The never ending conversation on race

On Mar 18, 2008, B-HO called for a conversation on race relations. What was he thinking? Doesn’t he know Black History Month is over? A quick search of “black history” fails to reveal (to me anyway) the exact date congress foisted this non-sense called “Black History Month” on the American people. But I happen to know that Black History Month is February. So how can we possibly have a discussion about race in Mar? Sorry B-Ho, the calendar is going to have to go around the horn to Feb 09 before we can seriously talk about race.

I know that Black History Month is Feb because that’s when we had “ethnic food” week in the cafeteria at THE Ohio State University. Whitey though it was stereotypical BS to the point of bad comedy. “Ethnic food” consisted, watermelon, fried chicken, cat fish, and Aunt Jemima pancakes. It was as if the THE OSU hired the KKK and/or Monty Python as consultants for the “ethnic food” menu.

You can just see it. The Grand Kleegal of the KKK Sen. Robert Sheets Byrd advising THE OSU, “Them people don’t eat nothin’ but watermelon, fried chicken and colored greens.” Ah, Mr. Byrd that’s collard greens. “Maybe where you growed up.”

Then the Python crew arrives and advises THE OSU, “Yes, by all means, have an ‘ethnic food’ week. For comic effect you should fill it up with every stereotypical food you can imagine, because we all know them colored folk don’t eat no meatloaf.”

So I know that Black History Month has been around at least since about 1976. But other than some unusual food experiences at THE OSU and an up tic in Shaft movies on network TV, who knew? It was pretty much business as usual.

Black History Month was laid on us by ever pandering elected officials to compensate for an under representation of black contributions and sacrifices in the founding and growth of our country in our school’s history books. Great! I guess it just didn’t occur to anyone at the time to simply update the books to accurately reflect the history of our country and to reflect the contributions of all.

So we’ve overcompensated with Black History Month, which if it followed the progression of PC names, would have gone from, darkie to Negro, to Black, to Afro American, back to Black and finally to African American History Month. It seems we’re one iteration behind.

And can you EVER in your wildest dreams see a Pol taking to the floor of congress, say in the year 2745, and saying, “You know, we’ve come an awful long way in race relations in this country. I think it’s time we consider abolishing affirmative action and Black History Month. Rather than inclusive, those things seem somewhat divisive.”

NEWS FLASH to B-HO: We’ve supposedly been having a conversation on race in this country since the mid-70s. And, in spite of what your hate filled bigoted anti-American preacher suggests, we have made progress. This ain’t 1950’s, 60’s or even 70s or 80s America. You know how I can tell? Because you are running successfully for President of the United States!!!! HELLO!!

Note to the few: Lex is off to the Grand Canyon for a week. I’ll be back with tales of AZ Wed. next week. Buck up, I know it’s hard. Just review the archives and I’ll be back before you know it.