African American Patriotism

It is hard to be a patriotic African American these days. With Team USA playing Belgium later today in the World Cup, there will be an exciting show of patriotism from Americans all over the world. My favorite part of this world cup has been #BlackTwitter showing it's Red, White, and Blue pride. I really thought I was the only Black person who liked America for a while. I've been very vociferous about my allegiance and love of my country, and because of it I've been subject to criticism and mockery, which has come in two forms.

My girlfriend and I often get into heated discussions about absolutely nothing. Recently I was espousing why I have a bit of a loathe-on for Europe, Nutella, and Soccer, not necessarily in that order. I spoke about why I dislike the French as a concept, a nation, and a national team, when she made the observation that on this subject I sound very nationalistic, like a Republican. This statement angered me greatly for two reasons; 1. I despise Republicans and 2. she was right. One of the biggest tricks the Republican party ever pulled was complete and absolute appropriation of Patriotism. In the 10 years post-9/11 conservatives all over the country made it seem like if you did not support them and the “War on Terror”, you were worse than a Communist. To this day it seems nearly impossible to be proud of the United States without sounding like a gun-toting toothless redneck, or Ann Coulter. Worse they blurred the lines between patriotism (pride in one's country) and nationalism (a belief in the inherent superiority of one's country over all others.) Patriotism leads to awesome photoshopped pics of Abraham Lincoln riding a bear with an eagle on his shoulder. Nationalism leads to World Wars. It's a simple, but vitally important distinction.

I blame the Democrats for this. Were they not so spineless as to let conservatives appropriate patriotism it would not sound so weird when I talk about how rabidly pro-American I am. Even in my own head when I talk about views that I’ve held my entire life, it sounds funny. When I talk about how I love America I feel like Rush Limbaugh has hacked into my thoughts and is using me as a mouthpiece. It's a terrible feeling because one should never have to feel like a fat, slimy, conservative radio talk show host just for loving their country. Being a patriotic Liberal feels strange because of the company it puts you in. We've grown to expect a certain amount of xenophobia and flag-waving from conservatives, but not from a Black Liberal from the suburbs of New Jersey.

In the last week another phenomenon has presented itself to me that has made me question my patriotism. As I've said, watching the World Cup and being on Twitter has been nothing short of spectacularly entertaining, especially when the USA is playing. The memes and comments from #BlackTwitter have been awesome. But another faction has reared it's head lately, a faction I've seen referred to as #HotepTwitter or The Fun Police. Basically it's a group of Black people who like to remind us that hey, the US Government hasn't always been so kind to Black people. Ya know what? I'm aware, thank you very much. I never try to defend the US because a lot of what the US has done is indefensible. The very reason I am here typing this blog is because of kidnapping, rape, torture, and slavery. However, the reason why I am able to sit here and type, the reason I can read and write and hold an advanced degree and earn money and walk around in public with a girlfriend who is not Black is because of African Americans. The reason why most of us can enjoy and complain about our #FirstWorldProblems is because of African Americans. As much as we hate what some Americans have done TO us (as Black people) we have to love and respect what other Americans (African Americans) have done FOR us.

I'm patriotic for many reasons, the first and foremost being that I am as American as it gets. Physically speaking I am most definitely of African origin, there is no getting around that fact. And I wouldn't want to honestly; I love being Black, it's arguably the greatest thing about me. Beyond those physical traits I am in no way African. For one thing, I can't trace my lineage to any specific African country (for obvious reasons). I don't have an African language or culture to investigate and learn about. Like most African Americans my roots probably go back to West Africa, but beyond that I cannot say. But I am most definitely American. I have an American mindset and the American superiority complex (augmented by my NJ superiority complex, I'm damned near insufferable.) I am overly proud of where I come from. I'm what the terrorists hate about us. I love excess and dreaming big and shooting for the stars and every other cliché you can think of. I am consumerist and love money and things and freedom of speech. I read the Bill of Rights and the Constitution for fun. As Denis Leary said I love football and porno and books about war. I like girls in bikinis and action movies were there are more bullets fired than words spoken. I HATE NUTELLA. I like violent cartoons. I like muscle cars that have 400 hp and get 15 miles to the gallon. I like engines the size of a 1 bedroom ranch house. I do not truck with the metric system. I buy most of my shirts from Wal-Mart and, for the most part, I don't care about soccer. FOOTBALL is FOOTBALL and futbol is soccer. That's the way God and Man intended it to be. I am American. I am a proud resident of New Jersey, and for me to try to claim otherwise would be fraudulent.

I believe to be Black in America and to distance yourself from that is an insult to the generations of Black people who fought and died for all we have today. Our ancestors did all they could to make sure that their children would have a better life than they did. The reason you as an African American can voice your opinion and have the freedom to leave the country if you want to is because of Black people. We built this country and today every single one of us, from Barack Obama to Lil Wayne benefit from this. Our blood, sweat, and tears are intractably enmeshed in the colors of our flag. I feel that to disavow what America means to me is spitting in the face of every Black person that died to make this country better for Black people. We've fought in every war this country has been in. We have been a part of every branch of government (that bastard Clarence Thomas, unfortunately, counts.) There would be no American culture if it wasn't for us. As much prejudice and discrimination as we face, this is still our country, and that only serves to remind me that this American Experiment is not done, and that this generation needs to do its part to make this a better country for Blacks just as my parents and grandparents did. It's a flawed, bloody, dirty, excessive, racist, prideful, sinful country, but it IS our country. We fought for so long to be recognized as citizens, and now some Black people want to reject this gift that we've been given. What a slap in the face of those who went before us. So yes, today I Believe That We Will Win. Because I'm a proud 'Merican and that's what we do.  

How To Deal With Loss (of your team)

It's not like this hasn't happened before.

It's not like most sports fans don't know this feeling.

It's as if my neck was broken, I was shot in the stomach, and kicked in the balls all at once.

I have no idea what my physiology is going through right now, but nothing in my body feels right at this moment. Everything is clenching, straining, gurgling, and cramping.

But This isn't the first time I went through this, but for some reason this seems like the worst time.

Worse than 1994, when the Knicks lost to the Rockets in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

Worse than the Giants loss to the 49ers in the playoffs in 2002 (which was incredibly horrible by the way.) I think this feels like that did, but somehow worse. That's bad considering this was a season game and that was a Post-season game.

Worse than 2005 when, at the first and only Playoff game I've ever attended, the Giants were embarrassed by Steve Smith and beaten 23-0 in the first round of the playoffs. That was soul-crushing.

Worse than my previous worst loss ever, the 2008 playoff loss to the Eagles. This was the year the Giants went 13-3 and seemed a lock to at least get to the playoffs. This also started the trend where, no matter how good they are, the Giants just could not beat the Eagles.

And now this. Today. December 19th, 2010, the absolute worst New York Giants loss of my lifetime. Mind you, the Giants lost a Super Bowl in 2000. That was nowhere near as bad as this was. I was a little indifferent about that year, I'm not sure why. This was just a regular season game. Yes there was a lot on the line, but it isn't as if the Giants are eliminated from the playoffs, or from playoff contention.

It's bad, and I'm sure most sports fans can attest to this, because it was a loss to Philadelphia, a place I absolutely cannot stand. Everyone has a city that they loathe; I happen to have two, Boston and Philadelphia. The Giants last Super Bowl win, spoiling the Patriots undefeated season, gives me a lot of closure with my dislike of Boston, because I know that grinds their gears. But Philly, the Giants have not beaten them in 6 games. Everyone has a city they hate, and a team they hate, and mine is the Philadelphia Eagles. When it comes to hating a team, it is usually more than just a matter of scores and stats. If you truly hate a team it is because of something personal. People who actively hate a team and city have had personal; experience with that team or city. I truly believe Brady hates the Jets, not because they're a division rival, but because he loathes New York City. People from Cleveland loathe the Steelers because they hate Pittsburgh.

There's no sense, no rhyme or reason to sports hatred. It is by definition irrational because lives do not actually depend on the outcome of the game, but many of us react as if they do. What I hate the most are people who dismiss the feelings of sports fans. “Oh it's just a game, you don't play for the team, why are you so upset?” I feel like telling people who say such things to eat a dick, but I don't because I know they just don't understand. A connection to a football team, or any team really, is visceral, emotional, primal. It's like a affective umbilical cord between one entity and a greater cause, a greater goal. It's the essence of “us vs them”, and the basis of telling oneself that the people like you where you are from are better than those people and the place where they come from. It's sociology, anthropology, psychology and familial love all rolled into one. So when something like this happens, when your “family” lets you down in such a shocking and disturbing way, the damage can be catastrophic.

Yes we go one with our lives; we go to work, to school, to church. We don't die with the hopes of our team, yet a small part of us does die. It dies because we detach some of our heart and give it to our team. And for that little bit of ourselves we expect a return on our emotional, and oftentimes financial investment. And when we are deprived of that satisfaction what to the outsider seems inconsequential, we rage, rage against the dying of the play clock.

Two hours ago I thought that I may have to give up following sports, specifically football. I am too invested I think, and my reaction to this loss was kind of scary. But right now I have realized something, this is a defining moment in a sports fans life. I firmly believe that you are not a grown up until you have your heart ripped out and stomped on by a member of the opposite (or same) sex. I think the same is true for sports fans. There are a lot of Yankees fans who didn't grow up until the Red Sox ripped their hearts out in the 2004 ALCS. I think this may have been my wake up call that Ii need to back up a little, lest I end up like those bitter insane Red Sox fans before they won the World Series. I need a catharsis yes, but I know that there are a lot of True Blue fans out there who are excoriating the Eagles and cursing the Giants with me, and for some reason that helps. I think the game that has threatened to make me quit the family maybe the game that cements my ties to the football community for the rest of my life. And that's how you deal with loss, curse scream, yell, but commiserate with the rest of your family. And just remember, eventually you will beat the Fucking Eagles.

The Most Colorful Game

A young man was killed in Hartford, Connecticut on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, this is not an unusual occurrence, as Hartford doesn’t seem to be a place bereft of crime. What is truly unfortunate is that sometimes no matter how much a young Black man tries to do the right thing, he can still become the victim of random-bullshit-petty-violence that takes his life. It may sound cliché at this point, but most concepts become cliché because they are so ubiquitous as to become a rhetorically accepted fact. The concept I am talking about is that of the poor Black kid in the ghetto who has some athletic ability and tries to use it to pull himself and his family out of the endless cycle of violence that traps so many in America’s inner cities. It may be cliché, but it is a stone-cold fact for many kids in the ‘hood that Football or Basketball are their only perceived ways of being somebody in the world… well, that or hip-hop. The worst part is that even when these kids make it, achieve their dream and get scholarships to a big-time College, their past still haunts them. They leave the ‘hood, but the ‘hood never leaves them. Jasper Howard wasn’t even from Connecticut, he was from Miami, FL, and still the violence that has claimed the lives of so many young Black men claimed his as well. And, like I said, as far as we know he was trying to do the right thing. So what do we learn from this? No matter how hard or how fast someone runs between the lines, they can never escape what they are, their Color.

This season the NFL has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of the AFL, what is now the AFC. In honor of that there have been a multitude of “Throwback” games when two AFC foes face each other, resulting in some rather colorful uniform displays. Starting with the Bright Orange stripes of the referees, I believe that I have seen every color in the visible Electromagnetic Spectrum, and some that aren’t (I’m pretty sure the Seahawks have used some Ultraviolet Colors in their alternate Uni’s). I, personally, have enjoyed the hell out of this season’s throwbacks, my favorites being the Oilers and Broncos (yes the Brown and Gold). Unfortunately my absolute favorite throwback Uni, the Tangerine of the Tampa Bay Bucs, will not be on display as they are a NFC team *sigh*. I guess I’ll live. Even with all the flashes of color one thing unfortunately seems to remain the same; the inescapable fact that the most important color on the field isn’t the green of the grass, or the hue of the uniform, but the tone of the skin of the player.

This has always been true, and it still is true. In 1958 the University of Buffalo football team was invited to it’s one and only Bowl game in its school history (before or since). It was the Tangerine Bowl, to be played in Orlando, FL against the Florida State Gators. Buffalo had two Black players on their team, and the school was informed that one of the stipulations of playing in the Bowl Game was that Buffalo’s Black players had to stay home; the Orlando High School Athletic Association did not allow Black players to play with White players. This was not an isolated rule either; it was a pretty common practice in The South for a long time. Common, of course, until the segregated schools realized that they could not beat teams that had Black players. Then the urge to win overcame racism, as it often does. This is why Sports so often overcomes racism, because even the most strident racist bastard can overlook his hatred for 4 quarters.

This being the case, sports have brought down a lot of racial divides, while simultaneously putting them on display for the world to see. There has long been a belief that Black’s could never successfully play the QB position because we just aren’t smart enough. This perception is still around; there are very few Black QB’s who aren’t also known for their running ability. Warren Moon, the only Black QB in the Football Hall of Fame, had to go to Canada to play when he graduated from college because no team in the NFL would draft him as a QB, despite being named MVP of the 1978 Rose Bowl. After passing for over 3000 yards for 4 straight years in the Canadian Football League, Moon finally was taken seriously as a QB, and after a sizeable bidding war signed with the Houston Oilers. To date, only one Black QB has started and won a Super Bowl, further adding to this perception. And then there was the Limbaugh/McNabb debacle…

Rush Limbaugh, briefly, worked for ESPN doing color commentary on the NFL. He genuinely has a love for football, and in my opinion was an interesting addition to the show. His football analysis was actually very good, and he did not seem that out of place for someone who had no real connection to the sport other than as a fan. But alas, eventually the real Rush came out when he said that the Media wanted Donovan McNabb to succeed only because he was a Black QB. Now at the time, and even today, I did not think what he said was really that terrible. In fact I may have even agreed a little. Regardless of the fact that I hate the Eagles, I thought that Limbaugh’s statement, in and of itself, was an observation and nothing more. The problem is in the context of everything Rush has said before and since regarding race, he cannot say things like that and expect it to be glossed over. He has said some things that quite frankly make him the world’s biggest asshole, and he cannot possibly be naïve enough to think that what he does for a living would have no bearing on whether he was allowed to be part of an industry as image-conscious as the NFL is. Add to that the target of most of his vitriol happens to be African-Americans, who obviously had a problem with him becoming an owner as well, and yes, Rush was Rushed out of the group trying to buy the St. Louis Rams.

I am an ardent believer in our First Amendment right to Free Speech, but what most people fail to realize is that when you say whatever the Hell you want to, there are consequences to those actions. Rush Limbaugh just experienced some of those consequences. In his world, he is never held accountable for his actions, but in the real world, people hate him and are angry about what he says. Sports are the great equalizer, where it’s about Colors, yes, but what rules above all is CAN YOU HELP US WIN. Because of that, over the decades racial barriers have been broken down both on the field and off. Ultimately, Rush was not going to help the Rams improve as an organization, as many players voiced that they would not play for a team that he was a part of, meaning that his presence would hurt the team in the WIN/LOSS column. Period. That’s why he was dropped from the group. I love my Colorful NFL World for just that reason. Now, where can I buy one of those Gold and Brown Broncos Unis?