Thursday, July 8, 2010

MEDITATION ON RACE & BULLSHIT

We are waiting
on Lebron
to make a decision
tonight
on our national sports
platform.
Ho hum.
He'll decide
to play
on any one of five
hardwoods in major
commercial markets.
Whatever decision
he makes
will make me sad;
sad for the souls
of all black folks
and sad for the white folks
who's souls were black
who's assholes
he's fucking
without knowing
he's fucking them.
I think of Jack,
fingers in the cunts
of blond broads,
gold teeth blinding
the eyes of cops;
Joe & Sugar Ray,
Jack Robinson, & X,
& MLK, & Marcus & Stokely,
Roi/Amiri, Spike & Chris;
white Jews who traveled
South, placed barricades
& dodged dogs
& clubs; Abernathy, Ashe,
Ali, Dundee, & LBJ that Texas
shitkicking ballbreaker.
All that work; all that
blood; all that grief; all
those lives. For what?
So that we now have a new vaudeville
filled with entertainers?
New blackface. New dancers & partners &
singers of tunes
so easily forgotten like Chinese food
on a Sunday.

It seems the worst
of the white race
have won.
They've taken the best
of rhythm, dance, speech,
sound, colors, grace, strength
and style and breathed it in
and exhaled a corporation,
a label,
a signifier,
a signature,
that lures us into
the worst sleep.
It has given us Lebron
and Barack;
nice enough people, perhaps,
but without edge,
without courage,
without heart.
I look at the ghettos,
the schools,
the prisons,
the six o'clock news,
and see further erosion
of most things
black without barely a glance
a word
from our president.
He has been deft
at using his race
to avoid it
while signifying it.
The country
and the world
as is
deserve no better.
We've known
for a long time
what is right
and made a left
turn.

Ho hum.

I had hoped
against my wish
not to hope
that Lebron
and some of the others,
would have stepped forward
and played for MJ
in Charlotte
for, if they had to,
slave wages:mere
millions.
Not because I'm especially fond of MJ,
which I am,
but because he could use their help and
he's black. The first
black owner
in NBA history. Maybe some think
that's no longer something,
but it is.

Watching the Celtic/Cav series,
I saw Lebron collapse
from a champion's stress;
they took his heart
and stopped it.
He was a long way from Ali
not stepping forward or
coming out for the last round
in Manilla.
Lebron looked
like he wanted to be taken out.
Fuck em,
I said to myself,
and moved on.
Now,
this most favored of gifted athletes
wants money
and championships
and will create
the most direct line
to get them--
and he will.
And in these times,
he will be idolized
by millions,
if not billions
who have
the memory
and heart
of a flea.

Ho hum.
Pass the salt.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

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