Icing the Kicker

 

I've been watching professional football since about end of 1966. Yeah me, I was once a 4-year-old white girl in suburbia from a blue-collar, lower middle class family with two parents and eventually being the middle of two siblings. 

One parent was a white, idealistic, functional alcoholic, or so he'd lead you to believe that he was idealistic. The other a schizophrenic, bipolar- alcoholic-waiting in the wings, trying her best to run from evil, yet trashing the very thing she should protect, and fight for. Soon self-medication would catch up to her. And disabilities of denial would give him everlasting freedom and a delayed death, to enjoy money we didn't see.

The lies a white man tells himself to protect anyone knowing what is deep inside their soul. This all brings me to the reality of how I had become a patriot or maybe I’m not. Yeah, that thing, ‘a patriot’. The thing that haunts some of us Americans in our idealistic sober minds no matter what. Trust me, most of us are all in our right minds. No one can lie to me on that one. 

By age six I knew the bad things this country did to others, to people who weren’t white. I began to understand a parent's coercion by age eight. I was wise to religious conversions by that same age. I knew to decide for myself how I should believe in anything, most things not.  And thought, 'how do other people who've been tortured, robbed, owned and such survive especially when they weren’t white’. This thought rolled around in my mind and still takes up room in my mind. I remember at around age seven I was serviced by a well-dressed man who was beautiful and had an accent. He was a shoe store salesman. I wondered where he’d been born, as his accent was so pronounced.

After we’d purchased the shoes suggested to us for my foot issues we’d stepped outside the store onto the Washington Street sidewalk in downtown Bergenfield, NJ, where we waited for the bus. I asked, “Mom, why did that man have an accent?” She answered, “He’s from Jamaica.” I’d never met such a well-mannered man till then. Too, I had no clue that a Black person could speak with such a different accent. By that age, I was already headed towards third grade. It’s amazing what we weren’t taught by then, by anyone. In my childhood years, it was that only life teaches us, if we decide to pay attention, listen, then ask questions. And if I truly wanted answers, I had to dig deeper, be willing to become uncomfortable with everything about me.

My interactions with people of color were quite limited till high school. Yet even then, it was sparse. The sparseness? Out of 262 of our graduating class, there was one Japanese, one Korean, one Chinese and one Black student in our entire 1980 graduating high school class. All were on the Honor Roll. All contributed to the best of the best of us. All were college bound, unlike me. All of them dealt with struggles that I could only imagine back then. The expectations, the racism, perhaps sexism to boot. Three of those four were young women.

I recognized early that not being male was a disadvantage in spades. Privately I knew to toughen up. I knew my older brother was not military issue. As a matter of fact, by the time I was age four I saw his weakness. I watched that weakness grow as he was conflicted with how a man should be. No, he did not become an alcoholic. He wasn't a smoker. He was a good worker who seemingly enjoyed physical labor, although he was not completely meant for it.

I knew how my mom was raising him, which wasn't helpful to him accepting certain realities. For she convinced him that carrying the name meant everything, even if it meant abuse, or taking abuse. 

Going back to being a Patriot. Yeah, so there's that. But if you don't blend in after your service no matter how much service, they'll find fault and hate you anyway. Because that's their math. Their math is control over anyone who is not white, male, straight... or white, female, straight, and 'just so'... Just so? Oh, that's many of my area's females in suburbia.

'Just so', is how you remain a little popular... so you can be called 'nice'. Over the years, my husband and I would comment to each other, "Nice is not Kind". So, if someone is nice, it describes a person to us as our inability to witness them being a racist or mean; so they must be nice. But I will tell you, they may not be safe, nor kind. Safe? Safe, like if I were Anne Frank and they're looking for me. Well, you know we all have to save ourselves and our children. You know, "Its a dog-eat-dog world." 

The Court system currently in play is slow. Especially, when it arrives at indicting, then convicting white men in power. It delays justice and when you delay justice—it’s like 'Icing the Kicker'. The Kicker is the Victim. We don't ice the white male defendant. No, we don't. He further bullies us. And that will either kill us, kill our spirit or piss us off. I'm the defiant latter.

Our Court System's failures delaying judgements give way to evil. Which usually benefits the white people, quite often.  Why? Because it’s who we are. Whiteness dictated by bigger white people. They hold ogre-ship over others and have for centuries. And that has to stop. But will it? How many of us are willing to confront it? If you're totally white with no connection to color there's little risk—that's if you're straight—and eventually—that's if you go to church, I guess. You have to be standing in the white line. You know, the blended line. That is not freedom for most of us. It depends on how the system and others treat you.

A patriot, what is a patriot? We could go to the dictionary. Or I could describe what I want it to be. So, I'll give you my sobering idealistic take.

My oath, my constitutional oath that I’d sworn in the past, along with my soul. What I have to live with. The truth of that, knowing your soul’s other side. The side either no one sees or a couple have seen, maybe. 

So, in the summer of 1969 my dad held my hand, holding a lit cigarette in the other as he looked across our victory garden that laid on a quarter acre of our rented home's land. He said, "You know this country is wrong." He paused and pointed to his tattoos, "Don't ever get tattoos." Pointing to his Air Force tattoo, as if ashamed, "The terrible things we did to our Native Americans is not worth this. We're horrible. Our country is at fault. America is not a great country, but I guess it’s the best thing we got. I'm not going to tell you not to respect the flag. But if I find out you don't pledge allegiance, you'll be sorry". Those were his words that day, and he’d repeat them a few more times in our home till I was age eleven, because he was a patriot, or so he professed to be one. I figured out he loved his rebel ancestry. Which took me some decades of research just to find that out. Like, who was that great general on his side of the family during the civil war that had a number of pretty medals of some kind of honor, that my dad held in his possession.

One may think I’d base my patriotism on military service. No, not necessarily. I’ve contemplated that supposition. Patriotism to me, would be: ‘did I keep to my oath to uphold the constitution and do I still?’ Too, it is how I treated those who were my superiors, and those who were my subordinates, regardless of their race, color creed and so forth. Also, how I treated and treat those in civilian life that I’d come in contact with whether they’d served, were immigrants, were different in race, color, creed, sexual-orientation, gender, age, religion or in any way different from me. That was treating others with equality and respect. Helping those in need where I could, not for my own benefit. Yet for the sake of humanity, from a place of unconditional love. That’s what a patriot representing America is supposed to be. You get along with others regardless of any differences, except unprovoked hatred, racism, ageism, sexism and the like, that you fight against. Differences in the United States of America should be our sovereignty.  Differences are supposed to be our power.

A patriotic duty as a citizen of the United States of America is not serving in any particular federal, state or local government. Those are just memberships which are based on conditions, such as: “One hand washes the other.” We are supposed to be a country with altruistic values. To me that would be a real patriot. You give not to get. You are employed, or you need assistance. Either way, kindness is what builds a nation. Reparations, admitting when one has been wrong or wronged are patriotic duties. Hating is not a patriotic duty. Grifting is not being patriotic. Wishing others well is patriotic, that should be our patriotic duty.

If you’ve ever watched a collegiate or professional football game, what do the teams and coaches do after the game is over? There is usually a winner and a loser, not many games come to a tie score. No matter the rivalry or the violence on the field, nor the rhetoric before the game. Afterwards the team’s players from the opposite sides of the field usually gather together and peaceably shake the other team’s hands, some of the opposing players hug one another. Some even bow their heads and pray together before leaving the field. They’re grateful to have each other, who think differently yet play the same game. They recognize the game of life, winning and losing. Some dictate strengths the others have or don’t have. Yet what appeared on the field in play and leading up to the game may have seemed violent, but the players shared a common passion, and it was living a dream and sharing it with their audiences.

In football, Icing the Kicker is accepted. I see that strategy as inappropriate anywhere else other than football. When we’re Icing the Kicker via our court system to give others the chance to get away with not giving land back, not giving life back, detaining against one’s will out of fear or harmful rhetoric, or not releasing documents that were the will of the people to be released fully and unredacted—Those delays are not only illegal, they are inhumane, they are against International law, and they are pure evil. Icing the Kicker outside of sport causes irreparable harm to society, a country and the world. ---Jody-Lynn Reicher