Basketball Lives Matter

by Tom Balek: I keep seeing articles and posts and newscasts telling me that blacks and whites in America are supposed to hate each other.

That may be true in downtown Minneapolis (I doubt it) but it’s not even remotely accurate in my South Carolina town.

At least twice a week I go to my local YMCA for pickup basketball games. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I am white, 66 years old and one year removed from major brain surgery, but I just love to play basketball. Most of the guys I play with are in their twenties, a few high schoolers, a few middle aged, and I am the “old man”. I feel blessed to be able to compete well enough to be part of the group.

Our players are about half black and half white. If you believed the network news, you would think that when we pick teams for a game, it would be the angry black guys against the angry white guys. And that a black guy would never pass it to me, an old white guy. And that if a black dude gets knocked down, I would never stop to pick him up, or vice-versa. And that we couldn’t possibly laugh together, compliment each other, root for each other, and just generally have a great time sharing our love for basketball.

But it’s true.

At the store, in a restaurant, at a gig, in church, I see people of all colors and classes smiling and enjoying each others’ company. I see black families, white families, mixed-race families interacting with warmth and joy. Kids play together without even noticing skin pigment.

Racism, black or white, is just not tolerated in my town. And I suspect that my town is pretty typical of most American towns. Before you call me naive, I must admit that bigotry does exist, but that is mostly on the part of far-left idealogues, who insist on categorizing people by physical characteristics instead of judging character.

So what’s up with all these network and internet reports of out-of-control racial hostility in America? COULD IT BE THAT SOMEBODY IS TRYING TO MANIPULATE US FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES?
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Tom Balek (@TomBalek) is a fellow conservative activist, blogger, musician and contributes to the ARRA News Service. Tom resides in South Carolina and seeks to educate those too busy with their work and families to notice how close to the precipice our economy has come. He blogs at Rockin' On the Right Side

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