THE OLD LION CAN STILL ROAR

He looked old and feeble.  Too thin. Slightly reminded me of Paul Newman before the end.  But I can’t think of another speech where physical weakness was so outshined by verbal power.

Bill Clinton, President Bill Clinton, can still bring it in front of a large crowd. As great as Michelle Obama was, and as unifying as Bernie Sanders tried to be – it was William Jefferson Clinton that provided the port in the storm for all democrats during the tumult of their own discord and fear about “that other guy.”

If you are a democrat fence-sitter about Hilary occupying the White House, you have absolutely no doubts the country and the world would become of a better place if he re-took residence in the People’s House.

Look, I get it.  When Bill talks about his love and pursuit of Hillary all those years ago, most of us of a certain age, cringe a little bit and think about a dark-haired intern and a blue dress.  We know the love story of the Clintons is one where a huge chapter bespeaks shame, infidelity and massive public embarrassment.

We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that ALL of our heroes are flawed and human. We know that a “perfect” person is just someone whose secrets have yet to be revealed. And we know that as Bill went on and on about Hillary’s intellect, caring and self-sacrifice, the political image-burnisher was cranked up to 11.

But the man can use a speech like a firefighter uses water to vanquish flames. If our political house is on fire and “that other guy” is wielding a can of gasoline like a drunken madman, Slick Willy can rain down his words of comfort and optimism and extinguish the fire of fear and hate.

I’m old enough to have heard so many political speeches. I came of political age during Reagan, slept through most of Bush Senior’s one term, laughed and then cried at the feebleness of his son’s language butchery and even got to witness in person one of Obama’s stem-winders. 

Clinton is simply the best in modern times. His voice isn’t particularly soothing, his genuineness is questionable and his personal history can tug on the words like a pesky fly – but them man is pure smooth hell behind a podium. End of story.

He’s like Lawrence Taylor bank in the day. Yes, Taylor was a pretty despicable person off the field, and left his fans with a bad taste in their mouths, kind of like the way Clinton’s personal life did for many of us. But come game day, there was no one on the planet you’d want more then LT rushing the left side of the offensive line, and there is no one on the planet you’d want more making the case for our next president than the man from Hope Arkansas.

Like a proud old lion with few, if any, hunts left, Bill Clinton dragged his tired bones onto the stage and let out a resounding and singular roar as only he could.

Blame it on Nat Turner

If I said to you that last night I drove through a “bad neighborhood,” what image would immediately pop into your mind about my stated location? I believe with every fiber of my being that if you are white, the image in your mind would contain one singular element with stark clarity – the presence of multiple black males hanging out on the streets.

Sure, your mind’s eye would be collaged with graffiti, trash, neon liquor store signs and bright marquees for payday loans. But, those are just scenery in a drama where the starring role is occupied by dark skin contrasted against “wife-beater” t-shirts and baggie blue jeans.

If we are being honest with ourselves, we can’t escape the fact that we white men are terrified of black men.

And I think that, more than any other factor, is the heart of our modern day prejudice and racism in America – and more – the singular reason why so many white cops stop, frisk and kill black men. The cop on the street doesn’t hate the black man, he isn’t repulsed by him – he fears him.  In fact, the cop fears the black man more than he fears the possibility of losing his job or losing his freedom if he puts a bullet in the black man’s head.

You can hear the fear in Darren Wilson’s testimony about shooting Michael Brown. "I felt like a 5-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan,” he said in testimony. You can see and hear it in the cell phone video of Jeronimo Yanez shooting Philando Castile. These white men were terrified of the black suspects before them.

Juxtapose these two tragedies with what happened a few years ago in Nevada with rancher Clive Bundy.  When you boil the entire standoff down to its essence you have a situation where a bunch of white men in violation of the law and with guns were allowed to go about their law breaking so as not to spark a volatile situation. Even though they were armed – with some even taking up sniper positions – the lack of fear on behalf of law enforcement was obvious.

To white cops, a white civilian with a gun is problem to solve. A black civilian with a gun is a nightmare to wake up from.

We all learned about Nat Turner and his rebellion in school. An angry slave and his followers took the law into their own hands and killed dozens of white slave owners. We learned about it alongside thousands of dates and facts and names of historical significance in High School.  And then, many of us, simply forgot about it.

Or did we? Indeed, we forgot about the facts and the how’s and the when’s, but did we forget about the visceral feeling – a black man exacting revenge for mistreatment and abuse and enslavement at the hands of whites?

I don’t think so.  I think many of us feel – at an almost reptilian brain level – the fear of that revenge. We know that through our birthright and through perhaps our own actions, we are guilty of that mistreatment and abuse of black peoples. And we fear it. We fear the revenge, our comeuppance. We fear it because we are great at it, exacting revenge. It’s part of our white American lore. Against Santa Ana at the Alamo, Against the Germans in WW1 and the Japanese in WWII we were hurt, but we can back stronger and vanquished our foe.

Won’t black people eventually seek revenge against us? For what we’ve done or what our ancestors did? We would, if it happened to us.

And so, because of Nat Turner, and because of millions of terrible abuses and mild slights later, we know the bank account of racism and oppression is full.  We live in fear of a withdrawal that, truth be told, we would have made decades ago, if the shoe was on the other foot.