The unlikely connection of race, sports, education and music was the center of discussion and debate at a symposium Friday sponsored by the African American Popular Culture and Sport Learning Community.
The symposium, “Race, Sports, and Hip-Hop in the New Millennium,” was an extension of the LSU learning community and class taught by Leonard Moore, associate professor and African American Studies chair, and Louis Harrison, associate professor of kinesiology.
The symposium featured a series of speakers from around the country and LSU highlighting subjects from education in the black community to the danger of sports agents.
Moore spoke of the relationship of Ohio State black male athletes LeBron James and Maurice Clarett to the mainstream media and whites.
“White Americans have a love-hate relationship with James and Clarett,” Moore said.
He said these athletes represented threats to the NCAA because of their willingness to speak out on social issues that affect the black community.
Clarett, for example, told media, “People will talk about a national championship game, but they won’t talk about the homeless and the poor.”
Moore said, when Clarett told ESPN Magazine in January 2002 he wanted to go into the NFL sooner so he could get back to his home town quicker, the Ohio community saw him as a “nigger not being thankful for the opportunity he got.”
Clarett was dangerous to the NCAA, Moore said.
“He was an 18-year-old from the ghetto letting Americans know football doesn’t mean that much to him,” he said. “His mission in life is more than what he does between the hash-marks.”
Moore said if players like Clarett and James “don’t eat, sleep, and drink sports, we condemn them.”
Moore said society is sending black youth the message that athletics are more important than anything.
He said in inner city New Orleans the message was clear. The city had money to build a new sports arena, but not to keep the public libraries open for more than six hours a day.
“In the African-American community, we have placed athletics over academics,” Moore said.
Keith Harrison, director of University of Michigan’s Research Center for Academic and Athletic Prowess, agreed.
When Harrison was in school, he made excellent grades, but was ashamed at the idea of being smart. To make up for it, he would act-up in class.
Harrison said most black men want to be “ballers,” which Harrison defined as being successful, but most do not want to be “scholars.”
He said to remedy this, society must attempt to attach intellectualism to the term “baller,” creating what Harrison calls the “scholar-baller.”
Harrison’s goal in educating the black community is to use hip-hop as a bridge between popular culture and education.
“Our curriculum is way behind connecting hip-hop with education,” he said. “We have to use it and fuse it into an academic, long-term investment.”
Willie Miles, sports and entertainment financial advisor for UBS Paine Webber, spoke about the importance of planning for athletes.
He described the path of success in the industries of sports and entertainment as “the long road in, the short road out,” saying it takes many years to achieve success but a few years to lose it.
Citing the average NFL career length as three-and-a-half years, Miles said sports and entertainment are “a stepping-stone, not an end.”
Because of this, Miles said preparation and planning for the future are imperative for athletes both at the collegiate and professional level.