Dreams
Dreams of Grandmas house
Dreams of The Pond
of Nahla the golden dog
of Mohka the black dog
of Pablo the horse
of Abraham the donkey
and ******* if I can't remember the cats name.
I do remember how I would only see it around meal time and then only briefly; descending from the attic to eat Fancy Feast.

Cutting cold hot dogs to mix in with the dog food, taking a bite or two from each dog, hot dog that is.
Stacking
Stacking
and stacking more hay.
Then, slowly, one bail, split in two, half for the *******, mixed with Alfalfa the other half for the horse.


I was, maybe (I'm a little too drunk to remember), 7 or 8, when my sister and I captured a box full of tree frogs from The Pond. Excited with our new box of living toys, we brought them back to the red house/trailer Frankenstein. Sitting outside in the sun we attempted to count them, fruitless, but convince a couple of dirt stained, sun baked, white trash kids of that.
Yelling (always yelling, never brash, rarely angry, always loving yet, always yelling) our Grandma called us in for lunch, stouffers lasagna with Truckee Sourdough Company bread greased thickly with tube garlic butter.
We ate, drank our whole milk, did our best to avoid the tantalus sin of sunscreen, and scrambled back outside, no thought or worry for our frogs.

It must have been July or August. the famed drought of the Western United States, aided by childish disregard, had slaughtered our maybe two dozen tree frogs.


I'll tell ya, I don't remember when or how Grandma (a lover of all things living, besides Bush 1 or Bush 2 perhaps) found the frogs but I do remember her often and automatic exclaim of "Son of a gun!" was replaced with the real version, replaced and amplified and aimed.
I can't remember our punishment or if we received one, but, rest assured, Joslyn and I never jammed a plastic handheld aquarium full of tree frogs ever again.

Thank Grandma Vicki for that one.
Thanks Joslyn, for reminding me of the attic cats name: Poe

Many
Shall I repeat?
Many
Shall I repeat?
Many
Shall I repeat?
Many
Would you please not be consistent?
Would you please not be so loud?
Would you please not be so disturbing?
You're irritating us
Don't bring Godly attention our way
Don't remind us of our responsibility
Stand up
Sit down again if you're going to put your hands up and pray
while OUR GOD is playing
OUR GOD is playing, Mahmoud, don't you hear HER?
Aren't you a slave like us?
You're more of a slave than us
You're paid better than us
You're paid big money
like the rest of your proball player colleagues
You're making us feel uneasy
We feel jittering
We're uncomfortable right now
Now, we're upset
STOP.
STOP right now
or Get out. Go.
GO.
We want you to leave
We don't like you anymore
LEAVE
Hang up your jersey
and toss away your basketball
Do whatever you want with them
Sale them, Give them to charity, Put them on display in a museum or at an exhibit somewhere
We don't want to see them anymore
We don't want to see you anymore
We don't like that you make us feel like cowards
We don't like that you remind us that we haven't any reason to have pride
in our nation
in a stolen land
WHAT?!
You're making us think
We didn't come to watch a NBA basketball game to think
We didn't come to leave a NBA basketball game thinking
WHAT?!

Don't you know anything about America separating church and state?
You're American, right?
Though your name is different
If you were an immigrant
you might have had to learn this
to take a test to get your citizenship

Yes, yes, I know
that a basketball court is not a state
and that you don't believe in the church
And you've said
that the making of a prayer's never confined to any particular institution or place of worship
You said
At the doctor's office,
I pray
In the car before I pull off,
I pray
In the restaurant before I eat and after I eat,
I pray
At the start of a game,
I pray

All this unnecessary buzz
All this unnecessary hype
around me refusing to pledge allegiance to the American flag
and instead pledge allegiance to God
and pray during the anthem
Even more than 25 years later, a 1/2 of a century later,
we're talking about it
But this time
I get to speak my story
to whoever is interested
I get to speak to the world
through a number of ways
so that the truth can be heard

As for the NBA
compensate me in a way that can never repay me for what you did
for what I've gone through and others
for all of the suffering
compensate me as justly as possible
compensate me appropriately
Do what you would want to be done to you
in a fellow human's shoes
if you were in my Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf basketball player's shoes

It's your choice
Either way
My light has shined
GOD has told us that
Joslyn Rose Lyons
said this, too
and with her production
"STAND"  
a documentary film
about me and my truth,
it will continue to shine

Anything done for GOD will always be zoomed in on
Will always be talked about
Will always STAND out
Because with as many Hitlers as there are
As many Netanyahus as there are
As many corrupt Saudi Kings as there are
No matter how few,
there'll always be
Mahmouds
There'll always be
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazzs or Malcolm Xs
and
Imam Khomeinis
There'll always be
Imam Asis

You see
Mahmoud's See
"Once you see something,
you can't unsee it"
is POWER
Mahmoud's See
is INFLUENCE
Mahmoud's See
is like that of the SEA
with a beautiful, eye-catching tide
that keeps coming back
and keeps making waves
and keeps giving us reason to notice

Mahmoud
You said what you did and what Kaepernick did
By the way  
I bought 10 copies of your autobiography (audio CD)
"In The Blink Of An Eye"
produced by Kaepernick Publishing
allowed you both to speak your conscience
to do what is right
to speak against injustice
but it doesn't translate into POWER
because as you said
in so many words,
there are still many injustices
happening in America and around the world
and crimes against humanity still taking place

What you, Kaepernick,  
and the other professional athletes to whom this applies did
doesn't translate into power
because there aren't enough like you  
taking a STAND
asserting their human rights
speaking truth to power
More are emergently needed
Insha Allah, as those who take a STAND
become the norm and
they become a sizeable number,
POWER will be the result

Nonetheless,
your STAND beckons more to STAND
It's a rare match to start a flame
  
Injustice will always have its See
And justice will always be seen
even if and when it's seems to be at a distance
even when it appears out of reach

Like Mahmoud,
myself, and others,
we are forever changed by
an NBA star's See,
a human who chose to STAND's See
With it,
there is no turning back

By: Najwa Kareem