(Todd A. Smith/Photo Credit: Kevin Bussey for Bussey One Photography)
Two things will definitely prove true in this editorial.
Indeed, Progressive cannot stop you from becoming your parents.
And one should never generalize an entire demographic.
Nevertheless, I think Gen Z members must have lost their cotton-picking minds (that’s something my parents often said to me growing up) because many show no respect for those that paved the way for them from past generations.
Minnesota Timberwolves star guard Anthony Edwards is the latest youngster to upset the gray beards like me, even though I have no beard, when he said the only old-school basketball player to have skill was Michael Jordan.
He prefaced his statement by saying he never saw any of the legends from past generations play.
But that is where the problem comes from.
Gen Z is no different from any other generation in thinking their heyday was the best ever.
My parents would refer to the 1960s as the good ole days.
My sister still yearns for 1980s pop music.
And I think the 1990s produced the best R&B and hip-hop ever.
But even though I was always biased towards my era, I cannot recall ever disrespecting those that came before my generation.
As a young buck, I tried to learn as much about the earlier days of the National Basketball Association (NBA) as I could from watching documentaries to reading books to asking my father about past players.
I can remember my high school teammates referencing Willis Reed when one of my teammates quickly recovered from an injury and played for us in a big game.
Someone asked, who does he think he is, Willis Reed?
I could not wait to get to my Uncle Jimmy’s house in Baton Rouge, La to learn about his favorite musical artists from the 1970s like The Brothers Johnson and Switch.
The rap artists of the 1990s had so much respect for the musicians of the 1970s and 1980s, that they sampled the heck out of their work, while always paying homage.
When hip-hop producer Dr. Dre popularized the G-Funk sound in the early 1990s, he made sure that videos like “Let Me Ride” showed archival footage of Parliament/Funkadelic concerts.
When 2Pac and Suge Knight made plans for Death Row East Records they made sure to reach out to the pioneers of hip-hop like Eric B. and Melle Mel and Scorpio of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
Knight even brought Hammer into the Death Row Records camp after his popularity began to wane towards the middle of the 1990s.
When people began referring to Michael Jordan as the greatest basketball player of all time, he did not dismiss the contributions of stars from other eras.
During the late 1980s when Mike Tyson began his reign of terror on heavyweight boxing, he constantly gave Muhammad Ali praise.
Likewise, during Ali’s prime he always gave props to Jack Johnson and Joe Louis.
But for some reason, many Gen Z members believe that the world began when they came out their mother’s womb.
And that’s a shame because they have things that past generations did not have.
Younger people have instant access to history.
They can Google information whenever they want to learn something.
Or they can go to YouTube and watch old games and concert footage to see how great the pioneers really were.
Edwards is one of my favorite young players.
And this article is not to diss him, personally.
It is to encourage the youngsters to use those social media skills and tools that they have at their disposal to learn more about the world that existed before they blessed us with their presence.
The NBA is filled with skilled players.
However, if Edwards would watch footage of Magic Johnson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas, Earl Monroe, Pete Maravich and Bob Cousy, there is no way he would come to the same conclusion that only one past player had skills.
From a musical perspective, I have heard younger rap fans diss hip-hop legends like Nas, 2Pac and others.
Some in hip-hop media say that if old school rappers were so great, why are so many in dire straits financially?
The answer to that is because many pioneers did not get paid like they should because the game was brand new, and people had not learned from past mistakes of others.
This generation can lean on the mistakes other rappers made like not owning their publishing to make more informed business decisions.
From a sports standpoint, the NBA players would not be making so much money if the pioneers had not made the game so popular in the 1980s and 1990s.
Dismissing the gains and sacrifices made by previous generations would equate to me criticizing my grandparents because they did not have as much education and money as me, knowing that Jim Crow laws made upward mobility for African-Americans darn near impossible.
That is why younger generations paid respect to civil rights leaders even if they did not understand or agree with all their tactics from the 1950s and 1960s.
Those that came about in the decades that immediately followed knew that the life we enjoyed came at the cost of them not getting to fully enjoy their lives or pursue their dreams.
Maybe younger generations today are too removed from the struggle and have gotten spoiled by the benefits from past sacrifices.
But when one disses the past, they can never truly appreciate how blessed that presently are.
