Whitlock: Ja Morant’s impersonation of Tupac Shakur will lead to death

We’ve seen the Ja Morant movie before. The prequels primarily featured rappers.

Scott La Rock. Tupac Shakur. Notorious B.I.G. Jam Master Jay. Mac Dre. Nipsey Hussle. Young Dolph. Takeoff.

Those are just a few of the rap stars who lost their lives chasing street credibility with gold chains, tattoos, and a gun-toting, menacing personality. The list is long enough to justify a Wikipedia page title “List of murdered hip hop musicians.”

There’s an even longer list of names of wannabe rap stars who sacrificed their freedom in pursuit of street cred. In hip-hop, incarceration is a rite of passage. Criminal infamy is how you get juice. Ask Meek Mill or T.I. or Lil Boosie or YoungBoy Never Broke Again.

Ja Morant, the 23-year-old NBA star, is on a collision course with infamy. Late Saturday, Morant livestreamed himself brandishing another handgun. This time he was riding in a car with a friend singing a rap song. Sunday morning, the Memphis Grizzlies announced they had suspended their star guard indefinitely.

It’s Morant’s second suspension in 2023. A few months ago, Morant livestreamed from inside a Denver strip club. He flashed a gun. He was suspended for about two weeks. In a contrived interview, Morant told ESPN’s Jalen Rose that he had traveled to Florida to seek counseling on dealing with pressure and stress.

The pressure Morant is dealing with is his desire to be the Tupac Shakur of basketball. It’s a desire that has afflicted many young black men since the 1991 release of “2Pacalypse Now,” the rapper’s first album, and the 1992 release of “Juice,” the movie that exponentially increased the rapper’s fame.

Allen Iverson was the first basketball star to impersonate Shakur. In 1993, at the age of 17, Iverson served four months in prison for his role in a bowling alley riot. Iverson’s NBA career started one month after the murder of Shakur, one month after Hollywood and the music industry began turning the dead rapper into Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. rolled into a single blunt.

By the pinnacle of his NBA career, Iverson looked every bit the part of Tupac’s little brother.

Yes, we’ve seen the Ja Morant movie before. He’s playing the role that corporate media, social media, and popular culture designed for young black men. We’re the self-destructive anti-hero in every movie.

Hollywood and social media celebrate and enrich black criminals and exploit dead black men. A society gets the behavior it rewards. Ja Morant is the rich man’s version of George Floyd. Floyd’s value in America went from zero to $1 billion in eight minutes. His lone accomplishment – dying under the knee of a white cop – made him one of the most important men in American history.

Ja Morant wants to be important. He’s not going to be the next Barack Obama or Colin Powell. Morant won’t be Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan. Those endeavors require the appearance of intellect and discipline.

Anyone can mimic the behavior of a rapping idiot. All you need are tats, gold jewelry, and a willingness to present yourself as a potential criminal. That’s light work for Ja Morant.

It’s also rewarding. Sports television networks love signing unrepentant black buffoons to argue about sports and broadcast games. A criminal rap sheet enhances the qualifications of black sports broadcasters.

At this point, despite his best efforts, Ja Morant has avoided criminal allegations. The Indiana Pacers believe Morant was involved in an incident in which a red laser targeting dot threatened a vehicle transporting members of their staff. A teenage boy in Memphis claims Morant threatened him with a gun after a dispute in a pickup basketball game. Mall security in Memphis claim Morant and his posse threatened workers.

We’re moving close to the climax of Ja Morant’s version of “Juice.” Tupac’s character, Bishop, dies in the end. He falls to his death after failing to kill his former friend Q. The movie ends when a bystander tells Q, “Yo, you got the juice now.”

Ja Morant wants the juice. It’s the juice that killed Tupac and so many others. It’s the juice that made Allen Iverson a cultural icon, a drunk, and a degenerate gambler.

Juice is the enemy of truth. Morant is living a lie. He’s not a street kid. He’s a young man from an intact family. He desires an infamy that will kill him or incarcerate him. It’s sad.

It’s sad how many young black men view a gun as an accessory item for their image or a prop for a music video.

The American gun represents freedom from government oppression. That’s the logic and truth undergirding the Second Amendment. The founders established our right to bear arms because they recognized that unarmed citizens would be vulnerable to government abuse and that governments always desire to abuse their citizens. It’s in the nature of government.

That truth is not taught in schools.

Here’s the solution: We should make it illegal to brandish a firearm for any reason other than to hunt, perform a military exercise, practice at a gun range, protect your person or property, or remind the government to leave us alone.

Flashing a gun to livestream, make a TikTok video or an IG post, record a music video, or any other frivolous activity should be a felony.

What we know of Morant’s use of a firearm only puts himself and the people around him in danger. He’s going to get someone killed. The movies all end the same.