Meet the new voice of black America

This handsome fellow to our left is named Steve Cohen, and if you’re a supremely-talented black high school basketball player he really, really wants you to know that he has your best interests at heart.

You see, Mr. Cohen is actually Congressman Cohen, and he’s from Tennessee. He recently wrote a letter to David Stern, informing the NBA commissioner that the league’s policy of requiring high school players to attend one year of college before being eligible for the NBA Draft is completely unfair.

Cohen then, uh, expanded on his thoughts in an interview with the New York Times (report via Sportscracklepop.com):

“It’s a vestige of slavery,” Cohen said Wednesday in a phone interview, noting that most of the players affected by the rule are African-American. “Not like the slavery of 150 years ago, but it’s a restraint on a person’s freedoms and liberties.”

Oy vey.

Look, we tend to believe the NBA’s one-year policy is ill-conceived as well. The fact is, if a player has no real desire to be a college student, then he shouldn’t be in college. And with the way the NCAA’s eligibility guidelines are set up, it’s completely conceivable that a one-and-done player could muddle his way through an entire school year while barely attending a class. It’s not like you’re impressing the value of education on these young people.

But when well-heeled white politicians start tossing around “slavery” accusations, we tend to get a little uneasy.

Then again, it’s not like Cohen has more pressing issues in his state than bemoaning the fate of an 18-year-old kid with mad hops and a sick jumper.

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