers, some charities and how much money they can make.
When I look back at what I had to go through in black baseball, I can only marvel at the many black players who stuck it out for years in the Jim Crow leagues because they had nowhere else to go.
There's a whole lot more to the African-American community than entertainment and sports.
Sports and entertainment have always been windows of opportunity for African Americans, when other doors were closed.
On the field, blacks have been able to be super giants. But, once our playing days are over, this is the end of it and we go back to the back of the bus again.
Most blacks will argue that they excel because of hard work, because of intellect, determination, sweat, blood, tears and risk.
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