"2. Competition--DeGarmo and Key"
Another video. This time the subject was a gladiatorial fight The club-style weapons, tipped with circular saw blades, were gruesome enough to get the point across. This was to be a bloody event at the least, potentially a fight to the death.
Some win by inches / Some win by sweat / Can't take no chances / Got to hedge your bet / Competition
Gotta be a little better / Than the best on the street / 'Cause it's tough in the jungle / When you've got to compete / Competition
What you can't buy in this world / You know you can steal / You've got to be ruthless / To be number one
Ooh...
Competition / You've gotta fight to stay alive / Competition / It's a struggle to survive / Competition / You know it's rough out on the street / Competition
Once you've decided to compete
No satisfaction / Only quiet despair / Unbending heroes / Trapped in Darwin's nightmare / Competition
Deep in the arms of desire / How does it feel / To have what you wanted / Since you were so young? / Yeah...
As the song neared its end, the champion stood victorious over his challenger. All of his supporters wanted him to complete the kill, but he decided not to do it and his mercy made them angry.
Competition / Look at the mess that we're in / Competition / There's a better way to live
Another thought occurred to her. This was the broader "conversation about race". Nothing so civil as an actual conversation was intended by the concept's chief proponents. The actual product being sold was a blood sport, designed to inflame and distract. If the target could be manipulated into permanent, misdirected anger, he was useful and could expect praise and support from his "allies", but if he were ever to deviate from the script and stop doing what was expected of him, they would quickly turn on him.
Mercy was the only way to break the cycle but for precisely that reason, mercy was strictly punished. Black people who practiced it were ostracized, as was anyone else who "wasted" the moral leverage with which society saw fit to "bless" them.
To receive power and not use it was to sin against the Dialectic and retard the glorious forward march of History. To practice mercy was to forfeit one's blackness, to out oneself as a "coon" who loved the white man more than one's own people. The pressure to be "black enough" was all too real. Even Malcolm X had been murdered by his own.
Was this what it had been like to be white in the Jim Crow South? Had they been pressured to prove their loyalty by throwing their weight around? How many white people had been called vile names and even dangled from a noose for "wasting" their power on mercy?
Was this the actual reason why dunking on white people was actively encouraged now? Because they had disobeyed their handlers and chosen to do the right thing? What did you do with a tool that no longer served your purpose? You destroyed it.