Stand

Once you see something,

you can't unsee it.

Especially as a Black young man,

especially as an athlete,

we're taught to stay in a box.

To be quiet.

Investigators are claiming arson

in the early-morning blaze at the home of Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.

Abdul-Rauf believes the fire was racially motivated.

Mississippi burning.

When it's all said and done,

no one wants you to criticize America.

But, as James Baldwin says,

that's a part of being a patriot.

Mahmoud, dribbles past two,

and a two-pointer!

Mahmoud, that's deep! It's good!

He wasn't good, he was great.

He wasn't great, he was one of the greatest.

Mahmoud throws one up again.

Who was this dude torching the Lakers?

Mahmoud pulls the trigger...

It was this dude that can't miss.

I never saw somebody shoot like that.

That was Steph Curry, before Steph Curry.

The quickness, the creative flair he had, the range.

Mahmoud against Stockton,

26 feet away.

I don't know how many people give him enough credit for

his style of play.

To watch him have Tourette syndrome

and still destroy the best players in the league,

like, I used to sit back and be laughing.

Abdul-Rauf is on fire!

I had no chance against Mahmoud.

He was scoring 50 in a game.

Just lighting it up.

The greatest performance I've seen ever.

It looked like I was watching God play basketball.

One second, for the game! Yeah!

One of the greatest players

in the history of the NBA

was cheated out of his career.

The National Basketball Association is

in a standoff tonight with a highly-paid player.

This is the most notorious figure in America.

There were FBI agents having to sit in the stands.

They're saying it's a war on terrorism, I think

that's a euphemism for a war on Islam.

Mahmoud never said "I'm gonna burn the house down."

But the Klan burned his house down.

How about that?

I'm sick, sick of waiting in vain

Tired of playing the game, thinking of making a change

Finally breaking the chains, every phase

Every happening, craze, when it's said and done

My head is right back in a haze

I'm ready for the next chapter and page

To start acting my age and part ways

With Black Thought from back in the days

I'm stargazing from the back of the stage

Questioning if who y'all praise is worthy of praise

What's the phrase, "bygones is bygones"?

Niggas who used to be the underdogs is icons

People say the light shines once in a lifetime

Is this midlife kinda crisis a little bit like mine?

I'm thinking not now but right now

I need some kinda sign that the future is bright now

I fuck around, do the right thing like Spike now

The quick and the dead, which one is

my lookalike now? I'm moving ahead

Everything's changing around me

And I wanna change too...

Junior high school.

I remember that I was walking towards the beach.

And I remember seeing,

as clear as you see the sun outside,

the Ku Klux Klan marching down the beach.

It was just mind-blowing to me, you know, to see that.

And I can remember, as a child, wondering,

"I wonder who's under those masks.

I wonder if it's someone that I know,

that I see every day," right?

And most likely it is,

and so you... you knew that you...

you had to tread softly.

You had to play the game.

I grew up in a neighborhood called Soria City.

Four or five blocks from the Gulf of Mexico,

three blocks from the train track which separated

the Black neighborhood from the white neighborhood.

The ghettoes in those neighborhoods

don't look as nice.

Old homes, shacks,

it's definitely a stark difference.

Growing up in my situation, without a father.

Having a mother that... you know,

we all have our limitations, and she had hers.

You know, having eighth grade education.

Having to raise three boys,

there's only so much that she can do for you.

She can't give you what you never had.

And so you're kind of left to your own.

I remember when Chris would come home.

There were times there was nothing to eat.

- -I would grab

-my pellet gun. -

You know, I shot the squirrels, cleaned 'em.

-Shot doves, cleaned 'em. -

It wasn't shooting for fun. It was shooting for survival.

As a child, I mean, you adapt.

So you don't really understand it

when you're living through it, as you do when you get older

and you go back, and you'll be like, wow,

we lived in this situation. Day in and day out.

Every day you wake up. You see it.

I grew up in a religious family.

Church on each corner from where I stayed.

And it was always, you know,

preached to me, the importance of not just

praying for yourself, but pray for others more than yourself.

I used to have, periodically, conversations asking people

do you know who my father is?

My older brother's father was white, I knew that.

My younger brother's father, I even saw him,

he was an African-American guy.

I was like, why out of all your children,

I'm the only one that don't know?

And she never told me, still, but she said, "He's white."

I can't say this.

I want to, but I can't say it.

But I wanna go there, but I can't do it.

No one could give me the answers.

You know, even up to this day,

No one has been able to give them to me.

It's a void there.

It's a part of you that you don't know,

and the only thing you can figure out is,

okay, I know where I get these traits from.

You know, these come from my mother,

'cause I knew my mother.

But the unknown part, you say, okay,

this... this hasn't... could come from my father.

Fourth grade, I decided, man,

I wanna be the best basketball player

there is in the world.

Now, as a child, you, ten years old,

you don't know how people are training,

but in your mind-- "I gotta train harder than anybody."

He was a little kid with a big red Afro.

We came out to 2nd Street Park,

and it was raining, but like, "Man,

I guess I'll go back home," 'cause it started raining.

He was like, "Man, I'm gonna go out here and... shoot."

"Go out and shoot where?" He said, "Go out,

shoot at 2nd Street Park." I said, "Man, it's raining!"

He had this thing in his head, and this might sound crazy.

He tried to hit as many shots as he could

before the raindrops hit the ground.

He had a crazy imagination with that basketball.

He had imaginary friends out there.

He would play against-- four-on-four,

five-on-five, by himself, with his imaginary friends

on 2nd Street Park.

Basketball for me, kind of... and I know it sounds weird.

It kind of took the place of my father,

because I spent so much time on the court.

Yeah, I wanna take care of my mother, I wanna

take care of people, I wanna take care of my family.

But I was like,

"Maybe, if I become so great...

at what I'm doing...

that, whoever he is...

will wanna know me.

And be a part of my life.

So I had a chip on my shoulder.

The first time I noticed

something was different about me,

I was... in the third grade.

I would get up in the morning...

and I'm always like...

somethin' have to feel right,

or I couldn't go further.

Like even getting out of the bed.

Every little piece of clothing.

If I put my shirt on.

Take it off. It may take me 45 minutes

just to be able to get dressed and get out the house.

He would get down and tie his shoe,

and he would take it apart,

and he would put it back on, he'd say, "Man"...

and he'd... just do it, and just keep repeating it,

over and over and over, "Man!"

Open, closing, open, closing

the refrigerator door. I was just--

"Shut the door, and let it be."

I would throw my arm.

It would be painful.

Popping my neck, I mean, pain,

to the point where it feels like