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Who you wit'?-Floyd Mayweather's comments on Jeremy Lin

Black Nerd.  The second word, nerd, speaks of a group that is considered to be socially awkward, maybe intelligent, perhaps a little funny looking.  The first word, Black, is quite a bit heavier.  There's a long, sometimes ugly, history that goes along with it.  That is what we're talking about today children.  Race.  If the topic of race makes you uncomfortable now would be a good time to hit the eject button.  Good day.

On February 14th Floyd Mayweather tweeted:

"Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he's Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don't get the same praise."

Now that said, what do you think?  Is Floyd wrong?  Is he out of line?  Is he correct but just in bad taste?

Let's first of all give Mayweather credit where it's due.  He prefaced all of this by saying that Lin was a good player.  So all that nonsense about him discrediting Lin as a player is bologna.  Here's the thing:  There are Black players that get it done day in and day out.  Why aren't they as touted as Lin?  I've heard that it's the size of the New York media market that makes it such an intriguing story.  Bull. The size of the market hasn't changed in God knows how long.  Also the fact that Lin comes out of Harvard, which is not historically known for churning out elite basketball players, is what makes this story.  There have been countless Black players that didn't even go to college that have been productive in the NBA.  Still not buying it.  The last thing is Jeremy Lin makes the New York Knicks relevant again.  How do we call the Knick relevant again with such a small sample size?

Let's all turn around and face our psychological doom...Jeremy Lin is a novelty, is a story, is interesting because he is an Asian-American ballin' out in the NBA!  There I said it!  Yes he has broken records for his production in his first few starts but that's just barely interesting at all.  If anyone else does it, perhaps a Black man, we would barely notice. 

Floyd Mayweather has done and said some reprehensible things in his decade plus in the public eye.  Some of his statements have bordered on racist and/or maniacal.  Not this time.  This time ,like every other time he opens his mouth, is a hard pill for the main stream to swallow.  But unlike most of those other times....he's right.

Channeling my inner Poe-My new short story

I'm honing my writing skills these days.  Tell me do you think I have snowballs chance in HELL at making a splash as a fictional writer?

Look at him.  Dead.  Those lights that he used so that oncoming traffic could see him are still on.  They're still doing their job long after it matters.  He never saw the car and conversely the car never saw him.  As the bus where I had seen him a million times before pulls around the scene of the accident I can't help but wonder what went so terribly wrong on this foggy and damp morning.

I've seen this guy maybe 100 times prior to today in this very neighborhood, and the surrounding neighborhoods, always riding that bike.  Most of the time when I had seen him though it was right here on the number 44 bus, at this same stop, always at 4:33 AM.  He would always fasten his bike down on the rack in front of the bus then get on the bus with a bag.  That's over with now because he is gone.  His life was snuffed out by a 1984 Chysler Lebaron, smoke gray.  I often wondered when I used to see him what his deal was.  He seemed to be a nice enough guy.  He was middle aged, south Pacific islander descent, maybe Asian.  He was always really friendly with the bus driver.  He was always wearing sweatpants, a helmet, and lights.  OH I CAN'T FORGET ABOUT THOSE GOOFY ASS LIGHTS!  I almost expected him to one day try to convince me that visitors from outer space were going to land on the Golden Gate Bridge and mate with our women.  But he never spoke to me.  Not even once.  We exchanged a friendly nod or two but that's it.  

Some months went by and I became less and less curious about him and the circumstances surrounding his demise.  The demands of my own life had filed away my naturally inquisitive nature.  This particular morning I found myself alone with the bus driver.  We exchanged pleasantries and made small talk when we came to the subject of what happened to that nice fellow with the bicycle who used to ride this bus.  We went through the usual "damn shames" and "too youngs".  Then after a brief moment of silence the bus driver admitted to me that he knew the guy quite well.  His eyes became glassy with tears.  He had actually spent some time with him and had gotten to know he and his family outside of this bus.  After the accident he had an opportunity to talk with some members of the man's family.  I don't know why he felt compelled to tell me all this seeing as how I didn't know the guy at all.  But I still listened.  Maybe I was just being nosey.  Scratch that... I absolutely was just being nosey but I couldn't bring myself to stop him.  

The bus driver told me:  "He and his wife of 17 years had a big blowout that morning.  She wanted to leave him for another woman.  Things got out of hand.  A little physical even.  Before it could escalate further he got out of there.  Quickly.  The last thing his wife saw of him was him blazing down his street on his bicycle, then disappearing into the fog."

The bus driver, in full tears now, says to me he understands why the car might not have seen him but why he didn't see the car he couldn't understand.  The guy is usually so damn careful on that bike.  The bus driver collects himself and is decidedly quiet for the remainder of the trip and so was I.  Though this was a sad set of affairs my life must go on.  I use the time to look out the window and reflect.  It's really dangerous riding your bicycle in the dark with tears in your eyes.

I'm the Black Steven King (hopefully better looking though).

Inaugural Post

My girlfriend Jasmine is a Black nerd like me though not the exact same kind.  You see in Black nerdism all members have a focus.  There are Star Wars nerds, Star Trek nerds, sports nerds, politics nerds, so on and so forth.  It's very similar to having a major in college.  I, on one hand, am a food, sports, and movie nerd.  She is an engineering nerd which is arguably the nerdiest of the nerdy.  She always wants to explain to me how something works or how it is constructed.  I have had more conversations about bridges, tunnels, and construction than I would ever care to admit.  But I digress.  The point is Jasmine is a very important part of my life and I want to dedicate this inaugural post to something I'm sure she would appreciate.  Math.  I first heard this story on This American Life.

This story starts with something people generally don't find that interesting:  prime numbers.  Prime numbers are numbers that are only divisible by themselves (3, 5, 7, 11).  Uclid theorized that there were an infinite amount of prime numbers but he gave no formula to support his theory.  Marin Mersenne, a French monk from the early 17th century, had a formula that he thought could predict prime numbers.  One of the prime numbers derived from his formula was 2 to the 67th power minus 1.  It eventually became known as Mersennes number and was embraced by the mathematics community as true.  Fast forward 250 years to 1903, an American mathematician named Frank Nelson Cole attended a meeting of the American Mathematical Society.  He is scheduled to do a presentation on the "factorization of large numbers" but what actually happened was a lot cooler than that.

For you Lovely.