Invisibled Man
I have seen him, without seeing him play In person. I have felt his family’s gift without looking beneath the tree they planted. His generosity was unwrapped and addressed to humanity, From Jackie, with love.
In my career, I sensed him in front of me, Granting me the guidance to score without a third base coach. I felt him behind me, A trail runner, acting like the wind at my back. No baseline required— The white chalk just a construct meant to keep outsiders in line.
In his time, a fair ball for his people did not exist. Still, he led us around the jagged corners of adversity By teaching us how to trust What could not be seen So we could boldly ignore the stop sign That told us we did not earn this opportunity.
Our earthly senses let us see the numbers he compiled. They gave us the ability to touch the statues in his likeness, Experiences that only validate the fundamental truth That neither metal, color, nor math Can sum up the man.
He descended from those who already had to believe in the unseen, Given that their view from the ship Was obscured by death and profit. We have stolen home several times since then, Forced to trust a headhunting pitcher, a biased umpire, and our unsure purchase on earth tilled by generations before us.
He knew he would not be able to stay in this home forever. And despite his service to his country, He and countless others could only mortgage their futures With Jim Crow as their loan officer, So he kept running, circling, And batting again— Each loop a proving ground for Black worth.
Stealth and instinct became essential To move from one base to the next, Trusting only in a divine hope That one day, we will get the right call Out of fairness, and our own colorless merit.
Regardless, Jackie did the impossible by stealing first base, Not just as a ballplayer, but as an executive, A banker, a columnist, a military man. Hard to erase all of him without revealing What you really want those white lines to mean. He did so without having anyone in front of him To show him the way, All while being unable to see Whom he was carrying on his back.
Irrespective of this burden, Our nation hitched a ride as he pushed and pulled us forward, Grabbing a lead he was always qualified to take. Then he slid in hard, lifting a cloud of dust as a shield Protecting the identities of all involved, Mandating that the judges make the call Independent of what eyesight alone would lie to us about.
In his wake, he left a base path to guide the next generation Invisible to those blinded by hate, Secret to those who simply sought to take credit for the run he scored Without having to run in his spikes. Fortunately, our protection is the knowledge That we were never just a pixel on a screen, Never simply a mistake on the page, Immune to backspaces and the rubber end of a pencil.
Jackie ensured that our standing would not be limited by the smallness of men. For we have had to circle the bases And find direction at the same time, Since home is often moved before we can get there.
Not seeing and blindness are not equal. But it is criminal to take the blindfold Off of the eyes of justice And use it to cover the eyes of love, Hiding inhumanity so that love cannot witness an order That does the bidding of a distorted, marionetted version of colorblindness.
A wasted effort considering that love is blind. Yet racism is not. Jackie knew that those who seek to erase honest history Are covering the wrong set of eyes, By design.
He also knew that America should be inspired by those who had to Build without tools of the trade, Believe in what they were denied with nowhere to put it, Interpret the words on a paper they could not read, Trust in the law when color was judge, jury, and executioner, Invest in a home while the land was being stolen from beneath them.
We learned from him that we do not have to measure our worth By the reflection shown to us In a two-way mirror. We do not have to be In service to you—or on your server.
Nor must we deny our power To uplift the best of what can be read between the lines Of our fragile constitution. To make it exceptional for all, and not just chains for some.
For our true value lies beneath the uniform of our birth, Out of view and beyond the capacity Of those who only want to see “team” When the colors match.
Jackie played for all teams, Even when none of the teams wanted him to play for them. He played for equality, Whether you wore his jersey Or not. And he had to be exemplary on a field That was tilted towards a kind of bigotry That mistook exclusion for excellence.
His dedication, exceptionalism, and innovation Made him an MVP, a World champion, a rookie of the year, a Hall of Famer. He had to earn these accolades To avoid being handed a patronizing participation award, The kind reserved for those who helped America falsely claim That his arrival marked the end of racism, Rather than the birth of a new version of it That we must guard against.
Freedom requires constant vigilance Against the affirmative action of privilege To fight a strange exercise of liberty That disappears the legacy of a man Whose presence made America self-reflect And reconsider a nation separated into black or white To embrace one that lives together, shoulder-to-shoulder, Elevated by the vitality of every color.
Someone who demonstrated true greatness By uplifting everyone in his path To be equal teammates in this great experiment. Someone who breathed life and meaning into its original design, Adding color and dimension to the flat and the monochromatic.
We need more than a cancel button to remove color from our history, And instead, we must cancel futures that click violence As a response to the threat of losing supremacy’s bedtime stories. Maybe that is the point— That we repeat such folly At the expense of those who know This violent bet Always seems to land on Black.
For when he stole home, The social order quietly went behind him To steal first, second, and third, Just in case someone undesirable dared to follow. But we never needed those bases To know which way was forward from oppression And ahead of unfreedom.
Because we have been here before, Tapping the quiet wisdom that, When we are disappeared, When those who had to come the farthest By traversing the ground from property to personhood Are made to be invisible.
It is our country That will be reduced to the toddler Who thinks he has hidden himself Just by covering his eyes. So move your hands, Open your eyes.
Jackie’s legacy is still here Because it is everywhere, Even when you try to steal it.
You are playing hide and seek With people who had to learn echolocation Just to survive.
Jackie sought to make America one home For all of us.
So do not listen to the Appraiser that tells you To burn down this house Because Jackie moved in next door.
It is better To finish renovating it— To make it a place Where everyone is home. Where we honor Jackie for breaking the color line, And honor truth for being the only player That can ever erase it.
❤️❤️❤️
"Jackie played for all teams"
including those of us in the bleachers.
I owe him a debt in that he showed every one of us the meaning of character and courage: grace under pressure. And in so doing, he had to bear more than the average person. That is what is required of all of us of good faith: not to be complacent but to work to build a better world. We can't all be as great as him, but we should at least try to make the effort.
I try, as best I can, to pay that debt by paying it forward.
And to keep Jackie in my memory.