It's The Little Things!

Melo meets with Trayvon's family on Friday.

Last month  I wrote a SERIOUSLY HOT JOINT entitled "TALL Respect" giving the Miami Heat mad props for making a statement in support of Trayvon Martin. The Heat led by LeBron James & Dwayne Wade posed for a team photo with all of them wearing hoodies. I went on to say that guys like Michael Jordan nor Tiger Woods wouldn't have gone anywhere near that photo shoot if they were on that team. 

Big props to Carmelo Anthony as well for hosting Trayvon's family at Madison Square Garden on Friday. They were in New York City on Thursday for an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN when they received an invitation from Melo to meet privately in the locker room before the Knicks blew out the Wizards 103-65.  

"[It was] a blessing, an honor," Anthony said after Knicks practice Saturday, in regards to meeting Martin's family. "We all know the tragedy that happened, and just to get in a different space of mind right now, just bringing them to not even the game, but to the locker room in the back, meeting all the players, meeting the coaches, that was the easy part. We had no media there. It was just something that I wanted to do."

It's the little things that count bruh! This family has endured so much over the past couple of months and for these players to embrace them is meaningful. A couple of days after the Miami Heat photo surfaced on Twitter they were in Indy to play the Pacers. Well, I've got media credentials so my plan on that evening was to talk to the Heat players about it. When I asked Mario Chalmers what motivated them as a team to take that photo. He  simply said, "Everybody on the team has kids and that could have been any of them." 

Later that week I was on a radio show talking about the the "TALL Respect" joint and my conversation with Mario Chalmers. The host of the show immediately cut me off and said, "Come on Jay, you know that wouldn't have been LeBron's kid!" Ya'll know I gave him the business for even suggesting such a thing. 

If that had been LeBron's kid he wouldn't have been walking to the store. He would have been driving some luxury vehicle and would have only fueled the fire even more to be racially profiled. To think that just because someone is rich takes away the stereotypes that people use in this country is asinine. All they would have seen is a black kid driving a Range Rover etc. and that would have been enough to pull him over and here we go. Let's keep it real or all the way 100, I'm still getting pulled over for no reason and I'm 45!

Here lately there have been all types of reports that Trayvon wasn't the nice kid that he has been portrayed to be. There are reports that he'd been suspended from school in the past or that he was caught with some weed etc. None of that justifies a kid being gunned down while unarmed walking home. Especially when the perpetrator was told not to confront the kid by the 911 operator in the first place. Let's keep it real! There are very few black men or people in general that wouldn't have faught for their lives if some cat ran up on them with a gun!

So again, I give Melo love for taking the time to meet with Trayvon's mother and his two brothers on Friday. Being a celebrity means something to people and to use it to put a smile on their faces is what it's all about. So many times we say that we want our athletes to be role models but in reality we want them to be train wrecks like Basketball Wives or the Real Housewives of Atlanta because we're addicted to foolishness. 

Now I can't lie I watch that foolishness but I'm extremely happy to see the Tim Tebow's, LeBron's and Melo's of the sports world being positive role models. Regardless of their wins or losses, I ride with guys like that because they've got character and long after the games are over they'll be great people. Remember, they'll only be able to play these games for a short period of time and God willing they'll live well beyond that. Then what? It's not about the amount of games you've won or the amount of rings you've got. It's about what type of life you've lived and the amount of people you've impacted along the way. Because you can't take wins or the championships with you when the Good Lord calls you home!

Holla At Ya Boy! 
Jay Graves
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