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| Alejandro Ford |
On the fourth day of the eleventh month in the 40th year after an ill-fated bullet handed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — the greatest African-American leader of our time — a halo and set of wings, a smooth, articulate, clean cut African-American Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama was elected as the first Black President of the United States of America in a gloriously momentous occasion that overflowed with sheer retribution, exultation and jubilation.
It was a moment that brought millions of minorities and white Americans closer together than we’ve ever been in our nation’s racially tumultuous history. On this day — November 4, 2008 — our once racially divided country would finally shatter the chains that imprisoned the beautifully progressive brand of change that soul great Sam Cooke once profoundly proclaimed would come and moved one step closer to becoming the mighty colorblind nation that Dr. King could only see in his dreams.
However, in the midst of basking in this beautifully euphoric glow of freshly made history, I was rudely ripped away from my lushly divine mental musings and slammed face first into the cruel, often infuriating reality of my generation.
Once again, endless waves of clueless young African Americans aka Niglets had found a way to tootsie roll themselves right back to good ’ole Coonville and remind the world why they only look to us for entertainment and a hearty laugh.
Rather than keeping Obama’s historic feat in its correct context and remaining humble, we missed the point entirely and proceeded to celebrate like a hoard of slaves that had just reached freedom through the Underground Railroad.
I could only stare at my TV in disgust while young Black college students at HBCUs like Spelman broke down and wept uncontrollably on national TV as if they had been brutally beaten by sadistic city cops, hosed down by bitterly cold water blasts, bitten by insanely rabid dogs and thrown in jail for marching in the name of racial equality.
If I were at Spelman or any of these other HBCUs, I would have simply said: Yo! Go sit your ignorant asses down somewhere!
I mean damn, it was an unprecedented event in our often discredited Black history and I believe it was understandable for young African Americans to be emotional and very excited about the future, but when I saw Black folk foolishly cupid shuffling in the streets while yelling: ‘My President is Black’ at the top of their lungs… I knew that we… just… didn’t… get… it.
During my 25 years living on this ‘great ball of stress that they call the earth (Sadat X),’ I’ve never shed a pint of blood for equal rights or fought for anything that would have cost me my life or freedom. I’ve never been called a nigger to my face seven days a week or been forced to drink from a dilapidated, Colored-only water fountain.
Let’s be real … How could we pop bottles and sob endlessly until we ran out of tears if we never fought for a single right that we have today?
How could we celebrate more than those that paved the way for our generation?
The answer: We didn’t have a right to … And on the night of Nov. 4 … we should have sat our asses down somewhere!
Think about this, my 52-year-old mother, who marched in the name of racial equality with her militant sorority sisters while attending FAMU in the early 70s, didn’t shed tears or attempt to do the Electric, Cha Cha or Mississippi slide in her living room when Obama was named President. Instead, she calmly rejoiced, expressed her pride in our new Commander-In-Chief and scurried off to bed.
She, too, felt that these ridiculously contrived Color Purple: Nettie reuniting with Celie in the flower field-esque celebrations by many of the ‘young people’ were too over-the-top and explained that the perpetrators were much too entangled in the bright lights and champagne popping to truly realize the significance of what had just taken place.
It was even more surreal to see 70-80-90-year-old ebony faces smiling graciously with no extra theatrics or tears foolishly pouring from their eyes. If they did anything, it was pray quietly to themselves with their hands gently raised to the heavens. And remember, these were the individuals that actually battled their way through racism on a daily basis.
Naturally, after seeing this, I wanted to cram as many of these ignorant Black folks as I could into the DeLorean with me, Marty McFly and Doc Brown, and travel back in time to witness the Boston Massacre in 1776, the smuggling of slaves to freedom by Harriet Tubman in 1849, the refusal by Rosa Parks to give up her seat in 1955, the Little Rock Crisis in 1957, the March on Selma in 1965 and the chaotic aftermath of the assassination of Dr. King in 1968 … etc.. AND I’ll even make a final pit stop in Jena, Louisiana for the portion of people who still don’t know what in the hell a ‘Jena 6’ is …
Even though this sort of tour will never happen, it certainly should … and would greatly benefit much of the Black youth who obviously have no earthly idea what pain and suffering really is.
As a progressive young Black male, I can honestly stand up and admit that I’ve been spoiled along with the rest of my generation who has never had to fight for a damn thing during our lifetime. Basically, we’ve only had to focus on our education and have been blessed with many influential African American role models to inspire us in ways that weren’t possible thirty years ago.
During the last few years, we’ve witnessed Tony Dungy guide a team to the Super Bowl championship, Tiger Woods dominate Pro Golf, Jarome Iginla be the first Black MVP/Team Captain in NHL history, Venus & Serena Williams dominate ladies Tennis,
Lewis Hamilton be the youngest Formula One World Champion ever, Denzel/Halle/Forrest/Jennifer win Oscars, Toni Morrison be the first African American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Tyler Perry produce/direct/write his own highly grossing feature films, Jay-Z/Diddy/50 Cent own multi-million dollar enterprises, Jerry Reese build a Super Bowl champion team — NY Giants and of course Barack Obama become President … etc..
Before I continue, let’s get one thing straight. Our President is not just Black! … Our President is Barack Obama, an influential visionary and great leader that just so happens to be Black!
Perhaps we as a people could better put this into perspective if we turned down these poorly conceived Pro-Negro President anthems such as the painfully wretched Ron Browz bamboo branch banger “Barack Campaign Pop Champagne Remix,” Jeezy’s colorfully contradictory Look-What-I-Got infomercial ‘My President’ and Nas’ overly insipid, Tupac assisted, throwaway track “Black President,” and get it through our thick ass Negroid skulls that this election was really about getting past race and moving forward as a united America and not simply the color of Mr. Obama’s skin.
And that’s what kills me about many of my fellow young African Americans: We have to be ignorant when all eyes are on us! It’s almost as if many of us were injected with concentrated doses of cogent coon-cream upon birth by the Government in an effort to keep us down.
There will never be a culturally acceptable explanation for why my brothas and sistas were igniting bon fires in the streets that had to be put out by the local fire departments, looting, tatting ‘My President is Black’ on visible body parts, skipping work, wearing ‘Barack is my Baby Daddy’ T-Shirts, sending mass texts promoting imaginary White House lawn fish fries, treating white people like they had treated us over the years and acting out in a way that would have made Dr. King put a bag over his own head!
After waiting for more than half a millennium for this one moment as a people, we conducted ourselves like the blubber-lipped, coal-faced caricatures that we’ve fought so diligently to distance ourselves from. Face it … we acted like a bunch of damn coons!
Instead of demonstrating true grace and dignity during this historic moment, we proved that many of us are nothing more than fraudulent, attention craving shuckers and jivers with no real sense of history or political aptitude.
Honestly, many of our homeboys/homegirls that were cackling in the streets with drinks in their hands and Obama pins on their shirts didn’t even know why they voted for the man in the first place. Waaaaait! I know why: Because he “looks just like us” … Because he’s a ‘Brotha.’
Yea, that’s right, because he’s ‘Black.’ And I heard that leave the lips of educated Black folk as well. For some reason, several people that I spoke to had no idea how they would be impacted by Obama’s policies or world views.
But I’m sure we would pay more attention if he took action to reinstitute the military draft in the face of a War with North Korea or Russia. Then surely we’ll be focused on more than just the songs in his iPod, the designer of Michelle’s extravagant acceptance speech dress and the new hair styles being worn by Malia Anne and Sasha.
At the end of the day, we have to do better as a people and become more informed on the issues that are crucial to the survival of our communities. I’m not about to preach to anyone, but I will say that Barack’s election means that all African Americans need to take it to the next level in every facet of their lives and be inspired to follow their dreams and get out of the trap or the every grind
For those who haven’t realized it yet, we are being watched more closely now than we were eight years ago when Black people were being ignored by the Government. Because of this fact alone, there’s no way that we can continue to embarrass our own race like high profile athletes Plaxico, Pac Man, Mike Vick … Hip-Hop stars Jim Jones (‘Replace nigger with Obama and bitch with Michelle’), Soulja Boy (‘Shout out to all the slave masters’), Flava Flav (For being Flava Flav), Yung Berg (‘Dark Butts’) … and gold grilled, nappy-headed nightly contributors to the evening news have over the past few years.
I truly wish our people would understand that we’re expected by other races to do dumb ass sh*t like Plaxico just did. It’s unfortunate that a Black man named PLAXICO had to shoot himself in a bar after inking a 5-year 35-million dollar extension just so that he can be wiped through the rancid ass crack of the media like some hard ass grade school toilet paper and left for dead for the white football fans to scourge through his mangled remains.
So in order to escape the coonery, buffoonery, negative stigmas and deeply rooted ignorance that seems to plague our people we MUST do the following things:
Fellas! Pulllllllll …. Your …. Damn …. Pants up!!!! Damn!!! Even I can’t take it anymore … It doesn’t even matter if you’re sooooo hood! Respect your ebony queens and fellow American citizens…
Ladies! Respect yourselves! … Don’t let a man dictate your worth … Love yourself and a man will love you!
BLACK PEOPLE! Stop hating on each other allllll the damn time! Love your brothers. Encourage your sisters. And then we as a people can move together hand-in-hand to the Promised Land.
This has been another Alejandro presentation and is officially the realest s**t I’ve ever wrote.
“If I don’t like it, I don’t like it… that don’t mean that I’m hatin’ - Common
I encourage everyone to bang the Kanye West produced gem “Promised Land” featuring Malik Yusef, Kanye West and Adam Levine of Maroon 5.
