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Fourth and goal, the crowd was frenetic! The constant roar of the two hundred thousand historic fans measured at jet airliner decibels. It was a moment as big as any in modern history. The ball sat squarely on the two-yard line going in. The clock sat still at :03. The Reb defense, tired and gallant, dug in to protect its turf. The Rebs led 21-17. The world was watching. Everything hung in the balance.
It had been a long time coming!
. . . . .
It began in 2008, with the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. Obama’s presidency was filled with vitriolic racism channeled through talk shows and entertainment news. It was all about political and economic gain, but with the country in a recession, it was easier to cast doubt on a man of color and what his aims were. “Muslim,” they had called him. In the last years of his presidency, violence flared up along the unspoken boundary between North and South.
It had actually begun decades earlier with the deregulation of the media. Fewer interests controlled most of the airwaves. Independent voices disappeared. News outlets needed to fill the day-long, twenty-four hour news cycle with features, talk and, of course, lots of advertising. Bobbing head commentators subbed for serious news.
The division of red and blue states was not far behind. Next came rancor, resistance, little congressional cooperation, and a government run by corporate interests.
The people? The people were mired in ignorance, led there by bought and paid for leaders.
Under President Jeb Bush, the divisions grew deeper and more pronounced. A chasm developed in the country, fueled by politicians needing to be re-elected. Jeb promised he wouldn’t be a worse president than his brother, “W.” He was. Bush’s directives, cronyism and the reversal of President Obama’s course sent the country back to the fearful, duct tape, shop till you drop, Osama Bin Laden, be fearful of those different from you, the terrorists are coming to get you days. Jeb infuriated the liberals. But something new happened. The liberals fought back. No one had counted on that happening. The liberals had never fought back before. But, flushed from their safe havens of intellectualism, the once staid liberals did something beside talk. “An eye for an eye,” became their war cry.
President Duvall Patrick, after much deliberation and counsel with his War Chiefs, decided that short of war, there was only one way to settle things. Elections? They no longer mattered. In 2025, no one believed in or trusted elections anymore. Elections could be bought or decided by a Supreme Court ruling. The controversial Supreme Court Ruling of 2010 allowing an endless supply of cash to flow into elections meant not only that elections could be bought, but also recalls could reverse elections, as with the short lived tenure of President Hillary Clinton. Neither of the three political parties was able to get a sixty-vote majority in the Senate. Things ground to a halt in Washington D.C.
The settlement was the one thing the southern republicans, the tea party people, the young, the gay, the independents, the helpless, the rich and the liberals could agree on.
During his 2025 State of the Union address, President Patrick announced the plan for a World College Super Duper Bowl I. Every four years, beginning in 2025, the country’s political differences would be settled by a football game.
The nation celebrated.
. . . . .
The North called timeout. Yank quarterback, Abdul Lewis, “the traitor” as the Southerners called him, because of his Alabama heritage, jogged over to meet his coach, the legendary Paul D. Jones.
Southern linebacker Co-Captains, Leroy Gilliam, and Kassan Lewis, Abdul’s younger brother, jogged over to their equally legendary head coach, Jake Snead from Ole Miss.
The bands on either side of the field broke into their respective fight songs. The Yank band played The Star Spangled Banner. The Reb band broke out a rousing version of Dixie. The 200,000 fans on both sides of the specially constructed stadium that sat geographically right in the middle of the country’s Mason–Dixon line, stood yelling and screaming, some with hands over their hearts, other drunk off their ass.
America is changing.
For many its exhilarating and introspective.
Scary for others.
America is changing!
The morning newspaper has always been a staple in my life. From childhood to this morning’s paper, it’s been one of the few rituals I’ve religiously followed. Oftentimes I’m up before dawn making my way to the rolled up bit of news that’s been left at our house. When traveling, which I do often, I always grab a local paper to get the feel of that community. A newspaper, in my opinion, represents the community’s pulse, good or bad. Want to know if a community is progressive or stuck in yesterday? Grab a local paper.
In my childhood home, we grew up reading the newspaper, Mom, Dad, my two sisters. We all took turns reading both the morning and evening editions of the two dailies in Birmingham. I started out in sports and cartoons, progressed to news, and then became particularly fond of features and opinion pages. I wrote for both my high school and college newspapers and then professionally for newspapers and magazines for many years. I was and am interested in information that prods thinking and connects dots. Don’t try and tell me what to think, please. I resent it.
My childhood newspapers were neither progressive nor truthful. With civil unrest raging a few city blocks away in downtown Birmingham, the local papers ignored it.
They pretended the grand old southern way was the way of the world. As an old friend of mine often says about those days, “Good men and women remained silent.”
Today the local paper where I live wears its bias on the editorial/opinion pages. From mid-August to mid-October I counted 24 negative cartoon images denigrating the current President of the United States. Twenty-four and these are just the ones I saw when I was in town. (I was out of town over half the time). Now, take into consideration the paper does not run its own cartoons. It has to scour the country for these negative images. Somehow they managed to come up with 24 of them oftentimes several days in a row.
Okay, I get it that they don’t agree with or think the guy is a good President. But community leadership brings a responsibility of fairness.
Attack the man’s policies with truth and fact and insist that your letter writers do the same. Otherwise I dismiss it as bias. Your personal bias should never get in the way of your community responsibility.
[Bias: To influence somebody or something unfairly or in a biased way. An unfair preference for or dislike of something.]
Admittedly, the newspaper’s politics, business and life philosophies, I very seldom agree with. I’m sure many people don’t agree with me. That’s what makes us a great country. We can disagree civilly. Still we ALL, regardless of beliefs, want fairness.
When you allow letter writers to call the President, “a dictator in chief,” or write things like:
“catering to his socialist and ethnic base,”
“…more low class than ever,”
“…most corrupt administration ever known”
“…laws are no impediment to Barack Obama,”
“Obama has become the most economically destructive president in our history,”
“…Why have he and his communist cohorts…”
“Obama’s reason is affiliated with treason,” and
“audacity of criminal activity in this Obama society,”
you lose your own credibility. When you continue to do that everyday, you cast a negative pall on your own community. You ferment divisiveness. Business stays away. You become “talk radio” in print. Blah, Blah, Blah, us vs. them, name calling, bias, little to no diversity on the staff or in its thinking, and very little of value in terms of shedding new light on any subject. All of this paints a picture of our community for visitors and potential residents or businesses to read.
During the last election cycle the editorial page adopted a policy of no negative letters in support or against any political candidate. “…Keep your letter positive,” they wrote. “And please don’t insult our intelligence by attempting to make us believe your opponent is a lowlife unworthy of existence… We want to hear why you think Candidate A is an upright citizen. We’re less interested in why you think candidate B is a creep.” Somebody at the paper didn’t get the memo.
I’ve always been leery of newspapers with no voices from people of color and no different political, business or philosophical voices. The local paper does carry one black opinion writer whose opinions mirror those of the editorial page.
For example, on August 1, 2014, in the piece titled Black Political Clout hasn’t done much for blacks he wrote, “In my opinion there appear to be no standards of performance low enough for blacks to lose their loyalty to their black political representatives.” I wonder if the same could be said for whites?
There’s more. President Obama negative editorial cartoons appeared in the following editions of the paper on these days:
8/9, 8/ 16, 8/17, 8/18, 8/19, 8/23, 8/ 27, 8/28,
9/8, 9/15, 9/20, 9/22, 9/23, 9/26, 9/27,
10/1 10/8, 10/2, 10/4 10/22, and
11/17, 11/19, 11/20, 11/21.
I’m sure I missed some; remember, I was out of town half the time.
On August 5, I wrote a friendly, confidential e-mail to the Publisher who I thought I had a community/civic relationship with, expressing my views. It addressed community, leadership, enlightenment, a lack of diversity, the stagnation of economic development when you freeze out whole segments of your population and the role a newspaper plays in all of the above.
I ended by thanking him for listening and welcomed a friendly discussion about these issues. I’m still waiting to hear back. “Good men and women remained silent.”
Birthdays for me have always been celebratory. From my time as a curly-headed grinning youngster, to my memorable 21st, 40th and 50th birthdays. They’ve always been special.
Today’s celebration is also reflective, A look back, over the journey of things seen, lessons learned, and paths crossed.
I’ve jokingly talked about the uniqueness of this birthday. I’ve said to friends, “Think about it, President Barack Obama’s Inauguration, Martin Luther King’s Holiday and my birthday all falling on the same day.” Wow!
Do I feel special? Yes I do.
A beneficiary of Dr. King’s legacy and a forerunner to President Obama’s “he’s the first African American,” to do this experience, my reflection leads me back down history’s path. True history and truth are the scorekeepers for legacies. They record who is right and who is wrong.
Dr. King more than “having a dream” ushered in changes in social and economic morality in the United States. His sermons and speeches resonate today as moral, guideposts for ethics and character.
Annually, I read from A Testament Of Hope, The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King. The book, an inspiring work is a collection of King’s speeches on nonviolence, civil disobedience, and social policy. My favorite is The Drum Major Instinct, delivered from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church on February 4, 1968. The lessons are “fitness over favoritism” and “servant leadership” (“he who is greatest among you shall be the servant to all”). I have been honored to perform these words from Dr. King’s works. I can think of no higher honor.
The praise for King did not come easy. The criticism and stinging arrows were scary and led to his assassination. He was mocked, “a communist,” “a socialist,” “…he hates America.” “An outside agitator.”
Obviously, they were on the wrong side of history.
I wonder about President Obama? The personal attacks on this President have been different. Hate filled. My friends who happen to be white, whether Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, tell me of the hate filled stories about this man that are shared with them that those same “ friends” don’t feel comfortable sharing with me. My friends tell me if they defend their points of view with intelligence and fact, the conversation becomes a treatise on” treason” and “the white race.”
George W. Bush was a bad President, most agree. His record on the economy, United States security, international relations, and other key indicators verify that. Yet there was never the personal hate this President is subjected to. Surely, if raising taxes and the deficit were the sole issue, Ronald Reagan would no longer be praised.
At a recent football reunion, two ex-teammates were somewhat embarrassed at their own words and actions as portrayed in my book Walk-On, My Reluctant Journey to Integration at Auburn University, a look at my personal sports integration of major college football. Today, they are fine gentlemen, but back then they reacted to me out of ignorance and lack of exposure. They listened to false information designed to divide people and protect economic interests. I’m sure today, it’s embarrassing.
In my presentations and speeches, I often get the audience to mentally travel along with me back to the days of southern sports integration. If they are old enough, I ask them to examine their own feelings of who they were at that time. I then ask if they would want their grandchildren to have known them back then. I ask whether they were on the right side or the wrong side of history.
Many choose to lower their eyes no longer willing to make eye contact, their action a telltale giveaway to their answer. I imagine it’s not a comforting feeling to know that you were wrong, because of your own ignorance and your own unwillingness or laziness in searching out the truth.
Finally and for my birthday, ask yourself this question; Thirty years from now, will you have been on the right side or the wrong side of history? Will you be able to look those who come behind you in the eye or will you lower your eyes in shame?