Raymond McCoy: The Day I met a Rock Star

The afternoon rolled into a long summers’ day as I drifted about finding my way finally to sound of bouncing leather on the shiny hardwood floors of McCann Gymnasium. I stood silently along the blue padded walls in amazement as young men drenched with sweat crafted their skills. It dawned on me that they were being “coached” by a few men who yelled out instructions from the sidebar though I thought I was watching a pick-up game. My summer football workout of my sophomore year had just ended prior and I was trying to bum a ride to back to my side of town in lieu of the long walk to the “hitchhike corner” that awaited me. The man yelled out…”throw the ball into to Robert!” Everyone within a three hour plane ride knew who “Robert (McCoy)” was…a guy with flowing braids, a quiet swagger, and a game that made him one of the top hoopers’ in the State of Illinois. I had built a local reputation of sorts as the first Black Quarterback the school had seen since it opened circa 1900’…so people would at least waive in passing. I sighed; reserved in my fate that there were no takers from this place that I might easily meet my final destination on this afternoon. I stepped softly under the radar of the coach to an empty court on the far side. A loose ball drifting slowly away got my attention as I grabbed it and began to shoot a few lay-ups. Suddenly a voice appeared from my left shoulder “hey, how about a game to eleven…make-it take-it”. Let’s go”, I replied to this taller guy thinking maybe I could use my muscles to push him for a couple of baskets. He threw the ball to me at the top of the key; I dribble quarter court left side and threw up a shot… “clank”…not realizing that it would be my last. He ran off eleven long range jumpers in row, irrespective of me pushing him, fouling him repeatedly, and even an “oops sorry” after I put my hand directly on his face. We briefly talked afterwards about excitement of his upcoming freshmen year…he would be immediately playing with a group of local “rock stars”. But in his own right…and everyone knew that his reputation had preceded him. I thanked him for the shellacking, slapped him five and ventured off towards’ the dreaded “corner”. My walk that day did not seem so long anymore. I first strolled pass Marnells’ Sandwich Shop…thinking only if I had a buck and some change I could feast on one of their famous beef combo sandwiches, as surely that would hold me until dinner time. I passed further down the way slowing on the main drag hoping I would catch a neighbor returning from the shopping center and say “hey, you going my way?” Maybe I would see a pretty girl perhaps, and this walk would all make sense to me. But there was nothing happening. But it was cool…because I was cool. It was a time in the life of Black America that was still innocent. No hard drugs, shootings, single family homes headed by women or the Prison Industrial Complex. We grew up in the last safe generation. Time seem to stand still…now it rushes by. I arrived to the “hitchhike corner” that served as the last gateway that connected two towns... and copped a ride fairly quickly. Shortly after being dropped off from the defacto’ free cab service and making my way home with an empty stomach and no phone number of the pretty girl that I would only seem to stumble upon in my dreams, I remember feeling special about something. I've lived to tell this story in my mind a thousand times it seems…the day I encountered greatness”. For nothing could replace the joy of my chance meeting with the first and last Rock Star of my life…his name is Raymond McCoy. I last saw him five years ago on a winter trip back to the old neighborhood. The day skies filled with grey as the wind blustered about. He was walking out of a gas station after buying a few “squares”. We embraced and talked briefly as I offered him a plane ticket to spend some time with me in the sunny skies and white sand beaches of Florida. He took my number and replied, “I will call you”. I rushed our conversation partly to escape the cold of Chicago’s unforgiving winter and partly because I was sure he would take me up on my offer. “I am waiting on a call from this job downtown and I am sure I will get it, then I will let you know”, he replied.
All who read this brief anecdote (and perhaps a prelude to a book I will d about him), will agree that there was none better. Though his peers all moved on to success in the limelight of the NBA in some faze or another (Isaiah Thomas, Mark Aguirre, Rod Higgins, Craig Hodges, Doc Rivers and too many others), of Raymond, none was better. We loved him like the time that we lived in. There was a different scent in the air it seemed when we watched him. Maybe he embodied for us “a time when all was good”. Maybe he defined for each of us who knew him and of him “the better part of us”. Maybe he gave us for a split moment a chance to claim that we had the best in our midst and we knew it full well…allowing us for a moment to hold our heads just a little bit higher. Looking back, just maybe he gave us the best part of our lives. Perhaps I still struggle to replace the happiness.
A long time has past since the last sighting of the great one…I still wait for that call from Raymond, knowing facetiously that he has my number stashed away in a some safe place. Perhaps he left me believing in the best of the human spirit… each time my phone rings…each time I check my messages.


Malik Aziz
Co-Convener, The Muslim Street
http://www.muslimstreet.net/

“Is Islam a Religion of Peace?”

This question has arisen as the subject of debate in the West. “Is Islam a Religion of Peace?” These conversations are often one-sided. Dominated by either political right-wing extremist (former House speaker Newt Gingrich or the Bill O’Reilly types), apologetic “Westernized” Muslims’ seeking their entry into the”law of acceptance” (fill in the blanks) at any cost or self-deprecating ex-Muslims (Ayaan Hirsi Ali (a born again self hater) and Irshad Manji (an alleged homosexual) whom are well financed by the West to spew their personal pain and hatred toward Islam. Well, they never invite me to these debates so I am inviting myself. Here is my brief retort.
First, to answer this tedious question “Is Islam a Religion of Peace”? I have been a Muslim most of my physical life and all of my religious life and for sure and I have not killed anyone…yet. That’s all the energy I will give that question
However, I grew up in a Christian country, the great (lower case) U.S. of A. My ancestors’ were from the African continent. This is a historical fact. It is also a fact that upwards to 75% of them was practicing Muslims’. They were brought here and enslaved for 310 years by Christians. The Christians beat them, killed them, sold them between each other like chairs and horses and raped the female Muslims repeatedly (see President George Washington and his daily sexcapades on his plantation away from Martha and also President Thomas Jefferson whom started raping his slave girl (Sally Hemmings as early as 12 or 13 years old). I will use this forum to make a posthumous “citizens’ arrest” for rape and child molestation of Sally Hemmings. Pres. Jefferson….you are now under arrest. Step away from the grave and place your hands where I can see them. These same Christians were the authors of a worthless document called the Constitution of the United States of America…I mean, is this not the document which states (its’ still there by the way) that Black people are 3/5 of a human being? Where was it when slavery was going on? Where was it for nearly 100 years of the “Jim Crow” South when they were “poll taxing us at the voting booth and hanging us from trees? Where was it when the U.S. government was conducting the “Tuskegee Experiments? Where was it when the C.O.I.N.T.E.L.P.R.O was being launched by the F.B.I. that led to the murder of Chairman Fred Hampton and others’ by the U.S. government? I would add to my retort, that Black Americans’ (and I use that term lightly…Malcolm X said…’just because a cat has biscuits in the oven don’t make them kittens) did not choose the religion of Christianity no more than they chose to eat the guts’ of hogs’ (chitterlings’ or chittlins’ if you are keeping score at home). Christianity was forced upon them whit a whip and shackles. The aforementioned President Washington was purported to have beaten his slaves everyday of there lives. Reparations please…NOW!
1. Tell you what…I will give you a break and not discuss the wonton slaughter and genocide led by Christopher Columbus of the Native North Americans Nations…the Choctaw, Iroquois, Blackhawk, Cherokee, Seminole, Sioux, Arawak, Apache etc…by whom? You guess it…Christians. My retort would end with this. America and the West can cry about “terrorism” while I will cry about “State Sponsored Terrorism”. I would start with the murder of over 100,000 Iraqis citizens’ in two illegal oil wars’ and the chasing of twenty-five percent of their population across the border as refugees in Syria. The “State Sponsored Terrorism” that cause Pres. Ronald Reagan (it hurts me to say his name) to drop a bomb in Tripoli and murder the 2 year old daughter (Hanane) of the President of Libya. The “State Sponsored Terrorism” that allowed the U.S. to support and fund Apartheid South Africa for over four decades. The “State Sponsored Terrorism” that allows U.S. tax dollars to flow freely into the hands of Israel so they can murder, terrorize and occupy Palestinians. The “State Sponsored Terrorism” of Pres. Reagan’s drug cartel/crack cocaine funded Contra’s in his war against Daniel Ortega in Nigaura. The “State Sponsored Terrorism” that directly resulted into the assassination of President Patrice Lumumba in the Congo and the overthrow of the first President of Ghana Osegeyfo Kwame Nkrumah. The “State Sponsored Terrorism” that led to the death of General Rene’ Schneider in Chile. The “State Sponsored Terrorism” that led to as many as twelve assassination attempts (see the “Bay of Pigs” and “Operation Mongoose” both C.I.A. documented operations) on Pres. Fidel Castro of Cuba. The “State Sponsored Terrorism” that led to the CIA’s involvement in the murder of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. And finally, the biggest terrorist meeting ever held in the history of the world “The Berlin Conference” (1884-85), where the West sat down and carved up the world and embarked on its’ imperialistic mission that affects the geopolitics’ of our lives today.
In conclusion, I simply ask two intelligent questions in my retort, “Who is the real Terrorist”…and “Is Christianity a religion of Peace”?

Malik Aziz
Co-Convener, Darfur 23
http://www.darfur23.org/

Why I Left the Black Nationalist Movement in America

We have been played out of position. While the goals and objectives of the domestic struggle for liberation must remain constant, the tactic of “Black Nationalism” as a means of achieving that goal has changed (and only recently). Malcolm X (Al-Hajj Malik Al-Shabazz) called for Black Nationalism as a means for controlling the socio-politico and economic environment of the Black community. Who can argue in principle with this sound advice for the right of self-determination? While the community that Malcolm X and others left behind has been exposed as weak and defenseless against the aggression from overt and covert “American State-Sponsored” oppression and new forms of racism (U.S. Government sponsored importation Heroin and Crack Cocaine, the parasitic behavior of the Prison Industrial Complex, the constructed breakdown of the Black family etc...) the march toward a Nation of our own or a “Nation within a Nation even” has been abandoned by our trusted but shortsighted leadership. Malcolm argued that ‘land is the basis of independence’. I believe that. But, I have ascertained that the mantle of leadership in this schism does not. They have failed Malcolm X and with it Messrs. Garnett, Garvey, Dubois (the latter) and others too. In a radio interview recently I stated that “the Nationalist Movement in this country is dead”. Time and the circumstance of technology has presented new battlefronts and with it, new tactics. The failure of the Nationalist Movement to blend in “new and fresh blood” has resulted in a movement that is stale, ineffective and outdated. Let us understand that in order for the movement to become viable the old guard leadership must move beyond their own whims and desires of “choosing succession”. Let us also understand that a mere cursory glance at the history of other Revolutionary movements that were successful we find there was a natural transition of leadership based on hard work, preparation and most of all, merit. While on a fact finding mission to Darfur in mid-2007, I recognized (along with others) first hand that the success of the peoples struggle here would depend highly on its’ ability to immediately link up with struggling but rising people in Africa, Asia and the so-called Middle East. What do you mean? The fact that over the last part of the previous decade Africa and (Asia in particularly) have made significant overtures to expedite revolutionary change vis-à-vis the Black peoples struggle here. We must revisit a “re-worked” version of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM)...in order to advance and advance exponentially. The Nationalist Movement in this country has resisted such change by 1). Taking an anti-Arab (save paying lip service to the Palestinian struggle against the American funded Zionist occupation) actually joining “philosophical” hands with racist American’s and their paranoia 2). Taking an anti-Asian stance, particularly as it relates to new partnerships’ being created in Africa with China, India, Malaysia and others). This failed outlook has cost us dearly but is a significant part of what happens when there are no new ideas or “new blood” being cultivated. Case in point; instead of mindlessly condemning Africa’s new relationships’ as one State Department official (actually given a platform and support by the Black Nationalist movement at a debate on Darfur in Kansas City in 2007’) proclaimed “China is the new colonial power in Africa”. This is pure propaganda of which the origin can be found at the State Department. We view it differently. A new group of Black Americans calling themselves The Darfur 23, while in Africa called for the African governments to develop immediate economic and cultural relationships with Black America. They agreed to not only in words but in action. The country of Sudan (which faces a Western sponsored referendum in 2011 that will split their country into several parts (see John Prendergast and others) which borders eleven African countries serves as a geographic and strategic player for Black America to rise and “come-up” fast. They agreed in principle and contract (both the north and the V.P. of the South) partner with Black America to build Sudan and thus build Africa. Other benefits to this new type of alliance are that the Sudan serves as a natural gateway not only into Bantu Africa but also Bantu Arab interest. While the Sudan has to internally solve the problem of Darfur, the mere fact that Black Americans’ took the lead and ventured to the Sudan in attempt to help negotiate the peace and set the record straight on the Western front is a revolutionary act in and of itself. Furthermore (fact check): There are currently “BILLIONS” of dollars in contracts being negotiated on the African continent each week and Black America has not positioned itself to even be the “Sub-contractor” on those deals is saddening. We are losing. A there must be a shift in the paradigm. The Nationalist movement in America has rejected this as a tactic and strategy for “true” Nationalism to find it way to the “hoods” of Compton, Brooklyn, D.C., Baltimore, Houston’s’ 3rd Ward and the South Side of Chicago. These partnerships’ abroad and others’ like it will carve out new hope and direction of the movement domestically. As a result, The Darfur 23 and other “new blood” and forward thinking groups from the progressive Revolutionary wing of the movement are calling for the “transition of leadership”. The new leadership will not look like a mass movement circled around a few individuals. It will more resemble a group of strategist designing solutions from a Think Tank model and rapidly implementing them. We cannot afford any longer to allow our leadership to be played out of position by “so-called Black Bourgeoisie politics” that have dominated the scene over the past few years. The “transition of leadership” will began to thrust forth the necessary framework to secure the independence and wherewithal of the current and next generations. Imagine, we now live in a world were there is total global synergy and anytime-anywhere connectivity. We can be sitting (virtually) at the kitchen table of a like minded group 10,000 miles away plotting and planning “next steps” from our home front. Malcolm X did not live in this space. Therefore, our tactics must change. Marcus Garvey called out to the Black World “Where are your men and women of big affairs”. We must transfer leadership immediately. Black people of America are lagging far behind the rest of the world in the struggle for self determination. This alone has made it necessary.

Malik Aziz
Co-Convener, Darfur 23
http://www.darfur23.org/