Society defines people in terms of money when they intend to vilify them. “Athletes” and “Rappers” lose their individual indemnities and have the label that groups them hurled at as epithets, often preceded by the word “these”. They lose their identities when the suddenly impatient masses stop being entertained. Their blackness once aspired to during windows of superhuman acrobatics, and superhuman cool, become conveniently discarded like so many toothless dogs. When each thinking black man starts thinking, especially if it is before he goes limp, he becomes a threat. He may not even be thinking about much, only what is fair. He may not be saying much or even anything, he may simply take a knee and quietly pray beyond the hearing of man, perhaps for times beyond these. 
To label a thinking man as unthinking, as a threat even in his docility, undignified in his civility, to label black men as “athletes”, as thoroughbreds, work horses.. to label them this way harkens back to the days of treating men as chattel. When any name was as good as another (except, of course, for the too common names that no mother would ever call her child), back to the days when any black hand was as good as another, to pick cotton, catch chickens, or catch passes. 

When Donald Trump speaks about the “privilege of earning millions of dollars” (just like many other elements of society today, and most historically) is he not referring to the sycophantic gratitude that the enslaved felt for an extra piece of bread? For an extra piece of meat? 

When these people speak about the “privilege of earning millions of dollars” are they ever referring to the owners, the ones who own the whole pies and the whole hogs? Are owners not also privileged to be able to PAY their EMPLOYEES millions of dollars as part of a scaled up business model? Are they not privileged to live even more privileged lives than the millionaires they employee? Instead, what is said of owners is that they should beat their boys back in line or toss them aside for bigger, stronger, more compliant hands that are just as good for throwing the ball. They should fire them; today, using “fire” only figuratively. 

Now that owner money is at stake, when the lives of some others are always at stake, it has been said that the owners should remind “these athletes” of how fleeting the privilege can be for those who don’t stand erect at all times as they have been commanded to, even under threat. Even under fire. 

But who owns what?