Prescient
By Rick Swann
Rick Swann lives in Washington: “A lot of white kids learned about racism through the lives of their favorite sports stars. I did, by following Bill Russell. This poem reflects that.” Bill Russell (still advocating at age 86) just published an article on racism in America.
Hobbled by old injuries, I rarely go outside
when it’s icy. This summer, too, with the pandemic
raging I stay inside and leave marching
in the streets to the young. When I was young
I skated down our street, a dirt road where
when the snowbanks that lined it melted then froze
a perfect half-mile of ice formed. There, I played
basketball, spinning my way across the slippery
surface pretending I was Boston Celtic legend
Bill Russell, his book Go Up for Glory
where I learned about racism in my mostly white,
small town swelled to suburb by Boston’s white
flight when court-ordered bussing began.
What else I knew about racism came from black
and white news of daily scenes of white cops
viciously beating non-violent Blacks with clubs
and jets of water from fire hoses; and the angry white
faces on the local news led by Louise Day Hicks
as the school board tried to block the desegregation
of the Boston schools. Non-school days my family
visited shut-ins in Brockton—my great-grandparents,
Uncle Olaf, and my Aunt Gertrude, Ethel, and Ida—
all in their nineties and all offering sweets
to a growing boy! My aunts fed me the most,
their trips to the kitchen for the endless supply of food
ponderously slow as if the apartment floors were slick
and every step could be their last. That feeding me
might make me grow too tall for hockey
never stopped them. They were hard-core Bruins fans
and sorely disappointed when I surpassed Bobby Orr’s
height by the time I turned twelve. The Bruins
weren’t Boston’s best team but the Celtic stars
were Black like the families moving onto their street
and Bill Russell was the most outspoken Black
so the one they despised. Bill Russell lives
in Seattle now. I do, too. I’ve seen him in recent years—
five times, in fact: once at the Morgan Junction
Thriftway; three times on flights between Boston
and Seattle; and at a Storm game. I figure, like me,
he stays inside whenever there’s ice and now
with the pandemic. He’s such a prescient man.
I want to ask him how this will end.