Quote:I am beginning to think that this discussions topic is turning into a no-no per our CoC.

 

What I will say is that I wasn't sure Russell Wilson was black before. I guess I knew he was probably part black, but still. Its fine that the term 'black' can help maybe identify him in a crowd, but really when it comes down to it, the achievement is his alone, not all black people.

 

It's always tempting to grab something someone else did that was extraordinary and try to use it to make ourselves feel better by association, but this is a bad habit. We should much more being in the business of self-evaluation and improvement. When we get in the habit of piggy backing on others it makes us more apathetic towards achieving ourself. This is a most heinous crime against ourselves. Don't try to grab Russell's success cause he was black, or Tiger's, or Obama's. Focus on improving yourself and you may be the next somebody, rather than trying to ride on their coattails for 5 seconds of elevated mood. It feels much better when you accomplish something cause of your own hard work.

 

If you limit the topic to race, that is correct. But people need to piggyback Derrick Coleman's success because what makes him different is a communication problem. The people who piggyback his success would have let their dreams die if they had not seen the Duracell commercial. OTOH black quarterbacks don't say they play "because of Doug Williams." So it really depends on why you are piggybacking another person's success. Race? Very stupid. Disability? Very smart.

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