This article contains two opinions:
- Jason Whitlock is not stupid.
- Jason Whitlock is Black.
The rest is fact.
Whether you like him or not, most people share these opinions of Jason Whitlock. Although I often disagree with his viewpoint, I understand that his function in life is to serve as a funnel through which anti-Black white scorn disguised as “commentary” can freely flow. And, because this is not an opinion piece, maybe the carbon dioxide from his mouth farts is good for trees.
So when Jason Whitlock went on a rant about how LeBron James incites violence by saying things that are verifiable facts while not shooting unarmed Black people, we can safely assume that Whitlock’s comments didn’t come from stupidity or a lack of Blackness.
Instead of taking his words out of context, here is the entire text of Whitlock’s statement on Fox Sports Radio’s Outkick the Coverage:
There are so many false narratives that have been promoted in the last 7-10 years via social media, and this Jacob Blake incident is a shining example. Let’s go back to what LeBron James said at the outset of this. LeBron said Black people are “terrified” and Black people are “scared,” and all this is an insinuation that Black people live in fear of the police. Let’s examine the Jacob Blake situation. A Black woman called the police. You don’t call people you’re terrified of.
I don’t have the stats, this is speculation on my part, but I would bet in that Black people in America index at a higher level than the rest of the country, in terms of calling the police. The people we’re allegedly terrified of and live in fear of. We call them at a higher rate—in my my opinion [which is] speculation. I’m sure they’ll have stats that will back me up, at a higher rate than anybody else. So, she’s not scared.
And if you look at the behavior of Jacob Blake, he’s not scared, and he’s not acting like he’s “terrified” of the police. He’s willing to fight them, they have gun drawn on him, he’s willing to walk away, he’s going to his car, reaching for a knife, allegedly—he doesn’t seem to be expressing any fear.
There is a bogus narrative that is being driven by athletes and this elite culture, and it’s irresponsible, it’s a lie, it’s dangerous. I don’t get why they’re allowed to get away with it. Nobody questions LeBron James in any type of legitimate fashion. People are just saying dumb things to promote fear and to promote a defunding of the police or the demonization of police. All it’s leading to is more and more anarchy and more and more death... Things are just spinning out of control and I just look at LeBron James and these other athletes and ask “what are they doing? What are they seeing that I’m not seeing?
Again, let me reiterate the two sole opinions:
Jason Whitlock is not dumb.
Although I don’t know him personally, there is no indication that he is an unintelligent person. Although he’s no James Baldwin, Whitlock is actually one of the most talented writers in the specialized niche of sports-related white fan fiction. If Candace Owens had a baby with Boyce Watkins and gave it up for adoption to Skip Bayless, Whitlock would eat that baby before it reached toddlerhood just to make sure it didn’t take his spot on the Caucasian cheerleading team.
That’s how smart Jason Whitlock is—he’s baby-eating smart.
And Jason Whitlock is Black.
I never question anyone’s Blackness because I know that race is just some shit white people made up. He was raised by a man who drank Crown Royal and matched his hats with his outfits. Jason Whitlock is as Black as I am and my Blackness has been confirmed by a birth certificate, a mirror and at least one certified police officer who told me I fit the description of a Black man.
So why would a non-stupid Black man say something like this? Well, logic dictates that if he isn’t stupid and he is Black, then maybe he isn’t a man.
To be clear, I am not referring to Whitlock’s masculinity as much as I am talking about his humanity. I am arguing that a living, breathing human being with nerve endings and a beating heart could never ignore the perpetual inhumanity that this country has wreaked upon Black people without learning the lessons.
A non-stupid human being would know that history is replete with examples of white people using an almost-identical version of Whitlock’s balderdash. When Whitlock wrote that “The white Marxists financing and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement have recruited Black worshippers to join forces with non-believers of all races in the reshaping of America,” he was reviving echoes of segregationists like Strom Thurmond, who called the Freedom Riders “red pawns and publicity seekers.”
Whitlock, being Black and un-stupid, is fully aware that violent protesters weren’t roaming the streets of Portland or Wisconsin until police shot unarmed Black men. So his belief that the mayor and the governor “won’t let police tamp down the nightly rioting” is reminiscent of George Wallace, who wanted to sic the police on “anarchists that have roamed the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles,” or Alabama Police Commissioner Bull Connor, who said:
As I have said on numerous occasions, we are not going to stand for this in Birmingham. And if necessary we will fill the jail full and we don’t care whose toes we step on. I am saying now to these meddlers from out of our city the best thing for them to do is stay out if they don’t want to get slapped in jail. Our people of Birmingham are a peaceful people and we never have any trouble here unless some people come into our city looking for trouble. And I’ve never seen anyone yet look for trouble who wasn’t able to find it
The vast majority of white America even opposed the peaceful civil rights demonstrations, including the March on Washington. And if he thinks LeBron is inciting violence, remember what white people said about this guy?
This is verifiable history.
And when Whitlock attempted to buttress his ahistorical claims by saying he “would bet that Black people in America index at a higher level than the rest of the country, in terms of calling the police,” he was wrong.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 2015 data, not only were whites were more likely than Blacks or Hispanics to initiate contact with police, but Black Americans were less likely to report a possible crime, less likely to report a possible non-crime, less likely to summon a cop who was already present and less likely to even seek help from police even when in distress. However, whites were less likely than Black people or Hispanic citizens to experience “the threat or use of force.”
Of course, Jason Whitlock already knows this. I’m not a genius. I just googled it on a thing called the internet, which—again, this is not my opinion, is probably available to employees of Outkick the Coverage. I assume Whitlock’s degree in journalism, which I do not have, would have taught him how to use this advanced method of knowledge-seeking.
Willingly perpetuating an anti-Black lie, publicly denigrating a Black man, ignoring historical facts and regurgitating the reductive language of white supremacy does not mean Jason Whitlock is not Black. But Jason Whitlock knows how white people work. He knows he is giving cover to the white people who seek out negro funnels to pour out the narrative that racism is over and that the statistically provable, disproportionate violence against Black people is a hyperbolic narrative.
White people do that.
But advancing inhumanity doesn’t mean that white people are not human. Because racism does not affect white people in any meaningfully tangible way, their malevolent disregard for inequality is actually expected from someone whose goal is the preservation of privilege. Fueling the disregard perpetuates the privilege, and that is the dangerous part.
But is what LeBron is doing dangerous?
Some people say the black rhino is the deadliest animal in the world. Others argue it’s the hippopotamus, while some insist the Cape buffalo is more dangerous. One of the reasons these animals are so hard to kill is not because of their size, strength or quickness. It is not the toughness of their skin. These dangerous animals seem to have a supernatural ability to know when another predator is getting close and will kill anything that comes near it...
Except for one little bird.
There is a tiny little tick-eating bird that the hippo will welcome and the rhino will not attack. Even the Cape buffalo leave it alone because, aside from keeping insects away, the brightly colored bird will hiss loudly when another animal approaches. It offers comfort and protection in exchange for its own comfort and protection.
And that is Jason Whitlock.
No, Jason Whitlock is not a man. He’s not a sock puppet spewing plausible deniability for a 400-year-old ventriloquist called America. He’s not even a chandelier pretending to illuminate the darkness but he’s actually more decoration than light.
Because the only way a Black person could possibly help perpetuate a false narrative that these inarguable social injustices don’t exist is if they removed their own humanity for the sake of being white-adjacent. I don’t even think he does it because of self-hate. The reason Whitlock willingly aids in the slitting of Black throats is not that he believes his own throat is un-slittable—he knows that he is not bulletproof or immune from the whims of white supremacy. He protects the dangerous beast who attacks us because he believes this is what will protect his neck from the terrible swift sword of whiteness.
And that is not a man.
Jason Whitlock is an oxpecker.