As a young kid, I used to look up to Allen Iverson. I had the jersey and used to wear it with pride; there were some, however, who felt the opposite of pride when they say my black jersey with the number “3” emblazoned on it in beautiful stitching.

Who were these folks? The people that booed him, the sports commentators that disparaged him-without knowing him and mischaracterizing his communication, which was akin to someone having a different dialect, or a different way of speaking than the majority in the region where they both live-even though it was the same language at heart.

For anyone who took the time to sit down with him, as many good journalists did, they found him quite easy to understand, yet he was often described as “street” or urban. My friends out there know what these code words really mean (lol😂), but I still remember the people who called him a “thug”. Now Pac and myself may take that as a compliment, but the people in the media (in general) didn’t mean it like that. I stumbled across this article today, as I was thinking about A.I. for some reason, and found that the conclusions I had deduced were not singular in nature: for reference, please check out this great article from the Men’s Journal here😊: 👉🏾http://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/races-sports/5-things-we-learned-from-showtimes-new-iverson-doc-20150519?utm_source=email or the #Showtime #documentary about #AllenIverson.

This quote was true for me in the workplace & my experience in corporate America with the entrenched racism and taboo rules that disproportionately affect people of color, and I’m sure lots of other members of my human-race-family of different shades can relate-“especially” #women and #minorities; the reason being, their appearance and #clothing-although professional-is still often considered inappropriate or taboo, when it is not of a conservative or conformist nature. Now don’t get me wrong, I am going to be fly anyway (and I know you would be right there with me looking fly also); after all, they can’t stop us from being creative and still find a way to look stylish within the rules. Still, the lengths that we have to go to do this (and expense) I think oftentimes is wrong. What do you think?

Anyway, I got some inspiration from this (one of the reasons I love my enemies. Lol😂” The quote was: “Five years after Allen Iverson unceremoniously left the NBA, he’s still one of the most divisive players in league history — a love-him-or-hate-him figure and paradox of personalities often misunderstood because of how he looked, how he talked, and the way he acted.”

Michael Jackson told me “They don’t really care about us” and so did #KendrickLamar with #ToPimpAButterfly; but, I decided to take the approach of #Rakim and tell these suckas: “Don’t sweat the technique.”😂😂😂

As long as I have freedom and am alive, I will express myself freely without accommodating the majority. A.I. till I die❤️✌🏾️