Time was, when a man was considered a hero it meant that he was something great. Someone who all Americans would strive to be like...
Time was, when a man was considered a hero it meant that he was something great. Someone who all Americans would strive to be like - someone who had strength, courage, and unbridled ambition. Someone who was white, male, and rich.
I took great pride in eliminating one of the prerequisites which that title mandated. I, a black man, became a hero. I overcame the obstacles, and I took no small amount of flak. Big-time heroes came out against me. Mickey Mantle, Johnny Unitas, and Jerry West whined that if a black man were able to be a hero then that lessened the title for those who already were heroes. At the time, I dismissed them as racist and jealous, but now I find myself on the other end of that battle.
Look. If you give a title out like king of a country or hero of a generation, it means something. That person is special. But if you then give that title to a second person without stripping the first person of that title, the value of the title is halved. Now what happens if you give the title to a couple million people simultaneously? The title becomes worthless.
It has been brought to my attention that certain groups would like to bestow the title of hero to non-athletes; and I object. Firefighters, police officers, and even the mental giants of the military are now being called heroes. Heroes? Where's the individual fame? The wealth? The self-aggrandizement? The personal excess? It seems that we've forgotten what the word "hero" really means.
Did Joe Firefighter stand for everything American? When I was 12, a bigger kid took my bike from me, so I learned how to fight so that I could beat other kids up if they tried to do the same. That's why I'm a hero. Is there anything more American than my "might makes right" mentality? I can almost hear the police officers screaming, "but that's why we're heroes too!" but they fail to understand that more goes into being a hero than the ability to beat on people.
Another facet of my "heroness" is my partiotism, my loyalty to God and country. I once wrote "But the U.S.A. is my country still." Understandably, I've heard some soldiers say, "but the U.S.A. is our country too, that's why we signed up to defend it." Certainly they forget that I changed my religion after I became famous and that even though I failed the military examination twice, I was still drafted to go to Vietnam. I, like all heroes would, refused. It is for this reason that the men and women in the military aren't qualified to be heroes.
As far as the firefighters go, they are far too selfless to be heroes. The final characteristic of being a hero is endless self-promotion. You have to brag about the way you look, about what you do, and about how good you are. I am not pretty because I'm a hero, but I'm a hero because "I'm so pretty."
I hope that the public does not expect me to sit idly by while I watch my title lessened because certain people feel they can pass out "hero status" like Halloween candy. I do have a plan to put myself back into the spotlight. I hereby announce that I have authorized the release of a motion picture of my life story. Because I am a little too wobbly to play myself, I have chosen a psuedo-hero (one from the music industry) to play me.
I hope everyone comes to see my motion picture so that they can be reminded as to what a real hero is. "Real" heroes are like what the white folks call "real" Americans. The originals. Well, not the originals as far back as like Native Americans, but we all know what the original Americans are, just like we know who the Real Heroes are.
