Tony Dungy, Bigot

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now.

Tony Dungy is a bigot. He has been for years. The target of his bigotry is the LGBTQIA community. He has a problem with them. As do many of the organizations he gives his money and time too.

I don’t like bigots, even if their intolerance is biblical based. But you know what I really don’t like? People who ignore bigotry. The ones who hear it and then carry on as if it doesn’t exist. This is the case with Tony Dungy and his many admirers across the NFL, sports media, and public landscape.

They all know where he stands on this issue. He’s not shy about it, he’s been open with his bigotry against the community for years, and yet, you would be hard pressed to find a sports commentator or reporter who wouldn’t call him anything other than a great and honorable man. A paragon who is above reproach. The one they call upon when “wisdom” is needed on subjects like race relations in sports and America. Called upon–even though he’s a proud bigot.

It doesn’t seem to bother the people who call on him. Nor does it seem to bother the people who listen to him. Not any kind of consequential mass of them anyway. Howard Bryant said something interesting in reference to Dungy on Bomani Jones podcast-

Isn’t it fascinating how people think that if you don’t raise your voice you can’t be a bad person?

It is fascinating isn’t it?

I don’t know if Tony Dungy is a good person or bad. I do know that he believes horrible things about gay people. He believes them and backs people who have proposed policies that would be disastrous, and in some cases deadly, for them.

And they do it all in the name of their Lord and Savior.

It’s not against the law to be a bigot. Nor is it against the law to be filled with hateful intolerance. But no right-minded person should be accepting of it. And no right-minded person should be looking to bigots for wisdom. Not even when it comes in a soft voice. That softness, that earnestness, has proven to be an illusion. A porcelain veneer hiding a blackness of spirit. A facade that people are all too eager and willing to accept. The question for me is what will it take for it to become unacceptable? I believe someone when they show me who they are.

Tony Dungy is a bigot.

Acquitted

I’m a writer on a talk show called The Open Mic that airs in the DC market. Early yesterday afternoon, as I was preparing to write a fun filled piece about the approval of casino sports gambling in Maryland, the Rittenhouse verdict dropped. I watched and listened to the announcement on the news room monitors. As I was listening to “Not Guilty” being repeated I received a text message saying, “We’re closing the show with this now”. So I stood up and went outside the building for a few moments to clear my head. As I was walking out I heard a voice say, “Unbelievable. I can’t believe it”.

That person who said this was White.

Anyway, I came back in, sat down, and wrote this for our host Reece Waters,

I could stand here and tell you that I was surprised by the acquittal. I could say that I was shocked that the jury came back with the verdict it did. Stunned that a defendant who killed people after traveling to another state to hand out vigilant justice would see no jail time. I could, but I would be lying. I knew Kyle Rittenhouse would be found not guilty. I knew the moment I learned about the case. I knew when I saw the picture of him walking the streets of Kenosha dressed like a child soldier carrying a weapon of war. I knew when it was reported that police officers gave him water and thanked him for being there.

I knew when he was embraced by the Right Wing of our political establishment. When the case became a political exercise. When he was lionized as a hero by the Right. Like George Zimmerman before him. I knew when the jury of his peers was seated. I knew when the judge declared that the people he killed couldn’t be called victims. No victim, no crime. I knew when he cried on the stand. Tearlessly. I knew all of this because I know this country. I know the outcomes to expect from our justice system. And you know it too. You know what the outcome would be if that had been me, sitting in that court, under the exact same circumstances. If I even made it to the court.

The truth is, we all know all of this, because we all know that we live in two America’s. In one of them, a 17-year-old boy can pick up weapon, end lives, and be offered a job on capitol hill. In another a 16-year-old boy can be sent to a maximum-security penitentiary for 3 years for a crime he didn’t commit. No trial. No conviction. Just jail.

So no, I wasn’t surprised. But a lack of surprise doesn’t mean a lack of anger or worry. You see, a door was opened in the courtroom today and more of these so-called “civic-minded patriots” are going to come out. They’ve been given permission to arm and insert themselves into whatever situation they wish. How many more victims of self-defense are to come? What ever that number ends up being, I won’t be surprised. And neither should you.

Here’s Reese,

Our producer Adem did a great job with visuals. That’s all I have to say.

Sounds Of Blackness

A one-act-play

The play opens with our hero, a dashing Black man of a certain age, running on a high school track. As our hero lopes along with the taut, silky, grace of a jungle cat he approaches another Black man standing on the edge of the field. This man, also of a certain age, is coaching a group of young track athletes. Catching each others eye, they exchange words

Our hero-Morning coach

Coach-Morning bruh, how you feeling?

Our hero-Trying to be you like, young and vital

Coach-HAHAHAH MAN! I’m bout to be 51 and I’m feeling every inch of it

Our Hero-Well I’m 52 and you see what I’m doing….

Coach-HAH-running-hahah

Our hero-I’m either running to it, or from it……

End Scene with s shot of our hero’s back as he runs up the track

Everyday across America a scene like this plays out. Two people, complete strangers except for the melanin content of their skin, speak to and with each other with such a sense of ease and familiarity that someone with a lesser melanin count would think that they are close friends. Or related.

Chances are, they’re not. But, they are.

Their actions with each other seemed familar, because they were. To them. They were communicating with each in a way that people with their melanin content have been doing for literally hundreds of years. Just like their grandfathers, fathers, uncles and others did before them. They felt a kinship that can’t be faked. One built, again, over centuries. A kinship that can be needed, vital, comforting, and sometimes vexing.

I believe it was that noted philospher Nino Brown who once said, “We all we got”. He also said “If I was you I would be counting the pimples on the booty”, but that’s a different story.

Sometimes it can indeed feel like we all we got. Other times, it’s just nice to spend a few seconds laughing with someone who gets your story because theirs is the same as yours. And that’s reason number 976 that I love about being one of the deeply melaninated.

CMB…..we all we got

I’m Tired

I’ve been feeling out of sorts lately. Mentally. More so than the usual father, husband, work, BLACK person in America, grind. Just tired. Tired in my spirit. So, I checked in with myself. Something I wouldn’t have thought to do in my pre-therapy years. I asked some myself some questions, listened for the answers, and I think I’ve pinpointed what’s got me feeling some kinda way.

I’m tired of waiting on white people to act right.

I’m not talking about singular white people. One is required to say this after making such a statement. I mean, some of my best friends are white (a couple), my wife is white and yadda yadda (that’s a handy little phrase, isn’t it?). I’m talking about white people as a group. The Caucasia Collective if you will. (I swear to God, if I hear of one of y’all using The Caucasia Collective and not giving me my propers….). As a group they will not do what is Right, nor what is Just. They tolerate intolerance, inequity, and injustice with ease, paying lip service to how rough it is on them. And yes, white readers, this goes for many of the Collective that you are close to.

Have they left? Nice.

Those of you (white) that are still here most likely feel the same, because you see the same. You’ve heard white people invoke all kinds of reasons to not do what is right for the collective. You’ve watched them sit on their hands when the moment asks them to act. You’ve listened to them praise equity and diversity, just as long they don’t “lose” anything. You’ve even watched some of them cry while saying “I had no idea”. As if we haven’t been saying the shit for how long now.

Mind you, I’m not talking about white people on the other side of the equation. The Yan to the Yin. I’m talking about the good ones. The opened minded ones. The benefit of the doubt giving ones. The, both sides have a point ones. The signs in the yard allies. The ones who believe in moral arc bending and bringing uncles out of the darkness of racism over Thanksgiving dinner. I’m talking about white folks who couldn’t break the glass on their precious ideals, damn the emergency, and the consequences.

I’m talking bout those mufuckers. Combine them with the others and positive progress ceases, while negative metastasis across the collective. And if you can’t see that, you ain’t paying attention. Meaning, you one of em.

Martin Luther King spent the final years of his life depressed. Contrary to what is said now, the overwhelming majority of white America didn’t approve (like) of him. Or rather, they didn’t like what he stood for (BLACKNESS). James Baldwin drank, a lot. He too struggled with depression. Both had seen a lot of cruelty, pain, and death. Both had high hopes in whiteness. They believed a turning would come. That Whiteness would finally welcome their darker brother to the table.

I believe both came to realize those hopes were in vain. That a seat wasn’t going to be offered. Mainly because fear. Fear that those who sat at the head of the table, would be sent to eat scraps in the kitchen. Or worse, forced to eat at a round table in full fellowship. All equal, no one above the other.

King, Baldwin, their contemporaries and friends, all grew tired. Very tired. The wait wore on them, as it’s wearing on me, and you.

I’m tired man.

Tired.