Quit Frontin' Black History Mumph

I know it's not February but I'm thinking about Black History Month. But since I historically mix February and November (and vice versa), it only makes sense to discuss today. Plus I'm feeling a little Skip Gates and decided that a hipster lecture is due.

The Wiki says that "Black History Month is a remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora." For you lowly-educated/third-tier college mopes, diaspora means "a movement of any population sharing common ethnic identity who were either forced to leave or voluntarily left their settled territory, and became residents in areas often far removed from the former." You have your Europeans to the New World, you have your Mexicans to Iowa, and the Cubans to Miami. You get it, blah-blah-blah! And then there's the Africans....

What?! Like Weezie said on the TeeVee's The Jeffersons, "Nigger please!"* Here's my chief objection: "...and became residents in areas often far removed form the former."

*I know I can't use the N-word anymore but, seriously, Weezie said that. It's a TeeVee classic and a direct quotation [clicky, go to 2:00].

Scene begin.

"Hey Kunte, I just read here in today's Gambian Financial Daily that things are really picking up in The New World of America. Perhaps we should buy a vacation house there?"

Scene end.

Diaspora? Population movement, huh? I'm not talking about Hurricane Katrina relocations to Utah or the mass Vietnamese immigration after 1975--where people's lives were saved--I'm talking about the only reason black people are in these United States, and anywhere outside of Africa, in the first damn place (and not just to be the president): Slavery, people. Slavery!

If you do your WikiInternet mathematics correctly, you'll see that Black History Month + Diaspora = Hey, darks, let's take a whole damn month and force you to remember that your black ass was somebody's property to be raped, beaten, and worked like a goddamn robot, ha-ha! We play joke! At least it's the year's shortest month. Thank G-d.

Who's in charge of designating commemorative months, anyway? Apparently, anyone can do it given such commemorations as, Better Breakfast Month (September), Audiobook Month (June), and Mental Retardation Month (March) where, in a perfect world, we'd all get to act as retarded as we wanted. I wouldn't be surprised if the KKK didn't make up this whole Black History Month bullshit just to be jerks.

I say, fuck you Slave Memory Month! I'm over it; I've moved on because Bank of America has foreclosed on your plantation! From today forward, can we stop celebrating this celebration of humiliation, please? It's just insulting, like Morgan Freeman said. [And, yes, Morgan Freeman, there is a Jewish History Month (it's in May). Oh, sorry, that's Jewish American History Month. You can sue me with a Jewish lawyer.]

I get it. I really do. I'm not an insensitive guy [he types as he quietly laughs aloud]. But we just have to take a step back and look at our national black situation. We have to put things in context. Perspective. For a while in the late 60's The Negros were all, "let's name streets and schools and civic buildings after our people too!" OK, look where that got us. Where's the Martin Luther King, Jr. airport? None, right? Sure there are plenty of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevards near airports because airports are loud and busy and planes crash near airports. The streets named after black people are generally where the poor people live. And remember the rule: black people usually are the poor people.

How many Whole Foods are on Malcolm X Avenue? Conversely, how many Harriet Tubman rec centers serve neighborhoods with stately McMansions? See? This let's-get-ours-too attitude only segregated us further. If someone tells you that you have to drive down Huey P. Newton Parkway, you're gonna lock you doors and hide your iPod before you exit the freeway.

Looking at February, did you know that it's not only Black History Month? So-called "black history" shares the month with over 25 other commemorations, like (annotated):

• National Sweet Potato Month (yams, seriously?)
• National Boost-Your-Self-Esteem Month (OK, now it's insulting)
• National Canned Food Month (what?)
• National Hot Breakfast Month (good, free hot breakfast programs are cute)
• National Snack Food Month (to follow your free hot breakfast: HoHos!)
• National Dental Month ('cuz a brotha gots ta smile!)
• Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month (I couldn't have made this up)
• Chocolate Lover's Month (once you go black...)
• North Carolina Sweet Potato Month (again, yams!)
• National Pudding-Snack Month (the Coz, really?)
• Creative Romance Month (Mandingo fetish, once you go black...)
• Canadian History Month (along with the Mexicans, the other North American niggers)
• Native American Heritage Month (the original North America nigger)

See what I mean? This commemorative month business is crazy and insulting as hell. The biggest problem with BHM is that all commemorative months and weeks and days are meaningless. Like I mentioned, anyone with a notion can make up, promote, and "celebrate" any damn thing they want. It doesn't demonstrate any sort of Change or Hope® in any sort of real or meaningful terms. I mean, just because it's Return Sopping Carts to the Supermarket Month doesn't mean I have to do that shit. I can leave the damn cart on the lawn next to my old washing machine and my Camaro that I'm gonna fix up if I want. There are no laws or even norms attached to this commemorative nonsense.

Now that we have a famous black socialist president, can't we quit striving and assimilating and just enjoy the fact that we've arrived? Goodbye Black History Mumph, we're post-racial now.

I'm an American. Quit frontin'!