Jim Brown has Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan in his cross hairs.  The two successful black athletes may be exceptional role models, but Brown says they still need to make a difference.

In a profile of Brown and Bill Russell that will air on HBO’s Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel, Brown ripped Woods, expressing disappointment that Woods shows such passion on the golf course but doesn’t seem passionate about making a difference in society.

“You know what’s so interesting about Tiger to me?” Brown said. “He is a killer, he will run over you, he will kick your ass. But as an individual for social change? Terrible. Terrible. Because he can get away with teaching kids to play golf, and that’s his contribution. In the real world, I can’t teach kids to play golf and that’s my contribution, if I’ve got that kind of power.”

Showing young black men that they can be something other than thugs and gangsters doesn’t make a difference?  If everyone – black, white or whatever – were the kind of people Woods and Jordan are, we wouldn’t need anyone to make a difference in society.

Here you have two stellar role models for young black boys, and Jim Brown is acting like they’re responsible for all the troubles in the black community. Rather than whining that people who succeed have some obligation to give back to people who have done nothing for them, a silly idea that perpetuates the entitlement culture, maybe Mr. Brown should focus on what really plagues the community, like decades of welfare policies that have encouraged single motherhood and created a culture of dependence.  On the other hand, tearing down the best a community has to offer is a strange way of trying to help it.

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