Super Bowl (Business, not personal…)
by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
I. Mother wit
Caffie loved saying
“Live and learn…”
Swift, sharp, as a barber’s
Straight razor sliding through
Warm shaving cream, she said,
“Everything’s political—
How do you think that park
Got there? Everything’s political—
How do you think your coach got
Hired?”
Thought she’d blown a fuse,
Flipped her lid, but my mother,
Caffie’s, comeback for twelve
Year-old truth, “I don’t wanna
Go to your political meetings,
I just wanna play Little League
Baseball!” Was hip, like warning
Preachers they’d never preach
In L.A. again, if they
Didn’t demonstrate against
Police murder of a man rushing
His pregnant wife to the hospital
II. Just a game?
Ali’s title was stripped
For beating Dr. King to the
Punch on the war on Vietnam,
Jack Johnson was busted
For ‘white’ slavery, code for
Dominating’ ‘white’ men in the ring,
Robeson made All-American
But disappeared from the photo,
Like Mercury in black socks and
Black gloved-fists, John Carlos and
Tommy Smith brought Black Power
To the world stage, Mexico City,
White list, personas non grata—
Conspiracies are theories practiced again and again…
III. Business, not personal
Super Bowl XXII, 1988, Doug Williams
Throws 80-yard touchdown to Ricky
Sanders—my working-class West Berkeley
Building erupts like an 8.8 quake roiling
Two decades deep in earth’s crust,
Two more decades deeper,
Super Bowl XLI, 2007, finally for Tony
Dungy, Lovie Smith—it’s not personal,
It’s business, $4 million every 30 seconds,
$8 million a minute brands buzzing like
A billion bees, in tens of millions of
Living rooms of men stuffing their faces
With pizza, guzzling Bud…
The biggest “boots on the ground,”
Bombers flying over stadium,
Halliburton, Boeing day of the
Year, the grandest stage for singing
About “bombs bursting in air,” the
Most decadent day for flaunting
Ill-gotten gains like emperors perched
High in luxury boxes, applauding concussions
On cleats, plastic explosions, 300lb men crashing,
Smashing full -speed into one another for 60 minutes…
Then comes this "Beast Mode,” this
Marshawn Lynch cat, unpredictable
Like Jazz, SILENCE, dead air stare,
“I’m here so I won’t get fined,” 29
Times, like a Coltrane lick, looped…
“Shout out to all my real Africans
Out there,” “Tha Town in tha building …
Handlin’ Town Biz—” maybe “Hands
Up don’t shoot,” or “I can’t breathe?”
He could not score, could not be MVP,
Making the NFL, NBC, mega-marketing
Monday morning footnotes, afterthoughts
Upstaged by n*##%^ comin’ Cali—
Compton, Oakland, ones Euro-Americans,
‘White’ folks, crackers, good ol' boys don’t
Want up in their living rooms, Africans who
Venture politics, like 1 Cleveland Brown, 5
Rams, 3 Seahawks who veer sharply off
Script, tossing plantation talking-points,
Refusing to lock and load semi-automatic clichés,
Africans who make living rooms unsafe places
For crackers feeling their lives threatened, feeling
Forced to stand ‘their’ ground, shooting dead 52”
TVs with shotguns and ARs if they show Africans
With keys to shiny new Cadillacs and goin’ to
Disneyland, family, extended family, ‘hood, in tow!
Should Euros see their African star after sundown, a
Street on Mercer Island, he’s an unknown-known
In Rumsfeld-speak, 12th Man bullshit fades like Native
Fishing on Puget Sound, as their hearts start skipping,
Thumping like bass drums in blues bands, crossing the
Street, clutching light purses tighter, dialing SPD in a
New York minute, slightly more comfortable with
God-invoking, less threatening, nuanced Negroz…
Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at Raymond (at) upsurgejazz.com
Raymond Nat Turner © 2015 All Rights Reserved
Dr. Nicole Price is the Forbes Books author of Spark The Heart: Engineering Empathy In Your Organization.
Nick Encalada-Malinowski is Director of the Civil Rights Union campaign at Vocal-NY.
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