In response to
Grant Hill's rebuttal to the "Fab Five" documentary aired on ESPN (also, take time to read at least the first page of comments to get the general idea of what the majority of readers thought)...
Jalen Rose clearly states that these were his feelings when he was a FRESHMAN at Michigan. He also states that the reason these feelings came about were because he was JEALOUS of Grant Hill's family situation. The adult Jalen Rose admitted that he had immature feelings as a kid and also recognized, as an adult, that they were not justified in truth! I'm glad Mr. Hill is defending himself and his teammates, but Mr. Rose made it clear that he doesn't believe the same things that he thought as an 18-year-old kid now that he is a grown man who has a lifetime of new experiences.
The fact that everyone thinks this rebuttal is "amazing" makes me think they are rushing to judge Mr. Rose unfairly. If anything, Jalen Rose should be commended for realizing that WHEN HE WAS A FRESHMAN IN COLLEGE, he didn't have the proper perspective in life, and now that he is older and wiser, he very much realizes who wrong he was in making those characterizations he made as a child. Of course Grant Hill should be proud of his family and his upbringing, but here are a few other feelings that Mr. Hill should show, if he wants to really take a "big picture" look at things: pity, for seeing Jalen Rose's upbringing, and appreciation, for realizing that someone who came from so little and who had such a limited world-view at 18 years old was able to, in 20 years, recognize the folly of his adolescent ways and grow up to lead a just-as-successful life and Mr. Hill himself has.
I hope all of the viewers who have been so quick to jump on Grant Hill's high horse can take the time to see the context of the comments that have been lambasted all over sports radio and blogs and realize that it wasn't a reflection Mr. Hill at all; it was allowing a world set far apart from Southwest High School in Detroit to see that same world through eyes of a street-tough but immature and inexperienced boy saw.
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Another good take on this is by Bomani Jones at his blog:
http://www.bomanijones.com/blog/2011/03/15/parsing-uncle-tom/
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post-script:
just adding a bit of dialogue i've had with one of my favorite long-distance friends (pretty sure i haven't actually seen her in over ten years)
SR: glad to see you're blogging again =) but i don't think that Jalen Rose's admission of being a bit ignorant when he was 18 (who wasn't?) makes Grant Hill's column any less well-written, touching or "amazing"... i shared this story bc it's good and worth sharing, imho, not because i'm jumping on Grant Hill's high horse
Me: To me, at least, the whole tenor of the column is finding fault in a comment that Jalen himself admitted was incorrect. All of the statements that Grant makes are statements that are not in dispute at all, and at no point does he give context to the voice that made the accusation.
I guess my whole take is that we have to ask ourselves this... What is the more noteworthy story to discuss: that Grant Hill was called a name 20 years ago that all parties deem immature and inappropriate? Or that there were kids who were 18 who were coming from poverty, and then immediately bombarded with inordinate amounts of bad press, hate mail, and death threats for doing nothing but being themselves which, while being unusual in community like U of Mich., wasn't even illegal?
Piggy-backing off of that, I think it's kind of amazing that the "uncle tom" comment is the lightning rod of the doc while everyone just lets all of the racist taunts and threats that the kids received, mostly from seemingly more "mature" adult alumni, pass by with nary a mention. The Rose/Hill interaction was a very small part of the piece, while the public's reaction to the Fab 5 was pretty much the entire story... And yet the former explodes in the sports media universe and the latter is barely discussed. And it sucks, because I thought the doc was really good, and no one is talking about it as a whole.
I think Hill takes a cowardly way to approach a difficult subject. He's defensive, and he's attacking, rather than trying to promote healthy ideas and feelings. Michael Wilbon wrote a much deeper and philosophically responsible article than Hill did. Yeah, I know, Wilbon's a writer and Hill isn't... But check that out, and then let me know if you understand where I'm coming from.
and here's a link to Wilbon's article
