If I were a short black kid*

I am not a short black kid. I am a 7'2", 350 pound, middle-aged former NBA center and current actor/rapper extraordinare. So life was easier for me. But that doesn't mean that averaging 2.3 blocks per game over a 19 year NBA career and having a debut album that goes platinum are impossible goals for those short kids from the inner city. It takes brains. It takes hard work. It takes a little luck. And a little help from others. And technology. And littering your inane Forbes op-ed with sentence fragments. Especially sentence fragments. Because people who are incapable of writing a sentence with more than one clause are precisely the type of people who should be dispensing life advice to kids.

If I were a short black kid I would use all the technology at my disposal to become taller. When I was in 9th grade, I was barely over five feet tall. Can you imagine me becoming a Hall of Fame caliber NBA center if I had stopped growing at age 14? Well, luckily I took the advice of my guidance counselor (a learned white man, by the way) and decided it would be good for my future basketball career if I grew a couple of feet. By feet, I mean the unit of measurement, not the body part. I already had two of the body part. Like my parents before me, I was born with them. Anyway, with lots of hard work and dedication, and of course an assist from study websites such as TED and the Khan Academy, I eventually grew to 7'2". And thanks to the free online calculators my guidance counselor informed me of, I can also tell you that 7'2" is 218.4 centimeters. I used Skype to practice with other students from my school who also wanted to get better at basketball. When possible, my family and I got our food and shelter for free from Project Gutenberg. I "became expert" at Google Scholar and my drop step improved dramatically.

If I were a short black kid I would get technical. But not technical fouls. Coach would bench me for those. I would learn software. I figure most kids who want decent jobs just go to the decent job fair or whatever and the Wizard of Decent Jobs is all like "Do you know software?" and then the kid goes "Yes sir, I learned software on the intertubes." Then the Wizard would ask "What about homework tools? How familiar are you with those?" to which the kid would reply "Very, sir, very. I go to my public library everyday and watch relevant teachings on the interweb." Then of course the Wizard would give the kid a decent job because that's just how easy it is.

When I look at all the short black high school kids throughout our nation's inner cities, my heart aches. It saddens me to see an entire generation of black youth sitting idly by while their peers in Europe and China, the future Dirk Nowitskis and Yao Mings of the world, are growing taller by the day. If only they had my tenacious work ethic and nonstop dedication to becoming a better, taller person. Technology can help these kids. But only if the kids want to be helped. Yes, there is much inequality. But the opportunity is still there in the NBA for those that are tall enough to go for it.

*c.f.

I have an impressive history of mentoring at-risk youth.