From pee wee football to playing in the most competitive sports league in the world (the NFL), there's always been one constant. Success or lack thereof has always been determined by the culture of our team. A winning culture means a winning team, and a losing culture means a losing team. Period. It's black and white, and this is what I love most about sports. Feelings don't matter. All that matters is the scoreboard at the end of the game, whose hand is raised at the end of the fight, and who's holding the trophy at the end of the season.
Sports is perhaps our greatest demonstration of a result oriented competition. And as I stated before, especially at the highest level, culture is the most impactful intangible in determining outcomes. Perhaps the greatest example of this is the domination of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick's New England Patriots Dynasty. In the Patriot organization, there are no valid excuses, you "Do your job" and win, that's it.
Now, how does all of this relate to Black/African-American/Indigenous Culture? Well, let's back our way into this. Let's first take a look at the state of our people and the results/outcomes we've produced. Not only are we consistently last in every category that is vital to our success, but things are rapidly getting worst. It's to the point where we either don't know or don't care that we are destroying ourselves and inherently our next generations. We are running a race faster than everybody, but just in the wrong direction!
So since you're probably already upset with me for calling out our trash culture, let me ease up so we can figure out where we go from here to improve it! Well, similar to sports, the only way to change something is to acknowledge the problem and then take full accountability in fixing it. It's on us and only us. Because like it or not, nobody is coming to save us and lead us to glory. The good thing is, we have amazing talent and everything we need to turn this thing around!
Enjoy the podcast and remember, let's elevate... on purpose!
-DAC
