Grant Hill, Jalen Rose, And Missing The Point On ‘Uncle Tom’ Accusation

On Wednesday, Duke’s most successful black player ever, Grant Hill, took to the New York Times with a response to Jalen Rose and some of the Fab Five members that called Duke’s black players “Uncle Toms” in their ESPN documentary from this past weekend.

When Rose’s comments first surfaced, I believe I said, “We might have to recalibrate the real-o-meter.” So, yeah... It’s not surprising that this ruffled some feathers. But for all the eloquence of Hill’s response, there’s still absolutely nothing wrong with what Jalen said.

What Hill writes in the New York Times is practically impossible to criticize:

To hint that those who grew up in a household with a mother and father are somehow less black than those who did not is beyond ridiculous. [...] I caution my fabulous five friends to avoid stereotyping me and others they do not know in much the same way so many people stereotyped them back then for their appearance and swagger.

I am proud of my family. I am proud of my Duke championships and all my Duke teammates. And, I am proud I never lost a game against the Fab Five.

Indeed, his family’s story is an inspiration to all Americans, not just those of African descent, and Grant Hill’s one of the classiest professional athletes you’ll find anywhere in sports. He has a lot to be proud of, including this Times essay, a pretty epic response to Rose’s high-profile hatin’.

But lest it got lost, let’s be clear--what Jalen Rose said wasn’t ridiculous. Just honest.

“For me, Duke was personal. I hated Duke and I hated everything I felt Duke stood for. Schools like Duke didn’t recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms.”

“I was jealous of Grant Hill. He came from a great black family, congratulations. Your mom went to college and was roommates with Hilary Clinton. Your dad played in the NFL, is a very well-spoken and successful man. I was upset and bitter that my mom had to bust her hump for 20-plus years. I was bitter that I had a professional athlete that was my father that I didn’t know.”

All of that comes in the past-tense. Was... Hated... Felt. Jalen was telling a camera how he felt, not how he feels. No intelligent person saw that Fab Five documentary and said to themselves, “Jalen’s right! Duke is full of Uncle Toms!”

But it took guts for an ESPN employee like Rose, a class act and a success story in his own right, to tell us exactly how he saw America’s favorite college basketball team back then. We shouldn’t mock his past ignorance, or punish his present honesty.

That’s low-hanging fruit.

Rose was deserted by a professional athlete father and grew up dirt poor in a rough section of Detroit, the perfect antithesis to Grant Hill’s upbringing with Calvin Hill, his superstar father. It takes breathtaking laziness to ignore the contrast there, and how it shaped Jalen’s perspective on Hill and the rest of Duke.

If we want to talk about what he said in that documentary, the question shouldn’t be whether Jalen was right about Duke’s black players, because he (obviously) wasn’t. Instead, we should ask: If you grew up like Jalen, wouldn’t you feel the same way?

Grant Hill tells us his family is part of a proud American tradition, but that shouldn’t make Jalen’s memories less meaningful. His childhood’s part of an American tradition, too, it’s just not a proud one.

And as for the cheap punchline to Hill’s classy essay, his Duke teams may have beaten Michigan, but a team that lost two straight National Titles resonates a million times more than a Duke team that won two straight. So yeah, Grant’s family story may be inspiring to some, and maybe that spiteful Fab Five team was all hype. But regardless of the scoreboard, we don’t need a real-o-meter to see which team felt more authentic to basketball fans.

If Grant really wants to help change perceptions, maybe he can write about why that is.