Remain True to Yourself

The swagger, the stance, the nonchalant “I don’t give a f***” attitude, the cars, the jewelry, and those baggy ass clothes. When it comes to today’s black athlete, many of them choose not to assimilate to white American culture, but remain true to the cultural influence hip-hop music has had in the late 20^th and leading into the 21^st centuries.     

While sustaining much criticism, today’s black athlete performs under the pressures of providing for family and friends, keeping ownership and endorsers happy, and media scrutiny.

Allen Iverson remained true to himself and was rewarded a multi-year contract extension with the Sixers leaving him to make over $104 million until 2009.

This leads to the idea that, in fact, today’s athlete doesn’t have to face the same trials and tribulations as Jackie Robinson so racism in sports is in the past. On the surface it may appear this way, but media lynching is a common occurrence that all black athletes must be aware of.

In the search of a story, a reporter will find just about anything to create news. Athletes must be careful not to feed into any of this, responses only add fuel to the fire.

No matter what a publicist may say about holding a press         conference or releasing a quote, it is in your best interest not to feed into their nonsense. You are only giving them another story to write about it, which means the story lasts another three or more days.

There are many examples of the media trying to destroy a person’s character and Allen Iverson is a prime candidate. The one thing that Allen did, that destroyed most of the negativity, was remain who he was. He didn’t change. He grew from his experiences and now knows how to handle the media.