to the National Football League a
breakup letter seeing is the strongest
of teachers it has taught me where your
heart has always been Charles Dickens
great expectations first memories begin
at four or maybe five my first memories
of you are letters encapsulated in caps
ins on a floor model television screen
and wanting to find meaning in them and
I’m pretty sure I loved you first before
I learned to read before I learned terms
like femme fatale or unrequited love see
my love for you precedes the Sesame
Street have fun with reading books
before Hooked on Phonics was a thing
before Dick and Jane before Huck Finn
met Tom Sawyer before lions and witches
and wardrobes before Charles Dickens and
Alexander Dumas and the Red Badge of
Courage a British version before I read
plays like The Merchant of Venice or the
tempest or the crucible before that
crucial time spent reading Langston
Hughes and Maya Angelou rhymes on a lime
green floor pillow in my aunt honey’s
library summer 1985 I was enamored with
you before I fell in with the chestnut
haired girl on Short Street before sweet
cocoa moved in next door with her raven
hair and eyes and her
accent in her adoration for white
t-shirts and water pistol fights this
was before super soakers were invented
this was before the door-to-door
salesman circumvented my father’s penny
pinch and inch the world of encyclopedia
britannica into my life one volume at a
time you were the reason a 9:00 p.m.
bedtime on Monday night was akin to
torture and if Church was a meal in a
pew you were a barbecue and chocolate
cake and six kinds of ice cream on the
picnic table while seated next to the
Jesus Christ himself and the Lord God in
heaven my multiplication tables started
with seven by the age of seven I knew I
loved you you were Lynn Swann and John
Stallworth and tiny hotdogs smothered in
barbecue sauce at my Nana’s house on
Super Bowl Sunday 1980 you were Tony
Dorsett crazy 99-yard run on my parents
black-and-white on a Monday night when I
was supposedly asleep in bed you are the
reason my cousin’s still call me a
traitor for abandoning the Dallas
Cowboys as a teenager and you were there
before those late-night sneaks across
town to see that girl on Short Street
and you were there before not-so-sweet
coco broke my heart into a thousand
pieces a thousand reasons to believe I’d
never love anyone again
back then you were Coco’s honey skin
clinging to that t-shirt I could only
see your curves not your parallels my
own a brown skin this nation’s
beginnings
overseers in the grandstands playing
fields and field hands draft combines
and slave auctions black bodies made
commodity niggas for lease but love is
blind love can’t fix anything like duct
tape or wd-40 or
Tony D and Herschel Walker in the same
backfield at the same time you were
Barry Sanders dancing feet stealing my
heart and my allegiance and my
allegiance to you pushed its way through
field goal kicking pedophiles
dogfighting rings chronic traumatic
encephalopathy domestic abuse but that
had happened this brother took a need
for me and I see you he took a knee from
me seven times more likely to be shot by
the police he took a knee from me and I
can’t unsee it I can’t unsee te it
he took a knee to save my life it was
never about stars or stripes or the
military or the national anthem with its
unquestionably racist unsung third verse
he took a knee to end the curse of
public schools to prison pipelines
longer sentences for same crimes redline
tactics going back decades before this
brother was even born
he took a knee for Michael Brown for
Tamir rice for laQuan McDonald for
Walter Scott for Freddie gray
he took a knee and he don’t get to play
yeah I see you black bodies brutalized
for the wealth and entertainment of the
ruling class this beautiful one-handed
attention grab fit for mass public
consumption Sunday dinner background
music
Monday morning conversation-starter
Monday night’s fantasy heartbreak see
only white folks get to be Patriots
so I finally see the face of it or
better yet I see exactly where your
heart is at you are that beautiful
dangerous creature you are a Honolulu
Blue Notes you are
Hail Mary lacking grace you are Arthur
Miller’s Abigail you are Estella – my
pip you are Edmunds
White Witch and I’m looking for a bridge
but all I’ve got is 32 rich white men
and women collectively selectively
silencing an uppity black man and
blinders on that can’t filter out this
truth and I only wish it was as simple
as telling you goodbye see my family
loves you they love watching every tale
you spin but like the man said seeing is
the strongest of teachers it has taught
me where your heart has always been
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
breakup letter seeing is the strongest
of teachers it has taught me where your
heart has always been Charles Dickens
great expectations first memories begin
at four or maybe five my first memories
of you are letters encapsulated in caps
ins on a floor model television screen
and wanting to find meaning in them and
I’m pretty sure I loved you first before
I learned to read before I learned terms
like femme fatale or unrequited love see
my love for you precedes the Sesame
Street have fun with reading books
before Hooked on Phonics was a thing
before Dick and Jane before Huck Finn
met Tom Sawyer before lions and witches
and wardrobes before Charles Dickens and
Alexander Dumas and the Red Badge of
Courage a British version before I read
plays like The Merchant of Venice or the
tempest or the crucible before that
crucial time spent reading Langston
Hughes and Maya Angelou rhymes on a lime
green floor pillow in my aunt honey’s
library summer 1985 I was enamored with
you before I fell in with the chestnut
haired girl on Short Street before sweet
cocoa moved in next door with her raven
hair and eyes and her
accent in her adoration for white
t-shirts and water pistol fights this
was before super soakers were invented
this was before the door-to-door
salesman circumvented my father’s penny
pinch and inch the world of encyclopedia
britannica into my life one volume at a
time you were the reason a 9:00 p.m.
bedtime on Monday night was akin to
torture and if Church was a meal in a
pew you were a barbecue and chocolate
cake and six kinds of ice cream on the
picnic table while seated next to the
Jesus Christ himself and the Lord God in
heaven my multiplication tables started
with seven by the age of seven I knew I
loved you you were Lynn Swann and John
Stallworth and tiny hotdogs smothered in
barbecue sauce at my Nana’s house on
Super Bowl Sunday 1980 you were Tony
Dorsett crazy 99-yard run on my parents
black-and-white on a Monday night when I
was supposedly asleep in bed you are the
reason my cousin’s still call me a
traitor for abandoning the Dallas
Cowboys as a teenager and you were there
before those late-night sneaks across
town to see that girl on Short Street
and you were there before not-so-sweet
coco broke my heart into a thousand
pieces a thousand reasons to believe I’d
never love anyone again
back then you were Coco’s honey skin
clinging to that t-shirt I could only
see your curves not your parallels my
own a brown skin this nation’s
beginnings
overseers in the grandstands playing
fields and field hands draft combines
and slave auctions black bodies made
commodity niggas for lease but love is
blind love can’t fix anything like duct
tape or wd-40 or
Tony D and Herschel Walker in the same
backfield at the same time you were
Barry Sanders dancing feet stealing my
heart and my allegiance and my
allegiance to you pushed its way through
field goal kicking pedophiles
dogfighting rings chronic traumatic
encephalopathy domestic abuse but that
had happened this brother took a need
for me and I see you he took a knee from
me seven times more likely to be shot by
the police he took a knee from me and I
can’t unsee it I can’t unsee te it
he took a knee to save my life it was
never about stars or stripes or the
military or the national anthem with its
unquestionably racist unsung third verse
he took a knee to end the curse of
public schools to prison pipelines
longer sentences for same crimes redline
tactics going back decades before this
brother was even born
he took a knee for Michael Brown for
Tamir rice for laQuan McDonald for
Walter Scott for Freddie gray
he took a knee and he don’t get to play
yeah I see you black bodies brutalized
for the wealth and entertainment of the
ruling class this beautiful one-handed
attention grab fit for mass public
consumption Sunday dinner background
music
Monday morning conversation-starter
Monday night’s fantasy heartbreak see
only white folks get to be Patriots
so I finally see the face of it or
better yet I see exactly where your
heart is at you are that beautiful
dangerous creature you are a Honolulu
Blue Notes you are
Hail Mary lacking grace you are Arthur
Miller’s Abigail you are Estella – my
pip you are Edmunds
White Witch and I’m looking for a bridge
but all I’ve got is 32 rich white men
and women collectively selectively
silencing an uppity black man and
blinders on that can’t filter out this
truth and I only wish it was as simple
as telling you goodbye see my family
loves you they love watching every tale
you spin but like the man said seeing is
the strongest of teachers it has taught
me where your heart has always been
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
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