“America always does what’s right, once it exhausts all other options”
---Winston Churchill
I imagine it would be hard to capture any one of the world’s cultures and neatly package it into 28 days of history. And, as absurd as the possibility, the reality is, in just 250-plus hours you will start to learn all over again and over again who invented the traffic light—the stories will probably fall short of who is disproportionably pulled-over and most often shot at those lights, but remember this is history, not his story.
During the warm & fuzzy Black February Winter Fest, you’ll read that for the first time in history, there will be two black candidates running for the highest office in the land. No, not the Super Bowl—that’s an event where someone HAS to win. These two candidates will be running for president. Pretty anticlimactic, huh? One of the candidates has absolutely no chance of winning, (Al Sharpton) and the other has a white girl at the Apollo chance, (Barack Obama). Obama’s chances would increase if he married that white girl at the Apollo, but not by much. I believe the black candidate with the best chance of winning is Colin Powell and the fact that he’ll never run is the despondency of American history. Nevertheless, in both cases, Sharpton and Obama’s, merits won’t be the determining factor, as 80% of the Americans have made their decision on those two and the race doesn’t officially begin for another 10 months.
History always gave me an uneasy feeling… mainly because right after you witness the beauty, you are too often reminded of it’s ugly past. Watching Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith re-write the NFL white pages just makes you wonder how much sooner this historical football moment would’ve happened if blatant racism didn’t deny them of the opportunity to begin with.
With all due respect, I could care less who wins the Super Bowl, because once the game is over, neither coach will be asked: “What happened to the middle class?” Or, "Why is it that black people keep getting shot on the same land their forefather’s paved? I imagine Sharpton or Obama would have a better perspective than someone who coaches the Bears or Colts, but (as I stated earlier) 80% of the population will be plugging in their earphones when that answer is revealed.
On Super Bowl Sunday, while Tony and Lovie are battling to see who goes to Disneyland, I will be rooting for someone black to change the landscape of this land. I hope it happens soon because before you know it February will be over and the traffic light will be red again.
1 love,
Ray Lewis
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