No Time

3:25 am

I can't sleep.  Within days, two grand juries took a pass on putting those with badges on trial for the murders of black people.  And in between I reel from the death of a child who played with a toy and was gunned down by those with badges and without words of warning.

What sleep I did get was fitful.  Not nightmarish.  The nightmare I can dismiss.  Fitful.  Fistful. Sleep with fists balled, fighting toward a place of stillness where there is no world to weigh on any kind of essence of myself.

And I did not get there.

Pop passed on the maxim from Grandma Annabelle, "Every day's a good day.  If you don't think so, just try missing one."  Most days I awake to that idea as my first thought.  This is a good day.  My waking confirms this day is too good to miss.  Make use of it.  Don't do good, be good.

But I am not there this morning.

What kind of day is today?  How do I negotiate this explicit knowing beyond knowing that the state does not value black lives?  That the condemnation of blackness, as Khalil Muhammad describes it, is woven into the very fabric of this nation?

5:57 am

It's make or break time.  Nation Time.  It's make or break time for my relation to this nation.   (How) Can I move through this specter and let myself be an instrument for positive change?  It is not a good day.  But it is a day.

#RIP(s)

My previous post to the blog was a year ago.  A brief wary note on the comparison of Trayvon Martin to Emmett Till and what I see as a danger in flattening history. Now, I write to process, to fight against this numbness brought on by the recent killings of Eric Garner, John Crawford, and Mike Brown.  As I look for a link, I find that officers of the LAPD last night killed Ezell Ford, another unarmed black person.

I seethe. Racial equality is a pretense.

I want to hold to the idea that historical comparisons to the Civil Rights Era do little to reveal, address, and dismantle race-based oppression in the present.  I want to think in terms of how I want things to be, instead of defaulting to how things were. I want to believe that the Black Freedom Movement helped to improve the life chances and lived conditions of black Americans, and that addressing racist oppression in the present calls for rethinking how it works and formulating new strategies and tactics for how to address it.

But current events (or my exposure to them) leads me to acknowledge that there is a continuum.  This nation is founded on and continues to bank on systematic racist oppression.  The law of the land does not afford black people equal protection.

So, what to do?

Allow myself to be mournful. To deny the impact that these killings have on me is to deny my humanness and my blackness.

Be active. There is work to do. Read. Write. Learn. Teach. Use myself as an instrument to work for justice.

Get connected. Find people and groups working locally to address oppression and lend energy to the efforts.

Breathe.

Till≠Travon

Note to self,

What's at stake in the comparison?  For one, it turns the injustice and loss of life into a representation instead of using the reality of the deaths–both past and present–as means to learn, grow and work toward a more just future.  The value of drawing on history is lost if we cannot imagine a different future.

Hail Labor

The first few weeks of NFL games have been officiated by replacements, as the Referees Union is taking part in a labor hold out over a $16 million pay increase.  League officials' decision to not agree to the increase is, for all intents and purposes, a matter of principle.  In the grand scheme of the NFL, $16 million, covered by 32 teams over the span of 5 years is...not that much money.

The Players Union has issued a letter of support of the strike, and there exists the tip of a legal hook of the league's responsibility to maintain safe working conditions for players.  Still, talk of players holding out their labor in solidarity has been that, just talk.   As well, the players are in an interesting bind, such that the more they complain about the officiating, the more leverage the league has against the ref's union.  The real issue is not the officiating (as...erratic as it's been), it's the league's handling of the labor strike that is the issue.  Players know this, so for the most part their rhetoric of solidarity has less focused on complaining about the replacements, and more focused on getting the league to agree to the Referees Union's demands.

From what I've seen, fans are mostly focused on the quality of calls.  For sure, players are still playing, but there has been no shortage of controversial calls that might try the patience of more dedicated fans.  Still, lest we loose site of the bigger picture, only one team can win the game.  As a fan of the game (my last team loyalty left Philly with Randall Cunningham), what I most want is for everybody to do their best and for nobody to get hurt.

Ironically, I think this is the same thing the owners and league officials want.  So long as their so-called "product" (arghh!) still sells–to the public and advertisers–they will be fine with locking out the Refs Union.  Their thinking is, so what if there's a missed call or two?  Are people watching?  Are we selling advertisements?  Then line 'em up!

At this point, the technology exists to all but do away with the human error of officiating (I can't be the first one to have thought of this, right?  I mean, we already have a Megatron in the league).   Put that in your Hegel machine and press play.  Where is the real dichotomy? team vs. team?  players vs. refs? fans vs. the game?  or labor vs. capital?

"Team USA versus The Machine"

Danielle Belton nails it in this article.  Yet another example of racism and sexism as both pervading and pervasive.

Linsanity

I've basically been holding my thoughts on Jeremy Lin. No doubt, he's a very good player. As well, he is a dynamic figure residing at the intersections of race and sports. For now, I'll say that one of the most interesting aspects of Lin's emergence is the ways in which racism (as a systemic ideology) and prejudice (as an articulation of personal preference) get convoluted when they are applied to a "model minority" excelling in what is the blackest of professional sports. Seems to me that this is the perfect occasion to clarify the distinctions, or in the least be clear that the terms are not interchangeable. For now, it's enough that the Knicks are winning.

Happy New Year!

Here's to keeping with the process, taking advantage of each day and the moments therein, and being better than I was yesterday.