Let's Look Back, a Bit??
In my Master's Thesis in 1972, I cited Eldridge Cleaver's Soul On Ice (1968). I was taken by his depictions of the Omnipotent Administrator and the Super-Masculine Menial as roles played by white and black males throughout the history of the United States. Ten years before that book was published, it was against the law in Missouri, and many other states for whites to compete against blacks in college athletics. The NFL and NBA did not yet exist as we know them today.
It appears that white males have had "issues" with black male sports figures ever since that time. It is amazing how the prejudices seem to transcend generations, and persist to this day; even in the light of the Billion-Dollar sports industries that have been built around their outstanding skills in sports like Football and Basketball. The existence of these "plantation-like" operations are central to the daily life-style and existence for white males in this country.
Richard Sherman, Cornerback for the Seattle Seahawks, caused quite a stir among the "Omnipotents" last Sunday with his exuberant outburst following his spectacular play that won a tight contest for his team. It seems to have scared the crap out of a large number of these guys, who responded, in Social Media, by calling Sherman "A Thug"!
A Thug?? Really?? In this most "thuggish" of nations? In 2014? That's astounding! If you're Native American, the "thugs" were the people who got off their boat; and played nice long enough with the people their descendents now pretend were "not here", to learn how to feed themselves. Once they were strong enough and realized how much land they could "confiscate"; they turned quite "thuggish". The flood of more like them never quit until just about all of the Native Americans were dead. It lasted hundreds of years.
If you're African American, your slave boat arrived shortly before. It didn't take the "thuggish" ones very long to realize how profitable it would be to work slaves to death, (after first reproducing themselves) -- in perpetuity!
Bernard Devoto writes that Texas was admitted to the United States under a plan to divide the territory into four slave-holding states. That would give our slave-driving "thugs" complete political control, and extend slavery to the Pacific Ocean.
Then there werre Thugs warring among themselves. Mexicans came north and enslaved Native Americans. They were forced to return to Mexico after a Native Revolt. They returned in 1598 when Onate invaded and enslaved the territory that stretched from El Paso to Canada. They butchered and enslaved the Natives until President Polk sent his "thugs" and brigands to confiscate the estates of those Californians with names like Vallejo, Sepulvada, and Pico. President Polk also ordered an unprovoked attack on Mexico. It raised the "ante" in our national politics and contributed to the outbreak of our Civil War.
Maybe the white "couch potatoes" should think twice about calling someone "a thug"??
Stay Vigilant! Thuggery is in the eye of the beholder -- Think Jersey, Philly, and New York!
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