Gridiron gods and theirVoodoo? and Move African-American History Month to Black August?

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence

09 Feb 2022

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Illustration by Michael Kennedy

Gridiron gods and theirVoodoo?

Gridiron gods please remind

Kansas City fans how Indigenous

People pleaded with them to

drop

the

‘Chop’ and their Faux Native noises

for decades; How they’ve beseeched

the owners to do the right thing in the

Name game, do like movements made

the Commanders do…

Gridiron gods please remind

49ers fans about a front office fielding its

Curse of Kap 7 months every year. Remind ‘em that Physical Xs and Os may

not be enough for them to Overcome it—

wet, cold, Wikileak washing scales from barber

shop, bar, factory floor, campus, stadium seat

Eyes. He kneeled—and revealed Plantation

Nation behind the shield—trigger-happy, bellicose Business partners, black-

washing bloody reputations Laundering dark, dirty warmongering money…

Gridiron gods please remind

Raiders fans of owners abandoning sport’s best

Black/Brown/blue collar/longshore/autoworker

fan base not once, not twice—but three times—when Games go up in flames; And

tragedies pile up like goal line stops; And Firsts are burned beyond recognition: 1st

Mexican-American QB/coach;1st modern-era African American coach; 1st female

executive; 1st cheerleaders looking like Tha Town…

Gridiron gods please remind

NFL fans about the band of billionaires—their Mickey Mouse Rooney Rule/their racist

recycling machine of mediocre men; their extorting struggling cities; and

weaponizing Private profit playthings and playground palaces—just kickoffs away from

honeycombed colonies of unhoused

Sidewalk sleeper cells, tents, tarps, cardboard mattresses…

Remind them that their threatening theme song about “Bombs bursting in

air/rockets’ red glare;” their maudlin Militarist pomp and circumstance/war-

mongering flyovers Fail to

drop

2x4s

rebar

bricks

hammers

nails saws…

Fail to

drop

masks

gowns

gloves

tests…

How many tests/how much housing would one foolish flyover pay for?

Move African-American History Month

to Black August?

Are our customs and celebrations discretionary?

Or, to quote Don Corleone, “Is this necessary?”

Who digs up a Black or Indigenous cemetery?

African-American History teaches: Be wary…

…in a coal mine and spotting a dead canary—

Who sang most musically and insurrectionary…

Sent this modest proposal to the powers that be—

through back channels of the black bourgeoisie—

We demand ’31 days’ of African-American history

’28 days’ just don’t cut it—that ain’t no mystery!

No mini month slashed by marketing of the NFL

with its war-profiteering and bloodthirsty clientele

Post 9/11, football slid into February—

feinting that their slick move was only temporary

They just super bowled into our truncated month—

greedy billionaires chasing a league trillionth!

Ever deeper into our twenty-eight days they’ll go—

Silencing Black truth-tellers Omalu, ‘Kap’ and ‘Flo!’

Once upon a time their season ended in December— back when they’d play a

’63 Sunday in November… We ain’t claimin’ the klan Act or RICO or antitrust

‘Cause—since1619— it’s all-ways us who must adjust— to lynch mobs,

massacres—involuntary wanderlust!

Maybe it’s time we move AAHM to Black August?

We’d bleed into the Labor Day and top off September— kids returning to school with

hot dates all would remember minus NFL cooptation—and lethal cash lust—

Maybe it’s time we move AAHM to Black August?

Black August

Black History Month

NFL

Kaepernick Protest

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