By: Amanda Anderson-Niles
As Aaron Hernandez remains in prison and has been linked to multiple murders, many are pondering just what on earth possessed the NFL star to allegedly get involved in such heinous crimes considering he was one of the biggest stars of the New England Patriots. Hernandez will have his day in court, but it seems as if lots of people have already labeled him as guilty and even believe they know why he’s decided to allegedly become a criminal. That can’t be any more truer when it comes to Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock, who has made a name for himself writing controversial pieces and also isn’t fond of rapper turned business man Jay Z. In his recent piece, he claims Jay Z is one of the reasons Aaron Hernandez allegedly turned to a life of crime and violence despite a multimillion dollar NFL contract. Whitlock writes:
Athletic culture trumped Hollywood culture.
This is no longer the case. Jay-Z, a rapper who glorifies his former life as a drug dealer, has far more cultural influence than LeBron James. Jay-Z is this generation’s Joe D, and Beyonce is Marilyn Monroe.
Al Capone is a bigger deal than Babe Ruth.
Aaron Hernandez is a reflection of where we are as a society. Like Allen Iverson and an endless plethora of fatherless and directionless modern athletes since the end of Michael Jordan’s reign, Hernandez saw his athletic gifts as a platform to represent where he was from, not where he hoped to go.
He repped the 860. He kept it real. He stayed true to his boyz from the ‘hood. He mimicked the mindset of the pop-culture icons we celebrate today.
The writer goes on to explain why he has a problem with Jay Z operating his own sports agency:
Jay-Z is the new gold standard. The whole sports world played along with Jigga Man’s charade of NBA ownership. Now Kevin Durant and other athletes are flocking to Hova’s sports agency. An unrepentant, flamboyant former drug dealer has the White House, President Obama-stamped seal of approval.
Proving we learn nothing from our history, drug prohibition has legitimized the drug dealer the same way alcohol prohibition legitimized bootleggers (Joseph Kennedy). You let corrupt people make enough money and eventually they’ll use their wealth, power and influence to bait others into participating in and rationalizing their corrupt actions.
Interesting. Tell us how you feel about his comments in the comment section below.
Stupidest thing I’ve read all day.
Not really, if you do your homework.
I’m sorry, who are you to tell me what is the stupidest thing I’ve read all day? I can have whatever opinion I choose to have, and I choose to believe this idiot who wrote this column lacks logic and has a superiority complex…and by your response, I think you suffer from a superiority complex too.
People don’t have to agree with you and if we don’t, it doesn’t mean you’re more enlightened or more educated. We don’t have to think the same, welcome to earth.
My original opinion stands.
This guy just writes things like this for attention. He’s a subpar writer and wants to get famous from his continuos overreaching in all of his columns.
Typical sellout gibberish. I’m not impressed by his writing. Anything for page views I guess.
So he’s just going to keep calling Jay Z a drug dealer even though he hasn’t been one in years. Ok. But why isn’t he mad at the white men who supply the black dealers with drugs? Oh wait, that’s too much like right. It pays better to tear your own people down.
This doesn’t make any sense everybody has to take responsibilities for their own actions. The fault lies 100% at the feet of Aaron Hernandez not Jay-z or Al Capone get real man. I swear people refuse to see Jay z as someone who started from nothing was a drug dealer and now is a business man. If anything Jay represents that anybody can make it no matter where you start.
Did he really call Bey today’s Marilyn Monroe?! Yeah, he’s an attention whore. I’ll make sure I never give him any page views.
Damn this man writes like a jealous female. Is he on his period?
I’m trying to understand when America became a place of no personal responsibility.
Now this is pretty ridiculous. Sounds like this guy is mad Jay is doing the things he wishes he could do.
Jealousy! It’s like he’s personally insulted that a former drug dealer could be doing better in life than him. Get over it you c*nt.
The craziest thing is if Jay stayed in the hood and never got out the drug game, they wouldn’t have anything to say. They aren’t mad he used to sell drugs, they’re mad he made it. Sad.
So true!!!
This is the new “black on black crime”, hating on the man cause he didn’t stay in his place. It’s almost as if these black people think Jay Z owes them something for refusing to let “drug dealer” be the label he carries to the grave. Jason Whitlock is better served by talking about the drug culture amongst the athletes that cause them to dope. Why isn’t he castigating Lance Armstrong and A-Rod, to name a few?
Man, go somewhere with that foolishness! If you think “whitey” is going to open up the clubhouse door cause you jumped on the Jazy-hating bandwagon, then you, LL, and Harry Belafonte need to rethink your process.
Cause you’re still too black to get in!!!
YES! YES and YES!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whitlock is a Sambo of the highest order.
So Aaron isn’t going to be held accountable for his own actions? Blame everyone but himself. Whitlock is a terrible writer.
Like Ray Don Chung, it is much easier for this fool to give white people what they want…which is to see black folks publicly bringing down those “field n-ggas” that are too high on the social and financial ladder by bringing up their past behaviors and humble beginnings and down playing their achievements and everything that they had to overcome to be on top. It is so sad to still see black people still holding on to the slave mentality of saying what masta wants to in hopes of getting some extra scraps at dinner. In this case, to get those extra pats on the back from the Bill O’Reillys of th world. Unfortunately, when non blacks hear him cut down Jay Z and the President they tend to side with his idiotic opinions because he’s black not realizing he’s just a hate’n, boot lick’en trustee that will never pull a chick like B, never eat in the White House, will never sip champagne with the President or be the King of New York. Shout out to all the former strippers who graduated from college and all the ex gang members who are mentoring young kids and drug dealers who got out the game and made 400 million dollars and pissed off his heaters. Good job! PS Hernandez is done.
cosign!!!!
STANDING OVATION – slowly and loudly claps hands!!!!!!!!!
Well the Boston Terrorist was listening to Jay Z on his Ipod – it’s a generational thing and not healthy.
Jay Z is 40 something years old. This country was built on the blood of many men. European men killed mamy Natives for land. Charles Manson, Son of Sam, everyone involved with 911….was Jay Z playing ever time a life was taken. Let the blood be on the hands of the one who killed the man (you may quote me) If you allow people to blame or justify their actions by using every and any bs excuse they can think of we’d end up with a lawless society. We have enough killers getting off (shout out to Zimmerman) we can’t blame entertainers for the acts of these nuts. Jay Z it not into mind control he’s into making money. If Hernandez was really influenced by Jay Z he would be on top of his game (not in jail) and following the “blue print” for making money. Apparently he was on some other sh-t.