MY FIRST SUPER HERO

My first super hero passed away last night. No this is not hyperbole. It’s not an “event” that the next group of writers can retcon. My first super hero was a living breathing human being.

I remember the first time I saw him. It was on a humongous 20-inch television. It was the build up to the “Thrilla in Manila”.

I was between 2 and 3 years old and the only thing I truly remember was I’d never heard a man that looked like me, outside of my father, talk like that. He was swagger personified. He was larger than life itself. I knew he wore trunks instead of a cape yet he was just as powerful and forceful as any of his spandex wearing brethren. For a brief time, I wanted to be just like him, until I realized I lacked his prodigious athletic gifts, but I could draw though! Throughout my life I would see him on television and movies. It was because of him I learned of the terrible disease Parkinson’s and how it was destroying him and others like him from the inside. And more importantly I watched him vow to fight the disease with everything he had. What I didn’t know until I got older, was how much of a fighter my first super hero really was. I mean I knew he had skills in the ring but that wasn’t the only battle he took on. It took me all of my life to really truly understand what kind of a fighter my first super hero was. He spent a good part of his life battling the most insidious super villain of them all, Racism. He called out institutionalize racism and white privilege before they even had fancy buzz word descriptors. He battled Racism’s partner in crime Inequality. Refusing to participate in the Vietnam War and “kill people that didn’t do anything to him and had a lot more in common with him.”

He was demonized when he converted to Islam, stood with other black athletes to force social change and was the literally the celebrity loud speaker of social injustice. He stood against everything I stood against. He was a proud black man refusing to bow down to anyone. My first super hero fought never ending battles but he wasn’t perfect. His personal life was the stuff tabloids dream of, he mercilessly berated, belittled and hounded opponents (especially the black ones) and yet he rose above all of that. He became greater than the sum total of his parts. He became a symbol.

So whenever I get a chance to watch a documentary or get the itch to watch some of his old fights on YouTube I feel proud. He was a complex dude and yet he was so simple. He wanted people to be treated fairly, all people, not some…ALL. He wanted equality. He wanted to remain at the top of his game. Well he had a chance of achieving the first two but he had no chance against the latter. Time always wins and that forces you to change. For him the change made him even more mythological than ever before. He was simply that dude. I’m gonna miss my first super hero. He floated across the ring, like a butterfly, but his sting, his sting was as fast and as powerful as a bee. Rest in Peace Muhammad Ali.

My first super hero.

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