Read about the courageous act executed of the players of the 1965 AFL All-Star Game. The league was scheduled to play at Louisiana's Tulane University's stadium. The AFL was a new league in direct competition with the NFL at the time. It is now defunct but it had a heyday. The sixties were a time of racial upheaval (like now) and the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement started years earlier. Tensions were high and in the South, and regardless of what the Federal gov't might decree about ending discrimination, White southerners often did as they pleased; laws be damned..
Promises were made that the Black players would be treated according to the Federal laws on the books. Translation? Fairly. Like effin human beings. Like anyone else. Well, turns out that was not the reality they met when they arrived. Restaurants still refused to seat and serve them. Cabs would not pick them up. I'm certain the hotels didn't want them within their walls either.
The 21 Black players, led by Cookie Gilchrist of the Buffalo Bills and Abner Haynes of the Kansas City Chiefs, banded together to send a message. They voted to NOT suit up and play. Two White players backed the move - Hall of Fame inductee Ron Mix and Jack Kemp (future Republican politician).
They won their protest in a round-about way. The game was moved to Houston's Jeppesen stadium.
Athletes taking a stand for what is right. Gee. Could it happen again? Maybe. But they'd have to grow a set first. Yeah. I said it. Grow a set.. But I'll be waiting a bit, won't I? Unfortunately, the Keyrones and LeJohns who make up the NFL today are painfully young and immature. They are highly-paid plantation property and the owners know it. These young players, my Grandfather would have said, "are distracted by the shiny possessions they owe on." They got a huge mortgage on Big Mama's brand new house. They got wives, ex-wives, children, levels of side-pieces, side-pieces' children and a large overhead. They owe their souls to the company store so to speak. So, on game days when the anthem is played, what you'll see from them is a mish-mosh of half-standing, half-kneeling, the locking arms with the owner "in solidarity." Whatever that means. But what you're really gonna see is FEAR. They want to back Colin but, hey, those bills come every month. This is the line in the sand,. There is no going back from here. Either they stand with their hands over their hearts, or they kneel, or boycott. This is the defining moment. No praying. No wishing the unpleasantness away. No in-between. Nope. The sad thing is I know what each of these young ones will choose. It should be their manhood but they won't. They will stand and be owned 'cuz "look at what happened to Kap."
Mister Kaepernick's career is over. Plantation massahs love to make examples out of their errant property..Lord, I hope this guy has saved his money because his peeps have left him to twist in the wind. But he made his point at the expense of his job. It takes guts to put one's money where one's mouth is. I support Colin Kaepernick in his protest BUT let me clarify WHAT his protest was about. So many have twisted his intent to rule the narrative. His protest was NOT about disrespecting vets/troops/military/flag, or whatever else a certain demographic wants to pull out of their collective asses. He knelt because of the clear police brutality that had, and has, been going on. Kaepernick knelt because obviously out of order law officers, ones seen ON FILM assaulting and killing unarmed Black/Brown people were not even being indicted for blatant abuses. He did it every game he was in to SHOW the disinterested that people were dying. He wanted the spectators, and viewers at home to know that.. THAT is WHAT his beef was/is. Not the stars-n-stripes, pseudo-patriotic bullshit that the draft-dodging, Man In the High Chair In The White House, or some Massah/Team owner, has whipped it up to be. Got that?
My uncles went to war too. They got wounded too. They were Veterans too. They fought so people like Kap could be able to have his protest. It's freedom of expression. It's freedom of speech. They fought to defend a land that when they came home from war, denied them the comforts of the G. I. Bill. A land that, to this day, would erase their efforts from the history books if it could. Watch any WWII movie from the last 60 years. See any Black/Brown/Asian G. I.s? Didn't think so. The first time I saw any acknowledgement of a person of color having been in WWII was on "Hogan's Heroes" So, please. Check the jingoistic, flag-waving BS at the door. Last time that was a hit James Cagney was the movies' box office draw.
America, you've been played.
info courtesy of blackamericaweb
I was reading the book Hidden Figures and it talks about the African American units that fought in the war as well as all Japanese American units. And much of the early space and science programs, not just Hidden Figures, were staffed by brilliant black mathematicians. Of course, we never see this on the big screen.
ReplyDeleteNo, we never do. I recall "Red Tails" from a few years back but that was more combat oriented. There seems to be an aversion to portraying us in roles other than singing and dancing
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