A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
One of the ways in which we, non-white individuals, kill ourselves slowly in America is by quietly and painstakingly learning over lifetimes and generations how to appease white folks…and I’ll add how to appease anyone who subscribes to dominant Eurocentric modes of thinking and codes of living. Before speaking, thinking, breathing, feeling, shouting, talking, or doing…anything…we first think of their reactions.
But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
can seldom see through his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
Constantly protecting the comfort of whites is an example of the subtle ways in which we are caged and learn to remain in the cage. Last week one of those caged birds decided to sing. He didn’t publish an Op-Ed about in the New York Times. He didn’t ask who else wanted to join him or do 20 pushups or pour water over their heads on Facebook. He just did it. Without mine or your permission.
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.
Crazy things happen when we start believing our lives matter, whether it’s 13 year old black South African girls protesting racist school policies or star quarterbacks putting multi-million dollar deals on the line. We all get to a point where we say, fam’ enough is enough, #IAmTired. As Colin put it, “I’ve had times where one of my roommates was moving out of the house in college, and because we were the only black people in that neighborhood, the cops got called and we had guns drawn on us. Came in the house, without knocking, guns drawn on my teammates and roommates. So I have experienced this. People close to me have experienced this. This isn’t something that’s a one-off case here or a one-off case there. This has become habitual. This has become a habit. So this is something that needs to be addressed.”
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own
As always, the beauty of this racial inciting moment were the textbook responses. He received plenty of reminders and multiple attempts to remind him whose cage he’s in.
Racism? Justice? Hey Kaepernick, aren’t you half-white and aren’t both of your adopted parents white? Hasn’t our president for the last 8 years been black?
Freedom? Hey Kaepernick, guess who cuts your multi-million dollar checks?
Liberty? Hey Kaepernick, if you don’t like it so much, why don’t you leave this country?
Oppression? Here is my personal favorite from a comment on Facebook:
“At the absolute minimum you stand and respect the 170,000 White US military and citizens that died freeing the slaves. You know nothing about oppression.”
Thank you Eric Bolling. Thank you DevilDawg22. Thank you Heidi Russo. Fly on free birds. Fly on.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
Sports leagues like the NFL are the few spaces in which black excellence is tolerated. Ridiculously controlled, but tolerated and celebrated nonetheless. That’s why the beauty of this act of defiance is just too great. A black quarterback raking in millions from a sports league nearly as worshipped as the church on Sundays. A black quarterback not turning a blind eye to the violent society that sells the sports pipe dream to low-income youth of color from the moment they start Pee-Wee…it’s the perfect middle finger to the establishment and to the average moderate American who can’t stomach the reality of this country.
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.
-Maya Angelou
The system works by covertly only allowing a token few from marginalized communities to succeed. The NFL, in total, has about 1,696 players and in 2015, around 68.7% of them were black. That’s 1,165 black players compared to a larger black population of around 40 million. Statistically insignificant.
Yet, when those same physical bodies decide to widen the cages they dance in, sing in or destroy their bodies in, they are very quickly reminded that they were allowed to succeed to support the American dream and not reveal its many unfulfilled promises. Last Sunday, Colin Kaepernick sat silently in protest. In doing so, he sang the most simple, dulcet, and quintessentially American tune. Freedom.
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Photo: Getty Images
Football is not the pace for politics. And when will minorities EVER feel like they got a fair shake or are going to get equality in the USA. Attitude is the trick. No matter your color you have to get a go forward attitude – no matter the past. You focus on the negatives and the mistakes you will never go forward.
Step up to being a FREE EAGLE vs a whiner on the bench
T
The sad part is that he doesn’t understand the irony of it all. The flag represents his ability to express himself to not show respect for the flag.
This is the typical inferiority complex of most blacks.The do not want to look to themselves to see the reason why guns are drawn when police approach them Look at statistics of crime
Good article. The fact is that many Whites (including so-called liberals) prefer Black people to be quiet, and adopt a “hear no evil” “fear no evil” “see no evil ” philosophy when it comes to racism and injustice. It is an arrogant form of racism at its worst.
Amen