Dez Bryant had a lot to get off of his chest when he took to Instagram on Sunday [April 9], with the issue of race having gotten to his conscience. He stated that much in the introduction of what was to be a long winded rant on how he believes it is incumbent upon Black people to "focus on individual accountability to be better as a whole."
Dez told followers he was moved to address the topic after finding himself in agreement with Charles Barkley when Sir Charles stated, "We as black people we're never going to be successful not because you white people but because of other black people." He spoke on having lived the experience of being racially profiled over and over again, but implied that from his perspective they were isolated incidents that he never saw as injustices on a social level, writing that "not once has it influenced an ill feeling inside me about anyone outside of that issue." Bryant was then dismissive of the value of media continuing to expose the ills of racism, boiling their impact down to "applause" and "people with influence merely doing things to post for social media."
Dez would conclude the diatribe by sharing where he is coming from as a man who was born into a dysfunctional family, consisting of a grandmother who left home as a crack addict, after her boyfriend slept with several of her children, including his mother, who he impregnated at the age of 14, and basically took as his domestic partner when his grandmother disappeared. He pointed to the fact that nobody ever thought to contact authorities or disrupt such an abusive reality from unfolding, as one particular example of a family of persons who [to his determination] have no basis to look beyond the doors of their home to find blame for where their future was headed. Prior to recalling his own upbringing, Bryant championed himself as someone who, through his course of choices and actions in life, has served as an example to people who grew up in the same conditions as him, yet remained on a destructive course until they saw him succeed.
"Real question what is wrong with being sophisticated and black? Why do we associate those who choose the straight and narrow as not being 'black enough.' Why was it that I was one of the first examples of success to my friend?" Bryant wrote, before opining that it is time for Black people to refocus from fighting current barriers as seen through the community's struggles, to creating a reality of their own. "It is not our job to carry the burden but it is our job to lead by example," he wrote, citing Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X as people who he perceives to have set the foundation for him to do so.
Source: bossip.com
