No Good Cops, No Bad Dogs II: Feedback is a Gift

Welcome to my weekly newsletter. Life is nothing but gravity, good storytelling, vibrations, and rhythm. What you get from this will be the same (plus sports, music, movies, and politics).

Gravity: Feedback is a Gift, or How I Learned to Love Critical Race Theory

Middle school can be a menacing place for the students and teachers alike. Looking back, my classmates and I were hell on our teachers at George Washington Carver Middle. We used to be a problem — like, hanging from the roof hooligans who used to talk a lot of shit and get into a gang of pubescent trouble. But the teachers there were geniuses and we were also smart little fuckers and so in between the shenanigans we used to learn. Most of the lessons, though, came in the dead times: those moments when we were supposed to do classwork but really sat in a circle and did the intellectual coffee talk but with Wild Cherry Pepsi and Hot Cheetos. These were the moments when I got my education.

The most memorable lesson I got didn’t came from a teacher. It was me, Marva Blades, and a few others sitting at our little pod in sixth grade Spanish class just kicking it. Marva was talking about her family, and she mentioned that her great grandfather was a slave. Now, when she did this, I did the math in my head and was like, “Hold up, how? Slavery ended in 1865. You just said he was born after that.” Marva tried to explain to me that slavery existed beyond 1865, and I got arrogant with her “No he wasn’t a slave that’s impossible.”

Yikes.

Marva had been patient with me for long enough. She turned to me and snapped a soliloquy about how plantations owners across the south didn’t comply with the law and that thousands of Black people existed in some kind of state of bondage until Union troops made southern plantation owners free them. Even after that, Marva explained, her ancestors still had to work under exploitative wage-earning conditions in the share cropping system.

She said all of this with a scowl and a fever pitch and she was loud enough for the whole room to go quiet and even the Spanish teacher stopped grading papers and looked up at our table. She didn’t say a word to interrupt Marva, either. I was getting schooled and no one was going to stop the Marva Express as it railroaded me into oblivion. Meanwhile, I was looking like that Mr. Krabs meme: flushed red in the face with bewildered eyes, knowing that the whole room was watching us and seeing me get absolutely obliterated. The room spun for a moment until Marva was kind enough to stop teaching me before she went back to the story that she was trying to tell in the first place before I interrupted her.

I felt entirely lost, confused, angry, and hurt. But none of that matters. It didn’t matter then and it doesn’t matter now. I will tell you the reasons why.

Firstable, even though I couldn’t see it at the time, Marva was blessing me. White people feel like they have an inherent ownership of the truth, and since I knew the HISTORY that is so often taught in schools, I felt entitled to tell a Black woman that what she knew about her own family was wrong. I couldn’t see then that Marva had only been able to recover the truth of her heritage and history because Tulsa had a robust Black historical community — one that maintained their truths in museums and celebrated Juneteenth long before it was a national holiday. Her great grandfather contributed to that robustness of this community (of which I was a tangential guest) and she was carrying his torch. Marva was giving me a critical race theory lesson, born out of the truth that we white people ignore so fucking often. I had no right to learn this history, but it changed my life. I would go onto read about and study the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Great Migration in high school, college, and beyond, and share those truths with white people in various spaces, who met me with the same kind of bewilderment that I met Marva with. And, seeing as I am white, they were more inclined to listen to me, which is a fucking shame because that leads me to my second point…

Fuck our white feelings. In my situation with Marva, I had created an emotionally triggering environment and tried to justify my actions with a textbook. Marva had every call to snap at me because white history — and especially white American history — is inherently a gaslighting history because it’s not a history with much if any allegiance to the truth — it’s a fairy tale meant to make us feel better. And if you feel like you’re being gaslighted, you’re going to fight back. When Marva snapped at me and broke me down, she gave me the gift of a real education, even though I had burdened her with my ignorance. My feelings were not and still are not more important than the reality that Black people have to exist within. They are valid, sure, but they did not need to be prioritized, and Marva — a Black woman — certainly did not have to prioritize them over the truth that she knew but had to offer me because I was interrupting her fucking story with BULLSHIT.

I’ve learned since then that the feelings that arrive alongside truth do not matter much if those feelings get in the way of accepting and internalizing that truth. I’ve also learned that if a Black person or an Indigenous person or a marginalized person is giving you the truth, you swallow whatever hurt you might be feeling and say “Thank you” when they’re finished. Because an education is no burden for a person to carry and feedback is a gift. Your shame is for you to deal with, but at least now you get to deal with it within reality and not the fantasy that that person was so very kind enough to dispel you of.

So, Marva, if you’re reading this — Thank you ❤

Good Storytelling: A Dan Marino Day

Last week I got to see my friend Jessica at a party on a weeknight and she was so pressed that she had gotten caught up in the good time that she was out way past her bedtime and was afraid of work the next morning. Jessica works for the NFL, so I told her the Dan Marino story because sometimes the moment and the spirit arrive at the greenlight at the same time. The Dan Marino story a locker room legend I learned when I was playing football at Brown. One of my teammate’s dad had played in the NFL for a little while, and his rookie year he played for the Miami Dolphins.

The Dan Marino story does not start with Dan Marino. We have to start with the city of Miami itself. Now, this was Miami in the mid-80s: it was hot, humid, and sexy. Cocaine was cheap, Miami Vice was a hit on TV, and a person couldn’t walk on South Beach without seeing someone they wanted to fuck on the sand right then and there. It was also Miami in the mid-80s: the Marielitos had just arrived to the coast from Cuba and Haiti, Black people in Liberty City were fighting against oppression, and crazy white folks were beginning to cultivate the spirit of the Florida Man. So, needless to say, the energy of this place was wild, and no city in America contributed to the zeitgeist of that time than Miami (if you want to read more, I suggest Joan Didion’s Miami, which is a special book to me for different reasons but we will save that story for later).

So, this guy — my old teammate’s dad — arrived to this Miami and the Miami Dolphins training camp as the last man on the roster just trying to get a job. Anyone who has been in that kind of struggle knows the nerves that come with it. The night before the first day of practice — which could have been this man’s last practice ever if he fucked up in any particular kind of way — this man was absolutely restless. He was tossing and turning in his bed; he was flickering through his playbook trying to memorize his assignments; he was a complete and total wreck. He was so nervous that he had to step out of his room and use the bathroom at 2 o’clock in the damn morning to take one of those miserable nervous poops one has when IBS and anxiety meet each other in the middle of the night.

And when he steps out of his room, he sees Dan Marino — the leader and star quarterback of his team — stumbling back into his room. Dan is hammered drunk, and two gorgeous women are hanging onto his arms. Dan and this man lock eyes, and Dan Marino gives this guy a head nod and smile before he leads his two dates into his room.

Now, this man saw Dan Marino and thought to himself, “How in the world could Dan let his team down like this?” Not only was Dan blatantly breaking the 10 pm curfew, he had just participated in all that craziness that South Beach had to offer. He pictured the trouble Dan had gotten himself into and asked himself “How could Dan perform and lead the team at the very first practice of the season if he’s hungover and slow and thinking about the two women from the night before? Practice starts in four hours, Dan. This is shameful shit.”

Anyways, the next day arrives, and this man runs out to the practice field — his cup is filled with nothing but anxiety — and prepares his mind for the day’s work. It’s 95-degrees in the shade with like a gajillion percent humidity. This man is dogging it and practice hasn’t even started yet. Then he turns towards the gate and sees Dan Marino. Dan’s trotting onto the field wearing his high white socks and white cleats; Dan’s got his dark brown curls flowing to the back with his helmet in his hand; Dan is fully on his Baywatch shit. Dan is tan and hot and built and focused.

And Dan Marino goes onto have the practice of his fucking life. Every time my old teammate’s dad sees Dan, Dan is throwing a fucking dart. It’s like, touchdown after touchdown. Dan’s calling plays at the line of scrimmage, scrambling out the pocket, launching bombs on the run, and talking big shit to the defense. Meanwhile, my old teammate’s dad can’t breathe cause the air feels like hot dog water and he’s barely keeping up with his assignments, trying not to get torched on each play. The last play of practice, Dan Marino throws a bullet to score a touchdown, and head coach Don Shula says “That’s a winning football play right there.”

This man is stunned. He has to figure out what happened. He walks up to Dan in the locker room after practice — Dan is smiling and goofing around, talking about the work he just put in — and tells him, “Dan, I saw you last night. We locked eyes. You were hammered drunk. You stayed up all night making love to not one but two women. You didn’t sleep! How did you even do that?! How did you perform like that?!”

Dan looks at this man and says: “Son, this is the NFL. If you can’t do that you need to get the fuck out the league.”

So, reader, the next time you are ever worried about being hungover at work, worried that you won’t be able to make it, just think to yourself: What Would Dan Marino Do?

PS: Please do not be like “Oh! Well! Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl!” Get the fuck outta here. Dan Marino knew how to do two things and that was throw touchdowns and have a good time and the motherfucker never ran out of either.

Vibrations: Enby Love

Last week was “Tea Party: A Non-Binary Conversation” at the Stonewall Protests, and I was privileged enough to hear many non-binary people speak about not only their own genders but the concept of gender itself.

A few speeches in particular certainly cracked open my consciousness. Jordan asserted to the crowd that one can be trans and non-binary and that the experience of these two gender expression are so often intertwined. Osh spoke about how gender expression is both something that a person can celebrate on a daily basis and struggle with on a daily basis and that the beauty of gender expression is how that the daily outcome of that is a grace for that person and blessing for those around them — it’s an honor for everyone when someone meets their own gender with such reverence and solemnity but also with fun and excitement. And Chala spoke about gender being a product of so many things but is most importantly a product of community and spirit. When one exists in a community where no “supposed to’s” exist about gender and sex, one is liberated to feel, express, and live the spirit that their gender calls for. And, certainly at Stonewall, one is able to hear that calling and live out its truth.

I am sure I did a poor job summarizing the wonderful words I heard from these people and so many others last Thursday, but that doesn’t matter because they were said and they exist forever and ever. I encourage everyone to borrow the courage of these people and express their own gender with thoughtfulness, hope, and spirit.

Donate to the Stonewall Protests if you want to support Black trans and non-binary people as they continue to fight for Black liberation. Cashapp: $stonewallprotests

Rhythm: Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) is Our Movie of the Week, “Numbers on the Board” by Pusha T is Our Song of the Week

I ~*promised*~ myself I wouldn’t get into the LeBron Space Jam v. Michael Jordan Space Jam debate because I am a grown man and not Skip Bayless but I am gonna dip my toe in it.

The ’96 Space Jam was really simple. Michael Jordan is in the midst of his baseball retirement, and gets kidnapped by Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes because they need a superstar basketball player in order to defeat the Monstars from Moron Mountain. Michael and the TuneSquad win in a great comeback, and Michael realizes he loves basketball again. The genius of this movie was that Michael Jordan got a whole generation of children (read: me) to believe this was really his story and that those last 3 championships Michael won came because of Bugs Bunny. The very first basketball game I remember Michael Jordan playing was against an animated Danny DeVito. That’s brazy.

LeBron’s Space Jam tries to be a real movie. It like, has a message and shit. And I’m good with it. LeBron gets the chance to speak to the millions of upper middle class and wealthy fathers out there who try to railroad their children into being a certain kind of person, and in the end, LeBron learns that (SHOCKER!) his kid probably won’t be great at basketball — at least not LeBron great.

The movie has a lot going for it. The thing I loved most is that I felt close to LeBron. For decades now he’s been kind of an enigma who has tried to navigate obscene celebrity and Godly talent while possessing the lack of personality that comes when your whole life is basketball and performing for the media. We get a glimpse at a guy who is kind of charming and funny and, most importantly, human. That was needed for LeBron, even though he decided to court ridiculous MJ Space Jam comparisons in order to do it.

***

“Numbers on the Board” is not the best song on Pusha T’s 2013 My Name is My Name. I would give that to either “King Push” or “Nosetalgia” featuring Kendrick Lamar. But “Numbers on the Board” might certainly be Pusha’s favorite. It contains a minimalist hardcore rap beat that plays up Pusha’s rough style of rapping. My favorite line is “Whether rappin or rappin to a whore, I might reach back and relapse to wrapping up this raw” which is a crazy double entendre about selling cocaine and also wearing a condom.

But I say it might have been Pusha’s favorite because, when the track was finally completed– during the last days of Kanye West’s GOOD Music run — Pusha T absolutely exploded. He called up Kanye West and begged him to release the track. I know this because, thank God, someone recorded a video of Pusha T’s end of this phone call. Pusha cannot contain himself. He looks and sounds like a little kid. My favorite part is how he begins to talk to Kanye like Kanye is in the room with him. “Man, listen, I’m gonna turn my back” he says as he turns his back. It’s a moment when we see a bonafide killer become an absolutely adorable and cute artist.

I cherished this video so much that I wrote a poem about it and gave it to one of my best friends, Todd. Todd finished his last day at his old job before going onto graduate school (a salud, Todd!) and he sent me the picture of that crinkled up poem. The song wasn’t his best, but the feeling of hearing it for the first time remains.

Burn a flag and kiss a friend. Love you all and see you next week.

Dil :)