Last Call: Patriot Games
Pleszczynski, Wladyslaw
"Last Call: Patriot Games" by Wladyslaw Pleszczynski Patriot Games WHEN I VISITED MY SONS' public school last month for "artists and authors" day, one of...
...I am not a part of Minister Farrakhan's little group...
...He said that Farrakhan "is part of the problem, not part of the solution...
...Not too many leading blacks talk this way—but that's maybe because they shy away from saying some of the other remarkable things Abdul-Jabbar said that night in Muncie...
...Of course, one of the first questions thrown at him during the Q&A sounded like this: "Um, what was your career highlight-thing that you remember most about the NBA...
...Most recently he's been on tour previewing Profiles in Black Courage, a popular history he's coauthored that will come out this fall...
...For instance, he was z4 the first time he ever heard of Attucks—from teammate Oscar Robertson, who'd attended Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis...
...But they were doing what they knew was morally right...
...Patriot Games WHEN I VISITED MY SONS' public school last month for "artists and authors" day, one of the corridors was clogged by young performance artists standing behind cardboard frames suspended from the ceiling and labeled variously Thurgood Marshall, Frederick Douglass, Colin Powell, Rosa Parks, Elijah McCoy, and Maya Angelou...
...They did not want any credit for it...
...I hope we will come a lot closer together and realize that we are all Americans," he said...
...It was very hard for [whites] to feel that blacks should be included...
...He knew the cause of American sovereignty and independence was something he had to support," Jabbar said...
...LAST CALL by Wladyslaw Pleszczynski C—, c,-.e ' ..,..NA ilertniffiniiiii0 A*, 4; i ;I...
...In fact, I'll be tickled...
...He called Kennedy "a personal hero of mine," not only for not backsliding on civil rights but because he "courageously and definitively led our nation past [the Cuban missile] crisis...
...As if to confirm Abdul-Jabbar's earlier point, "Where is Crispus Attucks...
...As HE EXPOUNDED ON SOME of his book's themes—the participation of blacks in the voyages of discovery, the explorations of a fellow named Estivanico, who was eventually done in by Indians in what is today New Mexico...
...These people were heroes...
...4* 78 June 199 6 • The American Spectator...
...Speaking extemporaneously, he emphasized that he wants to show "what we have contributed to each other as far as making this a great nation...
...Then he added a particularly poignant thought that probably says even more about him: "There have always been white people who fought hard for the idea of universal suffrage and the dignity of man...
...A lot of them worked in the shadows...
...He is a demagogue taking advantage of misery in the black community...
...Not that anyone will ever confuse his rebounding with Dennis Rodman's...
...But the main point he wanted to get across to the 600 in the audience was his concern that black youth today do not feel connected to our country's history, largely because too little is known about black participation in its formative events —an imaginative lack he intends to rectify with his coming book...
...He is being multicultural in language not heard since Martin Luther King...
...from UCLA is in history—he's had a few things in mind since retiring from basketball in 1989...
...Bunker Hill was the "first battle we won...
...Hiller Zobel writes under the famous Paul Revere whites-only engraving reproduced in Zobel's otherwise much less naive history of the event...
...West African features of pre-Colombian art, the contributions of thousands of blacks to the American Revolution—Abdul-Jabbar continually sought refuge in an inclusive patriotism...
...It may be a few years before someone like Clarence Thomas joins their ranks, but I won't be surprised to see Kareem Abdul-Jabbar next time around...
...He has no problem praising Lambert "Lambo" Latham, a slave member of the Connecticut militia who slew the British officer who killed his master...
...RIGHT OFF, HE ADMIT I ED HE WAS "stealing a bit" from John F. Kennedy's book about individuals who took unpopular stands "for the best future of this nation...
...A big favorite of his is Crispus Attucks, an instigator and victim of the Boston Massacre...
...IF ABDUL-JABBAR DID ANY COMPLAINING in Muncie, it was over growing up not being taught any of the history he is now trying to convey...
...These people were called abolitionists...
...As one of the fortunate few NBA players who majored in more than eligibility—his B.A...
...We would not have this great nation if it were not for certain people," he said...
...When, in remarks last February at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, he displayed some courage of his own, it made the news wires...
...I am an Orthodox Muslim," he said to a questioner who mistook him for a member of the Nation of Islam...
...But today I would challenge a lot of black school kids to name one abolitionist...
...AbdulJabbar lamented the many stereotypes slavery produced, its debilitating effects on black education that continue to be felt, but also noted it was "something that bothered the nation until it was taken care of...
...Just in case anybody heard him wrong, he repeated: "Make no doubt about it: This is the greatest nation on earth...
...No hissing was audible...
...FOR THOSE WHO, LIKE MY PARENTS, have no idea who the 49year-old, 7'1" Abdul-Jabbar is, let me sum up by saying he's no doubt the finest high school, college, and professional basketball center of his time, a player whose talent was measured less by the countless scoring and longevity records he set than by an unquantifiable consistency and excellence that he displayed in game after game after game for more than twenty years...
...When the Connecticut legislature put up a monument to honor Latham and other Revolutionary heroes seventy-five years later, Latham's name appeared as "Sambo," Abdul-Jabbar observed...
...If Americans know about each other, he contends, they'll appreciate each other...
Vol. 29 • June 1996 • No. 6
