The Kobe versus Jordan Thing ...

The Thing about Kobe and Jordan …

I can’t believe this might be Kobe’s last season.  Barring any more injuries, I’m sure it will be a good one.  Right now though, I’m trying to connect some principle to explain this relationship I have observed between Jordan and Kobe.  I have said before, I think Kobe is better than Jordan because of a ‘quality not quantity’ issue.  Jordan played under the finesse game.  Kobe is the finesse game.  Now, we are looking at careers, but I guess there is a special emphasis on Jordan’s and Kobe’s primes.  When Jordan was in his prime, his game was rough.  Jordan didn’t survey then attack the defense.  Jordan looked at his team so to distract the defense, then he went in.  It always worked, that’s why he was so successful with it.  That’s why I say Jordan played under the finesse game.  He used the offense to create his own offense.  To me, it’s cool to float through the air and knock down jumpshots, but what if you’re the greatest at it and somebody comes along doing what you did except the new person makes it look better?

This is what Kobe did.  With the exception of the amount of awards earned, Kobe did what Jordan did, but Kobe made it look better.  Jordan and Kobe both go hard on the court, but when Jordan did it, it looked savage and beastly.  Jordan took control.  When Kobe goes hard, there’s a polished refinement to his moves.  They’re hard, but they’re quick, and the blur from the quickness seems to make Kobe glow.  Don’t get me wrong, Kobe took control too.  But Kobe looked at the defense and played off the defense using his offense, which is the exact opposite of what Jordan did.  If Kobe thought he could take the defense by himself, he did.  If he thought he could use some help, he went to his offense to move the ball.  This is the finesse game.  Jordan used his team, but Kobe utilized his team.  It’s similar to the dating game: Does a person want a mate who will use her, or does she want a mate who will make her look and feel like she’s worth something?  Anybody can learn how to use people.  I know my mate is special when he can bring out the best in me instead of stressing me about what I can or can’t do for him.

It’s the same thing with Kobe and Jordan.  Jordan used his offense.  He didn’t play the game, he used it to his own personal advantage.  He played under Phil’s triangle.  But Jordan wasn’t the triangle.  Kobe was the triangle.  The triangle moves around the defense.  In order to move around the defense, you have to see the defense.  Jordan didn’t see the defense.  Jordan looked to make sure the offense was out of his way so he could score.  Kobe looked at the defense, and went at the defense whether he had to do it with the team or by himself.  He brought the best out of his teammates, maximizing their potentials and putting the whole team in the best possible place to score.  Basically, Jordan was a ball hog.  Kobe wasn’t.  It looks the opposite to the untrained eye.  A real basketball head knows better.

I Am the Death of the Black African American

I don’t like when people call me racist.  How is recognizing and accepting one’s identity being racist?  Racism, as much as we hate to admit it, is a core component of our society’s foundation.  So to speak of one’s identity without speaking of race is extraordinarily difficult and frustrating.  When I walk down the street, people see a non-black.  But I was raised to say something to the effect of ‘I identify as African American.’  This is an inherently confusing situation to suffer through, let alone to try and explain to people why I think the way I do about interracial breeding.  Let’s face it, as much as science tries to write off race as a ‘fiction,’ differences between ‘groups of people’ materialize; race happens to be an easily recognizable difference between groups of people.  It is even a part of biological science that race is a trait found in our chromosomes, and it just so happens that the trait of dark skin is a dominant trait, and the trait for light skin is a recessive trait.  All I’m trying to say about interracial breeding is why weaken your bloodline?  If you’re smart enough to know you ‘love’ somebody, then why can’t you be smart enough to know that you’re killing yourself when you ‘love’ outside your race?  We are talking about romantic love too, because let me tell it, and we are all supposed to love one another.  But romantic love is beyond Platonic love; romantic love is the idea people are meant to be together.  What does it mean to be ‘meant for each other?’

I don’t think I’m personally going to find out the answer to that question, but in the meantime, know this:  Every day I look in the mirror I do see the death of the black African American community.  I am no longer black but am African American still, and I feel all the pain of being African American without being black.  I am not considered black by most if not all of society, yet I have to deal with the agonizing forces of privileged versus non-privileged people.  Put me up against a dark skinned person, and it’s all about what they can do better than me.  Put me up against a light skinned person, and it’s all about my shortcomings.  I am never valued just for being myself.  Most people know who or what they are because people tell them.  Not as labels, but just to let them know, so they won’t have to wander around life surrounded by mysteries and secrets.  What a concept.  I, on the other hand, have no idea what I’m good at, have no idea who I am, and what’s worse is that nobody cared to tell me before and they still don’t care to tell me now.  On top of not looking like the race and ethnicity that I am.  So in a racial, capitalist society, I am basically a ghost.  I mean like, literally a ghost, and not just because of my complexion.

So when I rant against interracial breeding, I am pleading for understanding that it’s not about you, it’s about your kids.  You didn’t have to grow up in our society looking one race and actually being another.  You didn’t have to explain to the ever so curious human being ‘what are you mixed with?’  And don’t blame the curiosity.  It’s part of the fabric of our society to be racial and ethnically motivated, and there really isn’t anything wrong with it, if we could have some order about ourselves in our treatment of the subject.  I am not racist, that is my story and I’m sticking to it.  I don’t believe one race or ethnicity is better or worse than others; it is a scientific fact though that dark skin is a dominant gene and light skin is a recessive one.  If you don’t believe me ask my high school biology teacher.  She’s really smart.  And she let me open a pig’s skull and look at its brain too.

About Interracial Breeding in Our Society (please read past the part about Derrida to get to the interracial breeding part)

Not Nae 2Real ...

A couple of weeks ago, I went into an explanation on a post about why I used the pen name Nae 2Real.  I have now decided that using this pen name isn’t one of my better ideas.  So, for the people that know me by my regular name, just know that yeah I’m still JaNae.  But for my blogs, I’m just going to go by Denise.  I think it’s sort of like the same thing with college.  I told a bunch of people my name was a bunch of things because I really didn’t know what to go by.  I wasn’t trying to confuse people, but it’s a sticky situation when you grow up with one name only to find out legally your name is something else.  I didn’t know my first name until … let’s just say I was being bothered and learning new stuff about myself, when I should have already knew this stuff about myself and should not have been bothered. 

I do have to say, though, that I don’t want to just be called anything.  There are choices of what I have to go by.  I don’t really care to have Nae 2Real to be one of the names I go by though.  Times are good, times are bad, but sometimes, there’s no time at all.