At 36 and his basketball career behind him, J.R. Smith has been a student/athlete at North Carolina A&T since this summer. A first for him, who went straight from high school to the NBA in 2004. Looking back, the double NBA champion and 6th man of the year 2013 now realizes that he would have liked to use his money differently during his boom years. within the league.
“What I’m doing today is trying to change the mentality of as many people as possible who look like us towards an Afrocentric rather than a Eurocentric mindset. We are so trained to have this Eurocentric state of mind ‘I worry about me, about what is mine, I am not going to help anyone else who looks like me to build themselves’.
Which bank is going to say no to us? We are going to build a lot of things for our community. Gyms, recreation centers, leagues… Who’s going to stop us? We have the money. But not the state of mind. We’d rather throw $60,000 at the strip club than feed 2,500 people in the ghetto. And I was the first to do it. Now looking back I realize what an idiot I was. I could have fed my entire community 10 times over with the money I gave in fines for being late for the bus.
I was so full of myself: I needed this designer jacket, such jeans, such backpacks, I had to look like this or that because the clothes had the same things, then the car… For what to do ? To impress who? I’m not even satisfied with myself! And after the kids think it’s cool, look what he did, he spat soup on a coach or whatever, they think it’s cool. Look what we glorify. Strip clubs, getting high, killing people… They put millions and millions of dollars into it. Record companies invest millions in it, and it sells. JR Smith via I AM ATHLETE
via basketnews.com
