Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Jamal Wallace was just a regular kid from the Bronx whose life met at the intersection of basketball, elite society and literature. Smarter than most, better at basketball than most and more well-read than the vast majority of people, Jamal stumbled upon a literary icon at the most important time in his life — right when he was about to attend a prestigious private school (Mailor-Callow) in Manhattan that only wanted him for his basketball skills.
Jamal, though, was smart enough to know that he could use that school for his education just like they could use him for the (presumed) championships he could bring them. The literary icon —William Forrester, author of “Avalon Landing” — took Jamal under his wing and helped him become a better writer, upending the myth of the crazy recluse in the apartment overlooking the basketball court.
None of that is significant for the Black community. What was significant for me and you, your momma and your cousin, too, was what happened next.
Jamal had a professor, Professor Crawford, who had a burr in his saddle about Jamal, viewing him as nothing more than an athlete with nothing to offer academically. One can never know for sure if Crawford didn’t like Jamal because he was Black, an athlete or a Black athlete, but the tension was palpable and the underestimation was a frequent part of their interactions.
Forrester used to help Jamal work on his writing in his apartment and told Jamal that everything written in the apartment stayed in the apartment and that Jamal should hide Forrester’s identity at all costs. But because of Crawford’s prodding and disrespect — he even made Jamal write a paper IN FRONT OF HIM — Jamal grabbed a paper he wrote in the apartment and turned it in. Crawford…
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