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by Paradise Free Jahlove
Hut. Hut. Rumor has it that Beyonce put on such an electrifying performance she used up all the power and blew out the lights at this year’s Super Bowl in New Orleans. And Colin Kaepernick almost pulled off the most miraculous Super Bowl comeback in history for his team, the San Francisco 49ers. Unfortunately, his offense dropped too many passes, and his usually stalwart defense allowed too many passes to be caught. Moreover, Baltimore was a team of destiny.
2012 could be called the year of the Black quarterback. Black quarterbacks were the new breed, making most of the headlines, with players like Colin Kaepernick, Russell Wilson, Cam Newton and Robert Griffin III, aka RG3, dazzling the National Football League with their scrambling ability and foot speed, accurate passing skills and overall sterling play, fulfilling the promise of all previous Black quarterbacks who paved the way, from Marlin Briscoe and “Jefferson Street” Joe Gilliam to James Harris, Randle Cunningham, Warren Moon, Donovan McNabb and Michael Vick.
Colin Kaepernick almost pulled off the most miraculous Super Bowl comeback in history for his team, the San Francisco 49ers.
However Black quarterbacks have always had to deal with a label and a stereotype. Basically they weren’t white enough, weren’t savvy and intelligent enough to lead teams to glory like Joe Montana, Tom Brady, Bart Starr and Johnny Unitas. A quarterback had to be a leader, a chief, a shaman-warrior-king, a high priest in a helmet, the general leading his troops to battle and the brains of the operation. A god. Which is an interesting misconception, because the original shaman-warrior-priest-witchdoctor-general-god-king is the Black man. So how on earth could the Elder Statesman of this planet and Original Man, who has survived against the greatest odds in history – slavery, racism, sharecropping, Jim Crowism, segregation, integration, chemical warfare and the prison industrial complex etc. – not have these attributes?
Even up to game time itself in New Orleans, reporters were calling Colin Kaepernick a “running quarterback.” The implication being that he was a leg and arm man, a stallion, a beast and a freak – anything but an elite quarterback. Because he has breakaway speed like the fastest runner in the world, Olympic champion, Usain “Lightning” Bolt. A “running quarterback,” not a quarterback who could run. As if he needed to go to the Wizard of Oz singing, “If I only had a brain.” And yet the San Francisco 49ers offense is the most sophisticated and cerebral offense in the National Football League, and Colin Kaepernick ran it and mastered it in less than half a season with dexterity and aplomb.
Colin Kaepernick has everybody in the sports world abuzz with his talent, which is setting a new paradigm in sports, like Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali, Doctor J, Jim Brown and Tiger Woods did when they first hit the scene. He is like the Pharoah Golden Boy King Tutenkhamen, with his ancient Egyptian-like goatee.
He would have been the first Black quarterback to win the Super Bowl in 25 years, since Doug Williams did it for the Washington Redskins in 1968. After which the Black community in America breathed a collective sigh of relief like, “Ah. We don’t have to live with that stigma anymore. We did it. We proved we could win the Big One.”
The San Francisco 49ers offense is the most sophisticated and cerebral offense in the National Football League, and Colin Kaepernick ran it and mastered it in less than half a season with dexterity and aplomb.
The recent emergence of the Black quarterback has come about because of pro football teams’ desperation to win. Teams will try almost anything. Like America recently chose and reelected a Black man to quarterback the nation out of the desperate crisis-recession-inflation-depression situation so called white presidents had put the country in. Or as Will Smith might say, “Please save us, Mister Black Man!”
The Washington Redskins coaches wanted to win so badly this year in the playoffs they sent their prize rookie quarterback and franchise player, RG3, on the field and back on the field again after an injury, with a near broken leg. Which he reinjured, and had to be helped off the field. “Please, Mr. Phenomenal Black Man, win us a Super Bowl. We don’t care if you get crippled for life and ruin your career. Just win, baby.”
The recent emergence of the Black quarterback has come about because of pro football teams’ desperation to win. Teams will try almost anything.
There are some “very superstitious” people who viewed this unfortunate situation that happened in Washington as a sign of a curse, or something that deserved to happen, because of the team’s blatantly racist, insensitive and degrading nickname, the Redskins. Here we are in the 21st century and the Washington Redskins, Cleveland Indians and Kansas City Chiefs are still doing “Tommyhawk” signs, wearing “Red Sambo” emblems on their uniforms and still being disrespectful to the disenfranchised and nearly obliterated Native Americans of this country.
What if Hannibal had been our Christopher Columbus and the Moors had conquered all of Europe and killed over 90 percent of its so-called white people and then started a sports organization called the European Krakkker Football League? And had teams with names like the London Pale Faces? Would the remaining European population find this institutionalized racism against them charming or insulting?
Western culture puts too much emphasis on the brain and IQ and imposes this ideology on the rest of the world. And there’s a reason for this. The Baby Souls can only teach you what they know. An Ancient Soul will tell you that we human beings have 12 brains, one for each sign of the Zodiac. And more than that, each person has around 50 trillion cells in his or her body, more or less, and each cell has a brain or central intelligence which corresponds to the great I Am, ensouled in the brain that quarterbacks the whole body.
The Aries Brain is just the headquarter brain. But from head to toe you also have a Leo Heart Brain, a Scorpio Sex Brain and a Pisces Foot Brain etc. The Aries Brain is the Warrior, the Self Preservationist, I am, Ego, Primary brain. We are thankful for the brave warrior Aries. Babies come into the world head first, led by the courageous Aries spirit, ready to take on the world. I once had a sister friend ask me, “Why do babies have so much fight in them?” Because for the first two years babies are dominated by the developing Aries, survivalist, self-preservationist, I am, egotistical, warrior, butting heads, ram brain. After those “terrible twos,” the fighting warrior begins to talk and learns to articulate his brutish passion by using and developing the Taurean Voice Brain the second two years. As Aries rules the head, Taurus rules the throat.
African and indigenous people were not prepared for the level of inhumanity and barbaric insanity brought on by the invading Europeans. How could a people be so cold blooded and insensitive? Because a severely underdeveloped human being may have a high IQ but a low HQ. A high Intelligence Quotient but a low Heart Quotient. Or low EI (Emotional Intelligence). Underdeveloped abilities to feel and empathize. Some people need to go to the Wizard of Oz singing, “If I only had a heart.”
Utilizing the Head Brain without the Heart Brain is like hopping around with one leg when you could be walking or running on two. Thinking is a marvelous faculty, especially for everyday, mundane activities. But with the Leo Heart Brain’s insight and intuition activated, you don’t have to think. You know. You obtain direct knowledge. The most balanced individuals use the brain AND the heart.
Some people are stuck in their heads and the primary-primitive brain. Dr. John Henrik Clarke, noted Black historian and scholar, calls these people “grown juvenile delinquents.” Stuck in their heads, these people often lack the rhythm of the full usage of their bodies, so they can’t dance. They can’t shake and bake on the court or the fields of life. Or having a low Scorpio Sexual IQ, they may be rotten in bed. So they rape and pillage. I read somewhere that America, in its centuries-long existence, has only had about 20 years when she has not been at war with some other country or people.
When stuck in the head, you have a quarterback who is trying to do everything himself and not distributing the ball around to other team mates or members of the body collective. So the whole team can become disjointed, out of rhythm and out of sync – like a whole country or race of people. A good quarterback hands the ball off from time to time and passes to his receivers and gives thanks to his blockers for protecting him. And most importantly he leads by example.
So I want to especially give a shout out to the sisters during this Women’s History Month, who have done such a good job of quarterbacking the Black family during these modern times, practically alone and against tremendous odds.
Do you know why the Oakland Raiders are so popular all over the world and people are fanatical about them whether they win or lose? Well, the Raiders symbolically stand for the blue collar worker, the world underdog and the 99 percent. But more than that, the Silver and Black colors are symbolic of the Black woman. The Black Madonna. Silver-moon-goddess-woman and Black. Just like the San Francisco 49ers colors, red and gold, are symbolic of the Red man.
A good quarterback hands the ball off from time to time and passes to his receivers and gives thanks to his blockers for protecting him. And most importantly he leads by example.
I’ve oftentimes wondered how wonderful it would be if Raider fans treated the city of Oakland as their Super Bowl and were as fanatical about its citizens and youth and education in the schools as they are about the Raiders and its star players.
What’s the difference between a monastery and a prison? Attitude and purpose. Let the monks and the prisoners switch places and the monastery would become hostile like a prison and the prison, full of monks, would become a peaceful place of prayer, scholarship and spirituality. It all depends on who’s calling the signals. Hut. Hut.
So I want to encourage those brothers who haven’t been good quarterbacks to their families – and who have been out of pocket – to get back into the pocket and step up their game. I want to encourage us all to be better Black quarterbacks in the community, in our family circles, in our schools, amongst our peers, behind bars and in all situations in life. Pass the buck to Nikki instead of Nike. To Mercedes instead of Mercedes Benz. To Ebony instead of Ivory.
Hut. Hut. Let us all be better Black quarterbacks by using the Afrikan playbook, by distributing our dollars to more Black businesses. Hut. Hut. To more Black organizations. Hut. Hut. To more Black schools and book stores. Hut Hut. To that homeless brother on the street. Don’t worry about what he’s going to do with it. Plant seeds. Circulate your currency in community, and community will circulate its currency with you. In Kiswahili there is a saying, “Pamoja tutashinda,” which means “Together we will win.” Be Black. Think Black. Buy Black. BlaQuarterback. Hut. Hut.
Hut. Hut. Let us all be better Black quarterbacks by using the Afrikan playbook, by distributing our dollars to more Black businesses. Hut. Hut. To more Black organizations. Hut. Hut. To more Black schools and book stores. Hut Hut. To that homeless brother on the street.
P.S. Stay tuned to the Bay View for my future articles, including “Knowledge of the Pyramids,” “Unplug Yourself from the Matrix” and “Black History Month Extended from Dr. King’s Birthday through February.”
Paradise is president of the International Black Writers & Artists Local 5 in Oakland and was honored by the City of Oakland with “Paradise Day,” on Oct. 6, 2007. Visit www.2012worldsfair.wordpress.com and email him at oaklandworldsfair@yahoo.com. Paradise also facilitates the Buy Black Wednesdays Facebook page and group, hosts the Black Wednesday Show every Wednesday at 6 p.m. on www.harambeeradio.com and blogs at www.blackwednesdays.blogspot.com.
