Amer-I-Can or Amer-I-Can't

I love Jim Brown, the former NFL great and movie star. I admire and respect his accomplishments in football and entertainment. I think that he is the greatest and most dominant football player to play the game, and possibly the greatest lacrosse player ever.

My admiration for Jim Brown is not centered on his exploits in football or in the movies. My respect for him grows out of his record of community involvement and leadership. (I distrust the word activism because it seems shallow and has become a code word that sends signals to the mainstream. It says, “Here they come, those Civil Rights people. Even if what they say is correct, marginalize what they say.”) Jim Brown has gone into neighborhoods where heavily armed cops won’t go and has pulled young Black men out of gang violence, the effects of government malaise, and hopelessness. I think that the essence of what Jim Brown is doing is teaching disenfranchised people how to behave and participate in this American paradigm.

Despite this fact and the undeniable effectiveness of his Amer-I-Can program, he is under constant attack by all kinds of people. Women’s groups attack him because he has had some violent episodes with women. Some mainstream groups see him as too Black. Although he is in his 70’s, many people still fear him on the most basic, physical level.

I don’t see Jim Brown as perfect or as a saint. On some levels, he is deeply flawed. But, who isn’t. He has consistently admitted that some of his reactions to situations were improper. He has taken responsibility for his actions and continues to evolve.

This post is not really about Jim Brown, though. It is about the name of his program and about my attitude. His program is called Amer-I-Can. For many years, I was an Amer-I-Can’t.

I am part of the first generation of Black Americans born after The Civil Rights movement accomplished the goal of getting laws passed to protect the rights of all Americans. I have no direct experience of the type of oppression, bigotry, and violence prosecuted against non-white Americans prior to the movement. Despite my lack of traumatizing experiences, I have found it hard to turn toward accepting, on my own terms, a fully American identity.

I fully realized the effects of my attitude toward the American paradigm and legacy during my time in grad school. One night, I was at a fight party. Tito Trinidad was fighting William Joppy (and putting it on him I might add). I watched some of the pre-fight shots of the crowd. If memory serves, the fight was in Madison Square Garden and the crowd was heavily Puerto Rican and partisan for Trinidad. They were waving Puerto Rican flags and singing songs and exuding this love for their homeland. I made the comment that I have never felt that way about this country. About thirty minutes later another guy came in and made almost the same comment. I was surprised and sort of taken aback.

I was not surprised that two people expressed the same type feelings. I was surprised that I found that there was really no reason for feeling this way. I could understand this feeling coming from ex-slaves. They didn’t get anything close to a level playing field, but they persevered and accomplished amazing things. I could understand those sentiments from people who lived through the dark days of Jim Crow, which was just slavery recapitulated. I could especially understand it from non-white veterans, who, despite their service to this country, were often in danger of being lynched in full uniform. I just got to a point where I couldn’t understand or justify it fully from myself or my generation.

I think that mine is a generation, among other things, of unfocused anger and aggression. We were brought up being taught who the enemy was but not having any consistent outward manifestations on which to focus. So we manifested our anger outwardly on anything that moved. Some of those manifestations had a certain beauty to them, like Mike Tyson knocking someone the fuck out or KRS-ONE or Public Enemy verbally destroying the Reagan Era law and order paradigm. Other manifestations were horrific, like the crack epidemic or the gang violence that Jim Brown has spent so much time fighting.

While my epiphany started the process of transformation, my new attitude was brought to life by my travel overseas. I was in a culture that was totally foreign to me. I found in a very direct way that most of the people that I encountered didn't care what I looked like or where I was from. They just wanted to get where they were going and to do what they wanted to do. Four hundred years of slavery and oppression don't really compare in scope to five thousand years of recorded history and culture.

Regardless, for me that manifestation ran its course a few years ago. Since that little epiphany, I have refocused that part of me to try to understand my place in this American experiment. I long ago (before my epiphany) moved away from the entitlement mentality that is stereotyped into and onto the Black community. I have embraced the promise that is one of the most beautiful parts of the American paradigm: the opportunity to reshape oneself in one’s own image.

I still live in the real world. I know that there are still barriers and attitudes that seek to retard my progress based on outmoded assumptions and fear. But, I am trying to give less and less power to those attitudes. Now this doesn’t mean that I want to sell out, assimilate, or adopt a white-washed identity. It instead says that while there are no guarantees, I will take my chances to define myself as I choose, make a space for myself and my ideas, and live as I choose. I want to embrace the right to fully participate without being obstructed or hindered because of racial or identity politics.