The Crushers Club (2013- ) is an after-school boxing club that tries to keep boys in Englewood, Chicago from joining gangs by getting them interested in boxing or music.
As their website (crushersclub.org) tells it:
“Our mission is to be the strongest alternative to gangs. We arm young people with the support and skills they need to restore their lives and improve their neighborhood. Crushers Club is rooted in four ideals – respect, discipline, ownership, and love – that give our members a fighting chance.”
This week Inspire Change said they will give them $200,000.
Inspire Change gets its money from the National Football League (NFL), the Players Coalition and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation. It hopes to inspire change in each NFL city by giving money to do-gooder outfits like the Crushers Club. It is the NFL’s attempt to move past the take-a-knee protests against police brutality started by Colin Kaepernick in 2016.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Jay-Z, August 14th 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Roc Nation)
The NFL took in about $16 billion last year. Even though most players (70%) are Black, most owners (94%) are White. No owners are Black. They give Donald Trump and his political machine millions of dollars.
Jay-Z, the world’s first billionaire rapper, informed the nation on August 14th 2019:
“I think we’ve moved past kneeling and I think it’s time to go into actionable items.”
To that end he made a murky deal with the NFL, apparently behind Colin Kaepernick’s back, to “enhance live game experiences and amplify the league’s social justice efforts”. Inspire Change is part of that.
Vetting: Sports Illustrated says the Crushers Club was “reportedly hand-selected and vetted by Roc Nation”. Yet it did not take long for Black Twitter to find Crushers Club’s:
Terrible tweets:
October 25th 2016: shows a White woman cutting off the dreadlocks of a Black teenage boy and says: “And another Crusher let me cut his dreads off! It’s symbolic of change and their desire for a better life!” Here is the full picture:
Next tweet:
August 7th 2018: Shows some Black boys, one smiling, one holding up a police badge, and says: “Our Jr CPD [Chicago Police Department] they can’t wait to arrest someone! Especially hearing they can start making 70k as a cop!”
Another tweet:
June 20th 2019: Shows a White female Chicago police officer talking to a Black teenage boy and says: “Crushers Cops and Cupcakes – what better way to bridge the gap than with sweets? Thanx CPD we are in this together!”
At first I thought it was a sick joke.
White Saviour: Sally Hazelgrove is the founder of Crushers Club. She is the White woman (colonizer) cutting off the dreadlocks. She deleted the tweets and tried to play them down. From what I know, it is as bad as it looks.
The Better Boys Foundation is also getting $200,000 from Inspire Change. They also started as an after-school boxing club and were also founded by White people (Joseph Kellman and actor Buddy Hackett).
An apparently little-known fact: There are plenty of organizations in Chicago and elsewhere helping Black people which are led by – actual Black people.
Jay-Z has yet to comment.
– Abagond, 2019.
See also:
- Colin Kaepernick
- take a knee
- billionaire
- Donald Trump
- Jay-Z
- The police
- Chicago police:
- Fred Hampton
- Laquan McDonald
- Rekia Boyd
- Ronald Johnson
- Homan Square
- dreadlocks
- applicable tropes:
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Abagond 
Crushing and killing culture is no solution.
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It’s as of no surprise, that any and all charities in the form of afterschool programs for poor black children, are owned, operated and started by white people that position themselves to receive these donations in the 100’s of thousands of dollars. Their sole purpose to to spend as little on the children as possible by buying them cupcakes, then pocketing the rest for themselves.
While the grassroot charities, that are owned, operated and started by black people get no media exposure or support from these billion dollar CEO’s.
Yeah, the answer to black children’s poverty, exposure to drugs, violence,
are cupcakes, getting their locks chopped off by white people and becoming police officers!
And the cruel irony is apparent to me, that they chose to depict black male children, fantasizing about law enforcement as the profession of choice.
The profession of which, the majority of black men, teenagers and boys are themselves, victims of!
The black boy holding up a prop police badge is liken to a jew, holding up a swastika and being groomed to enter the third reich, so he can arrest and kill his fellow jews!
White people never really want to help black people and you know this from how they approach black people from a white paternalistic position.
if they really want to help black people, they’d join a black charity, led by and owned by black people and make themselves available to be called upon, when assistance is needed, then step back in the background.
Don’t call me, i’ll call you!
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White woman shown in picture cutting off a young, Black man’s dreads: “It’s symbolic of change and their desire for a better life!” – says who?
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@ sondis -well said and well read.
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White supremacy is insidious! Demons!
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“And another Crusher let me cut his dreads off! It’s symbolic of change and their desire for a better life!” – Crushers Club
Lawdy, Lawdy have mercy on Black folks in Amerika, the belly of the beast, the same serpent that was in the biblical garden!
Cutting off a young, so-called African American’s dreadlocks is quite far from being “symbolic of change.” In fact, it’s symbolic “change” of castration in the metaphorical realm.
Additionally, this white controlled organization appears to be utilizing emasculation as a tool in order to impede the psychological growth of these young men from reaching their full potential and development as strong men, which at some point and if left alone, could cultivate organic leaders, not a handpicked person by people extraneous to the culture.
We as a people do not need our enemies to socially or psychologically engineer our young men in a manner to their liking, that is, to be socially acceptable and non-threatening. And as Yah once told Moses, after His people asked, who is this God? Yah then replied to: “I am who I am.” (Exodus 3:14) Hell, .. the same thing applies here, we are who we are!
As a people, have we ever seen Malcolm X cut the hair of a KKK member in an attempt to reform him or her away from their collectively, demonic behavior??
As a people, have we seen Minister Farrakhan cut the hair of a Neo-Nazi or White Identity Extremist (WIE) in an attempt to steer them away from a path of racial hate?
Personally, I’d like to petition the Crushers Club to give JZ a haircut, the High School dropout; he could use one right about now!
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Yeah, This just gets worse, Jay-Z is a sellout billionaire. And the NFL is nothing but a racist organization that is using Jay-Z to shut black folks up. This is so disgusting and disrespectful. Plus it’s hypocritical seeing Jay-Z is wearing locs himself. So what these Trump Chuds are saying is that black folks hair is unacceptable because the dominant culture has always been judgmental of our hair. This is just B.S.. The NFL cares nothing about social justice issues in regards to black people and their lives.
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Seeing that picture of that white Woman cutting off that young black kid’s loc’s just makes my teeth itch. This is nothing but white supremacy trying to dominate black people, it’s very paternalistic. I guess the good white folks know what’s best for the dumb darkies is what this ratchet and racist organization is saying. All them Jay -Z included can go kick rocks.
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Sally Hazelgrove the colonizer witch. Seeing herself as some white savior. I hope someone gets her together. I had such a visceral reaction to her stupid face. In that photo she seems to exhibit glee from cutting that boy’s locs off. And somebody needs to get to those black kids and make them understand they are being used for white supremacy.
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So now Hazelgrove is apologizing. Apparently the backlash was too much. What doesn’t Jay-Z’s team do vetting before giving this money to these so called charities that are supposed to help black young people?
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Why isn’t Jay-Z speaking about this matter?
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In the Starz series “America to Me”, a white teacher at Oak Park and River Forest High School in Chicago told a student, a young Black girl, that he was there to “fix Black people”. Same mentality,
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@ Mitch
Yep. “You got to get’em when their young.” Paraphrasing Ray Crock and Adolph Hitler.
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Mary Burrell:
This was just one of the many, nonsensical responses, Jay Z gave to the charlemagne personality on the breakfast club radio station.
Jay:
“I think that we forget that Colin’s whole thing was to bring attention to social injustice so in that case this is a success — this is the next thing. There’s two parts of protest: the protest, and then there’s a company or individual saying ‘I hear you, what do we do next?’ For me it’s about actionable items, what are we gonna do about it?”
Although this statement wasn’t regarding the crushers club fiasco but the NFL football player colin kaepernick, that was “white balled” by the NFL for kneeling during the national anthem at the beginning of NFL games.
it just gives you an idea on why he isn’t saying anything, If not only to make himself look more dumb but to not further incriminate himself.
I don’t even look at Jay z as someone i need to hear speak on black issues on the behalf of black people as a collective.
He’s a billionaire Hip hop mogul, that relates to black people as much as Donald trump.
It’s fine if you want to listen to jay z’s music and want to know what he has to say about an industry and everyone within it, that made him a billionaire.
Other than that, he isn’t qualified to speak on behalf of oppressed black people, being he has shown to himself to sell out black people, using colin kaepernick’s cause for his own benefit.
Therefore, the question of, “why isn’t jay z speaking about this matter” shouldn’t be asked.
That being said, black people need to STOP looking up to black athletes and celebrities as people of a higher moral standard.
if anything, they’re more likely to sell their fellow black people out for a quick buck, if they haven’t already!
All it takes for black people to be influenced by another black person is for them put out a song with a catchy beat with simple lyrics with no message or meaning, then black people will follow them like the Pied Piper.
This needs to stop….
If and when another black revolution comes, you need to understand that it won’t be a rich black celebrity athlete or entertainer from the music or movie industry that begins it.
The individual would most likely be a black person from the likes of which, we’ve already seen. His crimes included:
Drug dealing
Gambling
Racketeering
Robbery
Pimping.
And who may that be, you ask?
His name was Malcolm Little but you know him as, Malcolm X
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Respectability politics (cutting the locs off of black kids) and entertainment is not going to save black folks especially in respect to police brutality.
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There should be a female equivalent in which Black girls are given the opportunity to reduce the size of their butts for a better life– you know, because the first thing that White people vilified in their triumph to conceive race was not skin color!
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I was shocked to find that despite all the ‘Islamophobia’ from Trump, the Jacksonville Jaguars majority owner, Shahid Khan, still have him a million dollars. But how does a run down town like Jacksonville even have a NFL team. Abandoned homes and stray cats with the biggest employer being Walmart?
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The older I get, the less I want to have anything to do with these people. Even the supposedly progressive ones’ white supremacy surfaces.
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@Herneith
Because you will probably need miss out on some very good people with that attitude..
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Crushers Club White Charity Leader Deletes Photos Cutting Black Teenagers’ Dreadlocks
https://www.diversityinc.com/crushers-club-white-charity-leader-deletes-photos-cutting-black-teenagers-dreadlocks/
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@ theUntoldStory
“…you will probably…miss out on some very good people with that attitude.”
Not really.
Missing out on the tiny minority of “very good people” is a price worth paying to not be kicked in the teeth for the thousandth time by the not so ‘very good’ majority.
Avoiding malicious people is a pretty normal human thing to do.
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@ Glenn Robinson
Thanks for sharing that link. That photo was disturbing on so many levels. I’m glad Twitter hasn’t shut down all of Black Twitter…yet.
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@afrofem
Sometimes you get help from surprising places. You still maintain a recognizable face with substantial political power and respect a person of my background has never experienced. Don’t ever take that for granted.
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The Samson/Delilah-emasculation symbolism should be obvious.
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(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msvnQTtLaVA)
Well, there you have it.
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satanforce:
It’s blatantly obvious, the video that was made and released by TMZ was staged by the white people at the crushers club.
The white women heard in the background, asking the black men questions is clearly steering the interview by asking direct questions and the black man gave direct responses as if it was rehearsed.
The accolades and praises applied to Sally Hazelgrove by this young black man in that video, particular the “God like” praise, just reaffirms our assertion of a white savior complex, that white people have with what they perceive as lowly individuals that need saving.
It’s the brainwashing of these black children by these white people to give them the impression that they aren’t the enemy. And in turn, leads them to believe that it isn’t white people’s fault that they’re poor, are predisposed to drugs, violence and are 10 times more likely to be arrested than a white person.
It’s black people own fault!
what truly lies behind every white person that starts a charity for black children/people:
1 They want black people to be grateful for any good deeds they do for them.
2 The stigma of being a white racist is removed from them, if not by the black people they help, from their fellow racist white people that also want the stigma of being a white racist washed off them too.
3 Other white people want to get in on some white savior action, so they seek out white people that do good deeds for black people ( in a high profile way as to get as much attention of the public ) and ask to borrow some of that, “white racism be gone” spray by giving them an “honor” or “award” for their humanitarian activism toward black people.
3 The white people’s burden, white guilt is removed from their conscious.
They feel absolved about living in a world, where they receive unearned benefits that were afforded to them by free slave labor and stolen land that was owned by the ancestors of the black people they claim to be “helping” today.
So we’ve learned that white people who start charities in black communities, aren’t doing it to helping black children but to help themselves.
Black people aren’t the ones that need a white savior, it’s white people that do…
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“white racism be gone” spray
That’s a good one. I wonder if it is available by the ounce or the gallon. Are there choices of fragrances?
hearty laugh
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@Sondis
Spot on assessment!
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You missed the two important parts I brought up –
The emasculation of young black men. The Help is the biggest example of this. Being able to take a big black buck and tame him, like Tarzan and his animals, gives white people a sense of control. You can’t forget about the need to control.
Black people do not control their own wealth – Either Jay-Z was too crazy, or too stupid to see what his money was doing. Either way Black American Wealth != Black Political Power.
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https://www.yahoo.com/gma/dont-know-sally-black-teen-defends-white-woman-090027623–abc-news-topstories.html
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As to the above article about the young man who was getting his dreadlocks cut off by this white woman – I am glad that he turned his life around but it’s unfortunate that the image of her cutting his hair (reminiscent of Samson and Delilah) received a negative response from our community because that was just the wrong pictograph. Perhaps it should have been done privately and not put on display if it was personal for him and representative of his lease on life. But the image is a take down of our culture and what it means to us. Dreadlocks should not be depicted as representative of thug life. Unfortunate photo op.
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@ dorisjean 23: I agree with your post but if the head of that organization is a Trump supporter i find that suspicious and can’t trust that. I agree it’s a good thing the youth turned his life around. But the thing that galls me is the judgement of black people hair and how wearing locs is something negative.
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Black hair should not be criminalized.
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@ Mary Burrell
The other side of the criminalization of Black hair is White apropriation of Black hairstyles. Black people are browbeat, heckled, humiliated and kicked out of schools and workplaces for not covering up what grows out of our scalps.
White appropriators are hailed as ‘edgy’, ‘exotic’ and ‘stylish’ when they mimic Black/African hair textures and styles. When a backlash from Black women ensues, the same White appropriators and their fans feign innocence. Some have the everlovin’ nerve to become irritated and say, “it’s just a hairstyle, what are you Negros going on about?”
What indeed!
This is the same crowd that insists “there is no such thing as White privilege”. Fish don’t see water, they just swim in it.
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@Afrofem: I can see no lies in your comment.
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Why are you so racist?
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Kobe Richardson (one of the young men getting his dreads cut off and now a supervisor at crushers club), has spoken out about the incident.
https://www.bet.com/news/national/2019/09/10/crusher-club-member-kobe-richardson-says–he-has-nothing-but-lov.html
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We know.
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