BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND, JUNE 23-25, 2017) — Cultural fashion, Linguistics Branch, has a way of nudging the English language in odd ways. For instance, social progress (albeit progress of a certain sort) rendered the word “gay” (“don we now our gay apparel”) meaningless except for the snickers regarding its former innocent meaning. “People of color,” the current, fashionable word-du-jour for blacks, harkens eerily back to “colored people” of the 1940s.

Whites and blacks have never been comfortable with what to call the hued race, beginning with slavery in the 17th century. They’ve been coloreds, colored people, Negroes, blacks, African Americans, and people of color, to say nothing of the myriad of ignorant terms we shall not repeat here.

THE PLANET does not use these demeaning terms, nor do we respect anyone that does. That being said, they are, in the end, words — abstractions created to label people, places, and things. We might even find the silver lining in the profound ignorance of those who employ such terms as niggers, wops, kikes, greasers, micks, spics, and the lot. Clearly, when a person routinely or otherwise finds fit to keep these in the active vocabulary, we immediately know with whom — the type of “whom” — we are dealing.

When THE PLANET speaks in print, on TV, or on the radio, we are 6’4″. In actuality, when we stand on a piece of thick paper, we hit all of 5’3″ — Mugsey Bogues‘-land. At that, we could take the 5’1″ Napoleon Bonaparte to the post and eat his lunch. We heard our share of “shorty,” “shrimp,” and other salutations of the playground, but we never internalized them. Having two older brothers helped, of course, but not as much as learning how to fight.

College didn’t come with a basketball scholarship. Our hoop “career” came on the courts at Deming and Newell Street parks, the Boys’ Club and CYC, in pickup games. We loved dribbling, ball handling, passing, and defense, working on those to the point, no pun, where we could play what is now called “point guard.” Lots of guys will want to hog the ball to score points. We learned to handle the ball and play defense.

The point is that whatever perceptions others might have of you, whatever Scarlett “A” they try to stick on you, it comes down to the belief in ourselves. We have the ability to rise above external labels,  to go deep within and bring out the fighting response. As Malcolm X once said and embodied, “There is no better friend than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.”

THE PLANET isn’t talking about joining a gang, taking part in a street protest as an excuse to rampage and loot, or employing adversity as an excuse for drug use. We refer, rather, to an authentic, personal response to succeed, to be intelligent, and to take on the personal responsibility to define ourselves. That effort lies beyond all government welfare programs and “white paper” panel discussions.  We create our own “luck,” which is what happens when opportunity meets preparedness.

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“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” — Malcolm X

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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