Stan’s homework

Last night I set Stan Banos some homework. I woke up this morning to find his bang on response to this.

Explain? The best I could manage was involuntary laughter listening to that radio twit blather endlessly about that which he knows nothing about, the more than appropriate Talk Is Cheap logo conveniently beside him.

And there really was no end to his non stop, feel good, revisionist prattle.

I couldn’t help but think back to when Mario Van Peebles recounted how he was trying to sell his film vision of the Black Panthers to the customary Hollywood big wigs. He finally got someone interested in backing it, except in this version, the battered, defeated Panthers would be taken in by a white high school teacher who in turn would inspire, motivate and nurse them back to health to once again take on the powers that be. That’s the movie that fortunately, never got made (although the very perversity in me sure wishes that alternate universe version was somehow actually available).

This so called “project” is so very wrong in each and every way.

First off, it truly hurts the eyes- and that, in and of itself is inexcusable. This is vomit inducing imagery at an unprecedented level. Offensive, in your face, third rate commercial portraiture from a “world famous photographer” that offers nothing more than a blatant celebration of the self satisfying, self gratifying, narcissistic American self. As a result, they effectively squander any possible hope of reaching out to anyone for anything approaching mature, insightful dialogue on an adult level. Of course, that was never the intention here. And so, perhaps it does, in fact, stand a chance of achieving it’s original goal- reducing everything including world peace, equality and brotherly love to a happy face and a logo.

Ahhh… and then to that other photo- another age, another mindset, another reality.

Everyone on that winners’ podium (and their families) received death threats because of that image.

I was a mere prepubescent when I saw Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their fists on TV, and not being able to get the full implications of their actions at that age, I still remember getting the gist right down to the bone. Someone finally had the guts to stand up, and at their greatest moment, share with us not the delusion of their grandeur, but the reality of what they were- proud, beat down, and undefeated.

Immediately suspended from the Olympic team, the commercial endorsements and lucrative financial opportunities that accompany sport celebrity were nowhere to follow, chastised by the masses as was a fellow athlete once named Cassius Marcellus Clay. Compare their lives and actions to our one note, modern day, corporate sport icons: Jordan, Woods and King James Lebron.

As Malcolm X once told us, “The price of freedom is death.” You don’t get to taste it, unless you’re willing to risk it. Fame, celebrity and fortune are considerably easier.