Jay-Z Is Not Your Hero

Since April 4, 1968 and the death of the late Dr. King, Black folks have been looking for a hero or a savior of some kind. Typically, it’s a cishet male, who is of the clergy, politician, athlete, or entertainer of some kind. Despite the man’s flaws, folks will look for a way to give him a “pass” or an “out” when his morality and true allegiance to the race take a backseat to the requirements of the pedestal that he has been placed upon.

Jay-Z aka Sean Carter, or Beyonce’s husband to the younger generation, is such a man. In recent years, Jay-Z has become more than an entertainer. He has invested in the bails of several people wrongfully railroaded by our unjust judicial system, given money to charities supporting the fight of social justice, used his art to support social justice issues, and produced documentaries of the lives of the late Trayvon Martin and Kalief Browder.

But one of the things time and life experience have taught me is that a leopard never changes its spots, and the only thing that changes individuals, is meeting Black Jesus on the road to Damascus and having a transformation experience like Saul/Paul.

Colin Kaepernick initiated a real deep and life changing conversation by kneeling, instead of standing during the National Anthem during NFL games. His kneeling was not an indictment of the anthem or even about the anthem, it was about…