One Week Later: LANK is Nobody’s Dream
We’re in the social media age. In many ways that’s beautiful. We’re all connected. We’re all seeing the same things and responding to them. It’s the ‘trending’ era. Every day something is trending either on social media or on the news (which isn’t far off from social media these days anyway), and every day there’s a rush for everyone to give their opinion on the thing or person under the microscope. I used to be no different. The podcast I co-hosted, ‘Wild Wild World’, did the same thing. We talked about the happenings and the things that had us all talking. Then life happened. And in truth, most of this stuff I just couldn’t care about anymore. I had no thoughts to give. No points to make. No hot takes. Some of these things are Taco Bell. They go right through you. So I’m changing it up. I’m no longer rushing to share my thoughts on something I don’t care that much about. Especially not on things that I’ll completely forget about in 3 days. Instead, I’m going to circle back a week later. That thing ya’ll argued about on Monday? Well it’s next Wednesday but I’ve actually had time to think about it. I’m not firing from the hip, I’ve let things marinate a bit in the membrane. The trick? Maybe ya’ll don’t care anymore. But that’s the risk you run when you’re a rebel, I suppose. So that’s what this is. Some thoughts and opinions about things that have already cycled out of the drama cycle. Terrible idea for a newspaper column but sounds fun to me! One more caveat. I’m going to write assuming that the reader knows about the issue at hand. I know some folks may not know what I’m referencing. My hope is that they’ll conduct a quick search to see what’s going on if they’re confused. This isn’t because of arrogance or ignorance. It’s strictly because it’s just not fun for me to write paragraphs explaining the situation. That’s right, it’s all about me.
Today’s old news: LANK. More specifically, Pat McAfee’s off the cuff statement on Martin Luther King Jr. Day about LANK. Long story short, a few weeks prior, while on College Game Day, the host explained that Alabama’s starting QB (a black man), had a clothing line called LANK which stood for ‘Let all Naysayers Know’. As he explained this, co-host McAfee, cracked up as he explained that ‘naysayer’ was definitely not what he thought the ’n’ was going to stand for. Folks laughed. The other black co-hosts cracked up. Twitter had a field day substituting the word ‘nigga’ for ‘naysayer’. Fun times were had by all. Then, a few weeks later on MLK day, McAfee decided to say this:
‘“He had a dream and I think LANK was one of the closest we’ve had to potentially that dream coming to fruition. So let’s realize that as we look around and realize that we’re maybe more close than we’ve ever been. And there’s an election about to take place next year where we need to remember that we are more close than we have ever been… now, as somebody who was canceled by both parties last week, both of them canceled me. Two political parties canceled me last week and we are still alive. Let’s remember we don’t need the outside noise. All we need is a little bit of love.”
Negro what?
It’s some time later and I’m still irritated. I’m irritated because way too many people think like this. They think love is the cure to systemic racism. And you know what? Love is part of the cure. Love for your fellow man. But the love that brings change ain’t the love McAfee and others are talking about. They’re talking about passive love. The ‘do no harm’ love. The ‘treat others with respect’ love. The ‘judge by the content of character and not the color of their skin’ love. Those are all good things. But they ain’t hard! They’re basic! That’s how racist this country was when MLK was wearing out the soles of his hardbottoms. It was radical to ask white folks to treat us based on our character! But today? Today we need mature love.
Mature love isn’t passive. It’s active. You can’t love a spouse passively. You can’t love a child passively. You can’t love your friends passively. True love is intentional. If your friend is going through a hard time, you’re not loving them by sitting back and saying ‘it’s a shame what Ethel is going through. I just love her so much.’ Active love does something! You show up for that person somehow! You actively love your partner by doing things that matter to them and that help them! And THAT, my friends, is what white America has largely refused to do. Active love changes laws. Active love redistributes wealth gained through racism and exploitation. Active love is often sacrificial. It means taking a pancake or two from your double stack to add to someone else’s short stack. True love ain’t easy!
Folks don’t want to hear that, though. That’s how you get people like McAfee, fresh off of signing a huge contract with one of the largest media providers in the world, claiming that the ability for him and other white folks to laugh about the word ‘nigga’, short for ‘nigger’, is somehow related to Dr. King’s dream. Laughing at the effects of racism is something wealthy white men have been doing since way back when. Sure, on some level it says something that nobody got offended, but guess what? It was BLACK people that didn’t get offended! The same black people who have been exploited and abused and demonized since we got here. So Dr. King’s dream was a world in which black folks didn’t take offense to the jokes of white folks? What? No!
Dr. King’s dream was that nobody had to suffer because of their race. It was that everyone could start at the same starting block. That one’s blackness would never be a preventative measure to achieving the level of success they’re talent, drive and character would lend them. To minimize it to this nonsense is disrespectful to him along with basically every black person who’s suffered directly or indirectly from the heinous, evil racism that has plagued this country. And in truth it’s disrespectful to the humanity that Dr. King believed was present in the white Americans who directly or indirectly benefited from that same evil of racism. He believed in ya’ll. He believed that at your core you were decent enough to want the same thing. And not simply to want the same thing, but to actually do something about it. And that’s where this country falls short. Where so many things do. When the money gets involved.
Ultimately money drove racism in America. And still to this day money is what allows that legacy to continue to drag on today. The haves don’t want to have any less, and the have nots have not been able to take it by force. It’s really as simple as that. Either the haves need to take a look inside and decide to give up a little bit of what they have in order to level the playing field, or the have-nots have to stop being satisfied with the table scraps they’ve been living off of and risk something for radical change. Truthfully, I don’t blame either side. It’s a rare thing for a group to voluntarily weaken itself or give away wealth purely for altruistic ideals or the benefit of others. Usually when that happens there’s a religious component. You know, people giving their wealth away to please God or sacrificing of themselves today for spiritual or eternal benefit. That’s a big ask. Similarly it’s rare that a group will sacrifice much when they have something to lose. The people rise up when the people just can’t take no more. We’re more neutered than ever. Even many poor and underprivileged people in America today have access to a ton of creature comforts unfathomable a generation or two ago. Electricity, internet and other things keep us all fairly comfortable day to day. How many black folks are mad enough that they’re willing to put something on the line? If home is nothing but a tenement that’s too cold or too hot or a crowded shack, it’s easy to imagine being fed up with it. But today there are so many people comfortable where they are, how many are going to risk jail or worse over fighting the good fight to get our people what we deserve? I’m not judging, just asking.
My hope is that the next time someone decides to repeat the platitudes folks like McAfee enjoy that they pause and ask themselves what they really mean. Is it a true display of your fellow man to share a laugh about racial epithets? Or is real love something more than that? Does loving people require something from you other than indifference? Something more than basic human decency absent of the evils of racism, classism and any other ‘ism’s? If it does, then what is your part in that? How can you love intentionally? How can you love from a place of understanding? That’s real love. That’s true love. And when you do, when people push back or have issue with you? Well then, by all means, LANK.
