A Rant Against Playground Pedophiles and Pimps

Warning: This is a Rant, a personal Editorial, devoid of fact and full of emotion. You may not want to read it.

For the last week, I've tried to figure out what upset me so much about the OJ2 scandal. I was deeply disappointed because, against all odds, toward the end of the year I started liking OJ2.

What follows is what I came up with -- my reasons for being upset.

OJ Mayo and the Playground Perverts

Adults should never exploit children for their own purposes. Never. Whether the exploitation is physical or commercial, it is unacceptable. Using children for one’s own purposes is wrong.

Where I come from, if an adult is hanging around a playground watching kids swing, slide and play tag – it’s wrong and we move them off. We teach or kids to scream and run from these playground pedophiles. We have yard monitors who keep them away.

When a strange adult approaches a kid on the playground with promises of money and nice things – those are words and acts that can get a man shot.

We don’t let strangers buy our kids clothes or take them on road trips.

The exploitation of children, by adults, for the benefit of adults, is wrong.

Except, I guess, when it comes to exploiting young kids who can dribble and dunk. 

Then, somehow, in the eyes of many in the sports world, it becomes acceptable.

What sickens me most about the OJ2 situation is not what OJ2 did and not how sc is covering it up.

 What sickens me most is what went on, years ago, on the playgrounds where OJ2 was “discovered”. We’ve all seen it. Leering men surrounding playground hoops. Making comments, promises, offers. Fortune, fame a future, just get in the car with me. 

I cannot help but feel sorry for OJ2. Yes, he is an adult now. But, he wasn’t when all of this started.

The exploitation of OJ2, by adults, started when he was very young. From what I’ve read on the ‘net, Mayo came to prominence while a 6th grader when an article in a Kentucky newspaper called him a phenom. From that point on he was packaged and used by adults. The control was so strong, and OJ2’s relative bargaining position so weak, that, as one of the “Outside the Lines” commentators said, “OJ had no choice but to play along.”

From an early age, OJ2 was seen as a commodity, a way to win basketball games and championships in both high school and college, a way to sell shoes,  a meal ticket, a means to fortune and fame by grown men who had no business using this child for their own purposes. Yes, OJ2 got some of the proceeds, but not a great percentage.

He was being pimped. 

We try to keep these pimps away from our daughters. 

Why don’t we offer the same protections to our sons – the ones who are 6 feet tall in elementary school, who can dribble and shoot with either hand?

Shame on the shoes companies. Shame on the “AAU” for allowing the exploitation of very young kids for selfish purposes.

Yes, these kids get exposure, get to play ball and they get uniforms, take trips and “broaden their horizons”. 

So do the young run away girls, fresh off the busses from the midwest, who end up in the porn business – turned by slick adults who promise cool clothes and  stardom.

There is something inherently wrong with grown men hanging around playgrounds, contacting kids, buying them things, making them promises and, ultimately, taking control of their lives.

How do we stop them?

We take the profit out of the enterprise. We create a situation where no one needs a pimp – where the pimps are punished, as well as the workers and customers.

Right now, OJ2 seems beyond the reach of sanctions. I think he’s old enough to punish for the conscious decisions made in the last year or so, but I really don’t hold him responsible. The path that led him to today started years ago – when he was too young to be held accountable. However, I would not oppose an NBA rule that denied entry for a year or two to someone in OJ2’s position. Yes, in the long run, he will have profited. But, no more than the pimps will have profited.

I’d like to give the AAU and the NBA a chance to create rules for the “development” of child talent – some “do’s” and “don’ts”. And, if they can’t come up with rules, I’d like to see the government take a stab at it. (When children were being exploited in the entertainment business, rules were passed to protect them. I don’t see the situation as being much different.)

I’d like to see the NBA create a licensing procedure for agents and require all players to use a licensed agent or attorney. The NBA could then pull the license of anyone who engages in the exploitation of kids.

And, I’d like to see the NCAA grow some stones and enforce the rules already on the books. sc is complicit in the exploitation – no one in his or her right mind, knowing OJ2’s history, would not have seen this coming. No one. sc is not a victim. It is a perpetrator and should be punished, too.

This one year of college play is important to the pimps and their players. It’s the exposure that set’s the commodities market price. The NCAA has rules in place to control this year. By failing to enforce them, the NCAA but another link in the chain that stretches back to the playgrounds and the pedophiles and perverts that lurk around them.