Ichabod's Kin
A place for politics, pop culture, and social issues

           The new year’s underway, we’ve sobered up, Resolutions are broken and ‘tis the season for carping and kvetching.

           What we needed was a Super Bowl to scratch up everything hated by everybody. We didn’t even need a game to get things rolling. Just a half-time show. Back in the day, Color tv wasn’t a thing and nothing was worse than to watch bands marching around like dull wooden soldiers before the smash-mouthing resumed.

           Singing of the National Anthem might have started a war first—if it didn’t sound like Kate Smith, who lasted much too long in the public eye—all hell could follow. People didn’t really care to sing along and cameras caught super-patriots talking, drinking beer and picking their noses. We sing now pre-game to prove our politics, after which sights are set on how anh break in the action is comported.

           This year there was no waiting. They should know better than to let persons of color take the stage at all, given that they’ll be roasted from the git-go. Plenty of people don’t like modern music or understand the lyrics, but when white dudes’ lyrics cover sex, drugs and wardrobe failures, that’s okay.

           This time, Kendrick Lamar came out rappin’ and flappin’ and that turned out okay too, given that demand for his signature tunes jumped exponentially before the game was over. Hey, I don’t get all those rap lyrics either, but instead of calling the police I turned on my Closed Captioning and all was fine. I love opera too but not knowing Italian I keep my eyes on the libretto. See, we all think a lot better when we stop seeing red.

           Bob Hope and Bing Crosby sang songs that were dumb as hell—like, “Yes, We Have No Bananas” and “I’ve Got A Loverly Bunch o’ Coconuts,” and people just laughed and had a good time. That was before we elected a Black president and some folks got all pissy about music too.

           Besides Lamar’s rapping, it was the most incredible choreography ever. Some viewers wanted to hate Samel L. Jackson playing Uncle Sam but they’ve been loving him too long to change to pivot that quickly. Same for Serena Williams, who was in on Lamar’s plot for the occasion, but she’s already on the list of America’s Sweethearts.

           Marvin Gaye was a Black dude who was OK with the masses when he crushed the Anthem at the ’83 NBA All Star Game, or Whitney Houston knocked our socks off at Super Bowl XXV. But haters gotta hate, so the internet was full of it after Lamar wiped the field with all that color, glitz and talent—and sass. There was just too much for haters not to like.

           Relax. The essence of life is adaptation whether we come to terms with it yet. Most things we don’t like are things we aren’t used to. That’s my take on the last election. People just weren’t ready for a world going too fast. They can’t imagine that so much that they’re against will be taken for granted by their grandkids.

           So we’ve slowed to a crawl and come almost to full-stop on social justice. But it’s on the wrong side of history; time will pass, we’ll take a big, deep national breath and the world will go on.

           But we have to get on the same page. One page is about admitting to the Black experience in America, deemed by some to be a tired story and, besides, they think plenty of progress has been made. Sadly, todays’ news denies that.

           Maybe poetry’s the thing that captures the conscience of the king. Drop in at the Sr. Community Center on Thursday, March 6 when you’ll be invited to “Be Black,” i.e., put yourself in their place via poetry from days of enslavement to modern times.

           I mean, if you’re for a better world, what’s not to like?