Basketball. A sport dominated professionally by African-Americans. The NBA is a league that is ~80% black, a league dominate with white ownership even though the likes of Robert Johnson and Michael Jordan do exist. It is a game played predominately by individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds - single-parent homes, welfare checks, Section 8, violence, drugs, lack of opportunity. Examples: Leon Powe - the oldest sibling helping raise his brothers and sisters while being homeless at a young age. Carmelo Anthony - the rough streets of Baltimore. LeBron James, raised by a single mother in Akron, Ohio. Stephon Marbury, raised in the dilapidated section of Brooklyn known as Coney Island. These are just a few examples, though certainly not the only. There are certainly those who were better off - Grant Hill was raised in a two-parent middle class home with a father Calvin playing for the Cowboys in the 1970s.
What brings these two disparate types of individuals together? Sports like basketball. A kid like myself, raised in a good community with two parents happily married and making a solid living on the financial front, can connect to individuals similar to those described in the paragraph above because of the game of basketball. Basketball and sports in general blur racial barriers as much or more than any human outlet I have witnessed. Music perhaps lives on the same level, but sport is the example I've lived to see.
I've lived to see French soccer teams with Senegal-native players joining white French players in the World Cup, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson reviving the NBA in the early 1980s and becoming not only fierce rivals but dear friends, a Spokane, WA-raised John Stockton being attached at the hip with Louisiana born and bred Karl Malone. My own experience has been playing basketball in San Francisco leagues in which I have been the only white player in the gym without getting stares of bewilderment. An individual I met at USF named Kato, who is black, saw me play and liked my game. It led me to an opportunity playing in a competitive league in Potrero Hill. I loved the league, it brought the passion back into the game. Certainly there was a bit of the initial "who is this guy" vibe based partially on my skin color, but it faded quickly. I earned the respect of my competitors based on my play first and eventually my personality. Without basketball, the various connections I made likely don't happen. I recently went to a Starbucks and Jamba Juice in South Central LA during the day-time and was given a double-take more than one time because of my skin color - all I was doing was trying to get coffee and Jamba and get to the I-110N and avoid I-405 traffic. Basketball in my life has broken that barrier on more than one occasion.
Sports allow people to get to know one another beyond skin color and what is known in history books. It allows people to share their experience in life - food, music, sport, family. If Gary Payton never made himself the basketball player he is, does he gain the ability to love and respect and admire his former Sonics coach George Karl? And vice versa? Many conversations with individuals of other races have started with sports, talking about local teams or local players, or even perhaps just the game. Just the NBA and how much we both love it. It is an icebreaker. It leads to music, then it may lead to discussion about women, or the woman at the end of the bar with the sweet curves in all the right places. Perhaps it leads to race relations, or what kind of beer someone likes. And more times than not, the connection started with sports.
