Mahomes, Hurts and Tyre Nichols; One Step Forward, Six and a Half Steps Backward

As an endangered breed, Black men have just experienced a long-time-coming moment in our story. …and one giant step forward, six n’ a half steps backward, down that slick, wet bloody slope. Here in this overtly, openly hostile land.

It’s interesting. On one hand, America has evolved to the point two Black alpha-male field generals, Patrick Mahomes, and Jalen Hurts will be at the helm of two elite professional sports franchises as they meet in the most anticipated and hailed event in American sports lore, the National Football League’s prestigious “Super Bowl.”

Granted, they are only two Black head coaches in the vastly all-Black league, and that’s by both design and desire, totally the work of 30 arrogant White men. Nevertheless, this is an “Obama-like” moment, a Black Power Moment.

If you follow this country’s national pastime, the male soap opera called the NFL, then you understand that two Black men as the starting “Signal Callers” is a monumental achievement in Black people’s struggle against White superiority and dominance in all matters, both large and small.

I shed a tear, and I wasn’t alone.

And might I interject; it’s particularly sweet considering the obvious: for decades the game of football has reflected the larger, dysfunctional, American society in this fact: Black men, Black folk in general, have been discriminated against, exploited, and marginalized for the entire history of the league, alas the country.

As a Black boy, I was told, directly and indirectly, that Black boys/men didn’t have the intelligence, guts, or leadership qualities to lead other players, to play the “thinking-man” positions – QB, Middle Linebacker, Center, and Safety. All we could do was run fast and hit hard. Animals instructed to kill. Blacks didn’t have the mental/emotional capabilities to grasp complex offenses nor dissect complicated defenses. We were merely beasts, who had no heart or brains.

Adult children, apes who could kinda speak.

It’s even more aggravating if you recognize that Black men have been a dominant force on the gridiron field. Blacks comprise 70% of all players, and we’ve come to redefine the game in all aspects. As Tiger and the Williams sisters have redefined their respective country club games, Black players have reshaped the game of football at all levels, in all relevant aspects – to the point White boys have, in essence, abandoned the game out of frustration and defeat.

They’ve moved on to Extreme Frisbee, Extreme Marbles, Extreme Kite Flying, Extreme Bass-Fishing, and Extreme Tiddlywinks.

The White Quarterback is, too, an “endangered species,” you’d better believe it. Brock Purdy, Josh Allen, they are the Great White Hopes of the era. Few grasp how sad the league’s good ol’ boy Archie Bunker sports fan base is, both Golden Boys are Black alpha males.

The sky is falling!!!

The White gridiron golden boys of yesteryear, Johnny U., Bronco Nagurski, Slingin’ Sammy Baugh, Y.A, Title, the “Galloping Ghost” Red Grange, Bobby Lane, Broadway Joe, and all the cats who played when the game was semi-quasi segregated (rigged/fixed) – pre-1975 or so. They deserve an asterisk before their names and their records and perhaps even their “World Championships” down in Canton Ohio at the illustrious NFL Hall Of Fame because if Black men hadn’t been strategically and deliberately excluded from playing the game, half these Great White Hopes wouldn’t have made their high school or college team, just like it is today. Yes, just like it is today.

Even after the game was opened to Black players, the “Thinking” positions were still off-limits for Blacks, with the highly exalted Quarterback slot being unofficial/officially reserved for White guys. If we’d been allowed to compete against White boys on a level playing field, to the chagrin of much of the fan base and sponsorship, (White America) the NFL would have looked like the NBA two decades ago, at least.

I’d venture to say we wouldn’t have ever had this fictitious, fabricated, made-up, and contrived situation where White men can depict themselves as the epitome of manhood, while all other men pale in comparison to their alleged exclusive monopoly on both “brains and brawn.”

Elvis in a pigskin jumpsuit n’ cleats.

Might I note, if the American sports scene, a significant element of popular culture, had been populated with Black athletes, and superstars in high-profile positions like an NFL QB, the false narrative that Black men were totally inferior to white men would have been questioned, combated, and defeated decades ago. On a fair and level playing field, America would have seen the emergence of ebony gladiators bedding Nordic blond-haired, blue eyed princess Cheerleaders and homecoming queens decades ago. And God knows, that’s the greatest fear White men harbor.

When Conservatives/Confederates cry and whine about being replaced, they mean being replaced as the picture, the poster boy, the symbol of power, dominance, and control, and that most definitely includes sexuality.

Have neither question nor doubt two Black Quarterbacks in the NFL is a canary in the mine occurrence in terms of another assault and victory over White supremacy!

The jig’s up boys. The vast majority of women, and now particularly White women, understand White men aren’t the only “picture” of raw manhood. Other men, from all other ethnic backgrounds, but due to the horror story that is US History 101, specifically Black men, can, too, be alpha-male type men. It’s only logical.

And it’s clear to all the only reason, and let me scream that one out, THE ONLY REASON, why White men have had this stranglehold on these positions of power is that they tactically and consciously discriminate against, deny fair opportunity to, and exclude Black men, the competition they feared.

This applies to all walks of life.

If Black men hadn’t been beaten down into this critical state of being: brainwashed, defeated, and tragically today all-so self-destructive we’d be much more represented in corporate America, in the aerospace industry, medicine, architecture, and construction – you name it!

The Black Family would be in a better state of being if we had not been beheaded, and now far too many are runnin’ round and can’t find their heads.

Sadly, far too many of us know the subservient, inferior place to which they’d like to relegate us, and we accept it we help them to destroy us.

If Blacks had been allowed, permitted to play the Quarterback position in 1925, 35, 47, 55… we’d have been out there on the field of competition dominating as we are doing today – a living and breathing role model, just as Peyton Manning. I guarantee you, our society would have witnessed the rise of Black men much earlier.

The so-called United States of America would have allowed a Black President, Black astronauts, airplane pilots, brain surgeons, and architects, but because our White male-dominated society was designed to oppress and exploit us, here we sit. Rumblin’, stumblin’, fumblin’, n’ bumblin’ our way alone, adrift.

Now, on the other hand, what’s so troubling is this: as we mark this historical American cultural happening, Black men in these lofty positions of social prominence, how can one forget, marginalize or dismiss Tyre Nichols’ murder at the hands of mostly Black Uncle Toms, the same kinda’ cats who operated as the massa’s head nigger to keep in check all the other field Negroes.

Self-hating, delusional, drunk with power punk-ass Black puppets, beating up a Black man, trying to make their white bosses/masters happy. Ain’t that a bitch?

Adding insult to injury, the over-the-top damning of these Black cops by White officials, the disingenuous gibberish about how this type of “barbaric antics” can be neither accepted nor tolerated when damn, this has been the mode of operation, business as usual for police forces small and large since the end of slavery. Policing is another transparent term for keeping the niggers in line, out of White folks’ lives, and making money.

Look, there’s a lot of contradictory crap going on. It gets complex at times, but in the long run, in the end, it’s still, honestly, Mahomes, Hurts and Tyre Nichols, “One step forward, six n’ half steps back, backward actually, down a slick, wet bloody slope… .”