UPDATE (March 15, 2023, 4:19 p.m. E.T.): The NBA announced Wednesday that it has suspended Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant for eight games without pay for “conduct detrimental to the league.”
When I saw the Instagram video in which Memphis Grizzlies point guard and NBA All-Star Ja Morant is seen bouncing up and down, smiling, flashing a gun and then smiling again, I was reminded of my dawgs from back home. “That’s how we do in South Carolina,” I remember one of my friends saying once. He then said of those of us from what’s called the “Corridor of Shame,” “We different, bruh-bruh.”
Morant grew up playing basketball in Dalzell, South Carolina, about 40 miles from where I grew up playing football in St. Matthews.
Morant, who grew up playing basketball in Dalzell, South Carolina, about 40 miles from where I grew up playing football in St. Matthews, was suspended by the Grizzlies for that Instagram post.
Morant posted himself smilingly displaying a weapon about a month after a Jan. 29 game in Memphis in which one of Morant’s friends argued with some Pacers players. The Athletic quoted two sources who said that, after that game, somebody in an SUV Morant was riding in aimed a red dot at some of the Pacers' travel party near the team's bus. A Pacers security guard told The Athletic he was sure the red dot came from a laser attached to a gun. The IndyStar and USA Today Sports quoted an NBA spokesman who said the league investigated but found no evidence anybody was threatened with a weapon.
After the Grizzlies suspended Morant for the IG video, he said in a statement that he takes “full responsibility” for his actions that night.
“I’m sorry to my family, teammates, coaches, fans, partners, the city of Memphis and the entire Grizzlies organization for letting you down. I’m going to take some time away to get help and work on learning better methods of dealing with stress and my overall well-being,” he wrote.
As an athlete-turned-preacher-turned-writer, I’m no doomsday prophet. I’m an eternal optimist who believes in particular that Black boys from South Carolina can do beautiful things. At the same time, I wish those prophesying that the 23-year-old Morant is going to lose everything, or those calling him ignorant, would try to understand what life was like for Black boys growing up in South Carolina.
For some of us, leaving home is not as simple as packing our bags. There is the survivor’s guilt, the fear that leaving our family and friends behind counts as a lack of love for home. “There ain’t nothing for you here,” people back home tell us. But we want there to be something there for us, and we feel guilty when we make it and our people don’t.
Then we are condemned by a white world that refuses to extend us the grace that it extends to others. We see white boys from South Carolina displaying enough firepower to destroy themselves, their families, plus us and our families, and being praised for it.
I need Morant to understand what making it out of the “Corridor of Shame” actually means.
But I need Morant to understand what making it out of the “Corridor of Shame” actually means: not just for those who look to us for inspiration, but actually to us.
For the Black athlete, especially the Black boy athlete from South Carolina, we carry within us the possibility of loving ourselves and the places we come from in ways that people from outside our hometowns have refused. We carry knowledge of our communities that others don’t have. We carry the hopes of other young Black boys from South Carolina, and that’s something that we have to be OK with. As heavy as that obligation may feel at times, we should treat it like a gift, treat it like something sacred. That’s not corny or immature. That’s actually loving the places that shaped us.
On “Napa Act 4,” an episode of The Midnight Miracle podcast, Yasiin Bey says, “It’s terrible to pretend to be something that you are not.” But, he adds, “It’s worse to pretend to not be something that you actually are.” I was re-listening to that episode for maybe the fifth time when I heard about what Morant had posted to Instagram.
I’m not going to lie. At one point, I shook my head and sent a friend a text asking what was wrong with Morant. But the more I think about Bey’s quote, Morant’s mistakes, my own failures — and the way people loved me through those failures and helped me get better — the more I hope that Morant, like each of us, learns not to pretend.
It’s OK to leave some things, and even some friends, behind. It’s also OK to ditch old ideas of what we owe people. But it’s not OK to remain unaware of how holding on to the wrong people and the wrong ideas can hurt us in some terrible ways.
Morant saying he’s sorry is a good start. He does need time to, as he said, learn “better methods of dealing with stress” and to focus on his overall well-being. Contrary to what others have said, I refuse to believe Morant is doomed. I believe this Black boy who creates so much magic on the court will learn from his mistake.
Why?
Because “that’s how we do in South Carolina.”