The Root; Published By: Anthony Conwright
The clamor about Ja Morant brandishing what appeared to be a gun during an Instagram live video while at a Denver nightclub has been frustrating in that it continues the tradition of pathologizing Black people. Certainly, the sports punditry has cataloged the potential consequences of Morant’s actions, which include the loss of potentially amassing a wealth of one billion dollars (one can only dream of such lofty consequences) during Morant’s NBA career.
Morant’s descent from grace has been narrated by asking “why would Morant, a Black man raised in a two-parent household, who attended a private school in the suburbs, act as if he came from a single-parent home in the hood?”
Of course, this inquiry pretends to search for symptoms of regressive behavior in a Black man in one breath while issuing an age-old anti-Black prognosis in another: Ja Morant is afflicted with the pervasiveness of Black culture. This view holds that Morant’s actions are not aligned with American or European notions of manhood; rather, Morant’s poor choices result from Morant’s approximation of “thuggish” Black culture as an attempt to qualify and avow his “Black manhood.” Read more
