Can Floyd Mayweather read?
That seems to be the question of the day, after his former friend 50 Cent released a few Instagram videos challenging the boxer to read live on Jimmy Kimmel, and said he’d donate $750,000 to charity if Floyd could read a full page from the books Harry Potter or Cat In The Hat out loud.
To make matters worse, yesterday The Breakfast Club aired an old audio clip of the boxer attempting to read a drop for ShowYourStripes.org. Although it took Charlamagne 10 seconds to read the script live on air, in the audio it took Floyd multiple tries. Social media erupted with various reactions to the audio, with many finding the cringe-worthy clip hilarious, however, one person who didn’t think it was a laughing matter was social commentator Marc Lamont Hill.
Taking to his Twitter account, Marc expressed that it is cruel to to make fun of someone who may not be able to read fluently and the public shaming of literacy is why most people don’t get help:
I don’t see any humor in mocking Floyd Mayweather on this reading stuff. It feels cruel and out-of-bounds.. Also, as @bomani_jones said earlier, you may find that some of the people laughing with you may make you uncomfortable. First of all, y’all don’t know if Floyd can read or not. Struggling to read a drop out loud doesn’t mean you’re illiterate… Plenty of people can read just fine but have “fluency” issues that would make reading a teleprompter or script difficult. Also, the public shaming of literacy is why people DON’T get help for reading…
He also sent a little shade towards Fif by reminding us that the rapper isn’t exactly known for spelling correctly and using correct grammar himself.
And finally, just to keep it 100, half of 50 Cent’s tweets are filled with gross misspellings that would suggest undeveloped literacy…Not even going in on 50, but just scroll down his TL right now. Read his last 20 tweets.How many reflect a strong grasp of Standard English? I don’t really care about the Floyd or 50 beef. I just don’t want us to get into the cultural practice of mocking struggling readers… There’s plenty of stuff to criticize Floyd for: crass consumerism, domestic abuse, etc. Focus on that… Not his reading…It’s amazing that more people are shaming Floyd for literacy issues than domestic abuse allegations.
Meanwhile, a few callers called in to The Breakfast Club yesterday to crack jokes on Floyd while saying he makes too much money not to know how to read, but one in particular was a teacher, and she definitely didn’t think it was funny.
Basically I feel like 60 percent of African-Americans are illiterate and I really don’t think it’s funny. You never hear about Caucasians putting this on blast. I have an organization that is working so hard to help African-Americans to do better so to hear things like this is upsetting. We can’t bring each other up, we can’t work together because we are so busy putting each other down.
Before her call, DJ Envy actually defended Floyd and expressed that he may struggle with his reading because he dropped out of 6th grade. For clarity, Floyd dropped out of high school after realizing that boxing would be his ticket to success. (According to a 2006 USA Today article)
A quick study in the ring, Mayweather dropped out of Ottawa Hills High School in Grand Rapids in his senior year after he realized boxing was his ticket to success.“I could’ve been an A student, but my whole focus was on getting out of the inner city and positioning myself so my family could be comfortable,” he says. “I was in the 12th grade, and they had a trip to Russia for the world (amateur) championships. I was like, ‘You can always go back to school. But an opportunity like this comes once in a lifetime.’ I took that risk, and it paid off.”
You can catch 50′s reading challenge to Floyd below:
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