The Black Conundrum

My favorite movie scene of all time is from the 1991 cinematic masterpiece, “Lean on Me”. A film starring Morgan Freeman as once outcast principal “Joe Clark”, hired by School District Superintendent "Dr. Frank Napier", played by Robert Guillaume, to save New Jersey Public School, Eastside High, from a state-mandated takeover.  

During the scene, Napier, as he is upset with Clark’s mistreatment of the Eastside High faculty & staff, eccentric antics, & general performance as incumbent Principal, reprimands Clark... Clark demonstratively fires back:

“We are being crucified by a process that is turning blacks into a permanent underclass! Yeah that’s right Frank, a permanent underclass! Yeah, nobody wants to talk about that! What good is Mrs. Elliott’s missionary zeal about Mozart gonna do a bunch of kids that can’t go out and get a job!!!”

Bravo!

Like many native New Yorkers, I am fairly resistant to offer lavish praise & adulation to any city outside of my indigenous land… So while it’s true that blacks have made enormous individual & collective strides across the nation, after nearly 6 years of residing in the District of Columbia, even I must concede that outside NYC, DC is decidedly the city where the Nation’s best & the brightest overachievers most voluminously converge to live, work & play.

But I also must remind myself that this working professional’s Land of Milk & Honey serves more accurately as the exception than it does the rule...

This reality begs the question; Are blacks really a “permanent underclass”?

Well that’s a difficult question to answer. What we do know is that historically, our people have been bombarded with an unparralled onslaught of complex socio-economic & geo-political inequality.

Inequalities such as Slavery & Jim Crow ... Inequalities that can be inextricably linked to widespread epidemics such as generational poverty, crime, gun violence, drug abuse, incarceration, unemployment, lack of education, disproportionate ratio of fatherless households, Waka Flocka...  The list goes on and on. You name a social inequality, and black people have been forced to bravely overcome it.

Perhaps even some of the blame should be shouldered by the extraordinary popularity of 1980’s television sitcoms Different Strokes and Webster...

Let’s face it, the wildly farfetched notion being expressed to our community suggested the likelihood that not ONE, but TWO impoverished, inner-city youths, afflicted with severe hormonal-growth deficiencies, could suddenly be swept away from a near- certain lifetime of destitution & squalor, and thrust into an abundant lifestyle of co-habiting with affluent Caucasian families, in swanky Park Ave penthouses & posh suburban confines, could not actually have aided our community’s grasp on reality. It could only have bred false hope.

And that was just Gary Coleman and Emmanuel Lewis. I made no mention of Todd Bridges, who demonstrated the most unconsciounable ingratitude by repaying Phillip Drummond's overwhelming kindness & generosity by seducing his pasty-white, freckle-faced, daughter Kimberly, and introducing her to a lifestyle of drugs, alcohol & prostitution...

I swear you cant give give a n*gga sh*t... Or maybe I'm confusing the shows plotline with the real life events. But whatever... Still, you know how we are...


Two steps forward... Two steps back...

Barack Obama is elected President…  Star Jones climbs back from the very brink of obscurity to make a deep run on "Celebrity Apprentice"...

Oprah Winfrey launches her OWN television network…  Gayle King is awarded with yet another talk show...

Keysha Cole's reality show is cancelled, thus we no longer have to tolerate Keysha's mother Frankie... Love & Hip Hop debuts, therefore we are forced to put up with Jim Jones' mother/Frankie's separated-at-birth, siamese twin, Nancy. (Seriously, a DNA test is in order here)

The Yings and Yangs of life I suppose.

For the purpose of today's blog, I will reveal the three foremost issues that plague contemporary Black America, thus creating, The Black Conundrum.

3. The Black Machismo.

Why is it that the black man can be but only so sophisticated & refined?

In a rather ironic twist, Prince (of all people) is the only Black male celebrity whose bravado I've never heard questioned.

I vividly recall how harshly rapper Jay Z was criticized when photographed wearing (gasp) thong sandals on the beach in St. Tropez? Never mind the fact that he was strolling hand in hand with perhaps the world’s then most-sawed-after woman, Beyonce... Can you imagine what would have happened had he been barefoot, as opposed to donning sandals? Wendy Williams would have been leading the charge to have him beheaded.


Black men are categorically the most oppressed human subset inhibiting the earth. Our civil rights & liberties are constantly being attacked, impeded, infringed & eroded. And not just by The Man, but also by the harsh judgment we are constantly subject to from our very own people.

I mean don’t get me wrong. I enjoy enthusiastically shouting violent, misogynistic rap lyrics, and objectifying women just as much, and some might even say more than the next guy... (Hell, I just finished threatening this broad for taking too long when I sent her ass out for Mickey D's... I like my Mcnuggets hot, and my sweet-tea cold. Apparantly she thought it was the other way around.) But there are some things that I, as a black man, just cannot do because they are viewed as “suspect.”

For example, why can’t I don my smedium custom fit Ralph Lauren Polo’s without facing ridicule? So what if you can see my heart beat through my shirt...

I much prefer a chilled glass of Pinot Grigio to a shot of once-distilled Ciroc; and a gentlemen’s match of tennis, to the potential of risking life & limb on some dilapidated basketball court covered in broken beer bottles and blades of grass growing through cracks in the uneven cement; as I argue a bad call with some two-bit, middle-aged, has-been who still introduces himself by his high school nickname, as he desperately attempts to recapture the fleeting glory of his Junior-Varsity yesteryear.

And don’t try to tell me that you don’t prefer the British pronunciations of the words SCHEDULE, (pronounced SHED-ULE) & STATUS, (pronounced STAY-US), because I know you do. Everybody does!

But sadly I’m relegated to the ever restricted role of “Black Male”. Thus when asked, I am obligated to feign enthusiasm over Big K.R.I.T.’s new album… And when watching a game with the fellas, I must inconspicuously sip my Pinot out of a Pilsner mug, as opposed to being free to allow it to properly breathe, thus maximizing the full-potential of it's flavor & aroma, as it would have, had I been free to pour it into a traditional long-stemmed goblet… As for the smedium Polo’s, well they’re non-negotiable.

2. MULTILEVEL MARKETING Companies

If your business card reads; Amway/Quixtar/YTB Travel/Herbalife/ Primerica /Prepaid Legal, please do not ask me to attend your “business" meeting, for I simply am not interested. And kindly save that tired rhetoric about the value of “passive/residual income” and “Entrepreneurship”, as I understand these concepts quite effectively... What I don’t understand is what would possess you to think that I would have even the slightest interest in sitting through a 3-hour pep rally with you tonight at the Holiday Inn, and subsequently soliciting unsuspecting strangers tomorrow at the mall.

Just recently, I was approached by a Pyramid Schemer while shopping at the grocery store.

Pyramid Schemer: Hey there. I see you’re buying vegetables today.

Me: Look, I know I’m wearing thong sandals, but I don’t swing that way.

Pyramid Schemer: No. You must be mistaken. I just saw you buying vegetables and thought “Now there’s a man that would be interested in a business opportunity”.

Me: You were able to discern all of that from a box of creamed spinach?

He handed me his business card. It read YTB Travel, with a Mississippi PO Box address …

I suppose it to be a good thing that he’s a “travel agent” because that would probably help to circumvent the cost of having to find his way to Mississippi every time he needs to check his PO Box… Okay look, if you’re going to conduct illegitimate business, at least attempt to do so in a legitimate manner... I mean how pertinent are your "business" dealings if you have to travel 800 miles to Mississippi to retrieve your mail?  Do yourself a favor and scrape together the $60 required to purchase a PO Box in the DC metro area; because right now you look about as legitimate a businessperson as my barbershop’s resident hustler, Demetrius. "D-Money" (as he’s called) has Bootleg flicks, Vitamin Water economy-size 36-packs, Edible Arrangement bouquets, fish dinners… You name it and “Big D” (his other overly-obvious nickname) got it for sale in the back of the shop, next to the bathroom.

1. The All – white linen summer outfit

Let me preface this by saying that if we collectively turn on our television sets and see President Obama pictured in an all-white linen short-set, grilling up steaks on the Whitehouse lawn; while Michelle pours a vat of Lawry’s Seasoned Salt on a cluster of crab legs, and Sasha & Malia get it in on a Slip & Slide, then all bets are off. At that point, do you.

But until then, black men over 40, because apparently you were not in receipt of the memo way back in 2008, allow me make this perfectly clear… That all-white linen outfit is DEAD!

And I’m not even suggesting you donate your garments to charity or anything extreme like that. Because quite frankly, you may still be able to garner adaquate usage from your alabaster-colored linen button-down, and your ivory-shaded linen pants. You just can’t wear them in conjunction with one another.

No mas! Not in Summer 2011! 

I mean I know it’s tempting and all, but I promise you that if you log on to Macys.com, what you’ll find are a myriad of less-antiquated options. Options that don’t so effectively give away your age.

I mean I know the Honorable Elijah Mohammed said a woman should be “half a man’s age + 6”, but you’re just over doing it… Whereas I’m 32 and generally awesome, you Sir are pushing 50, donning a dated all-white linen outfit, & a pair of Stacy Adams alligator wingtips (Not Awesome); so why the hell are we even at the same venue anyway? Oh, it must be our mutual adoration of fertile 25-year-old biddies.

Nonetheless, quite honestly, the All-White linen outfit is about the least effective means of achieving what it is you desire to accomplish.  Why? Because when said 25-year-old woman sees you in your dreadful All-White Linen outfit, it acts as a signal to warn her that despite your overly Duke Pomade-d head and Just-for-Men jet-black-dyed mustache/beard, underneath that pendulous linen short-sleeve button down shirt, lays a grossly distended belly. One that has been devastated by 2 to 3 decades of Heineken bottles identical to the one you're currently holding in your hand.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you have to sit at home and wait for death. You most certainly do not. I’m simply suggesting that there are other activities that are more suited to a man of your “experience”.  Say for example, slipping back on the wedding band you so coyly tucked into your pocket when entering the door, exiting that same door, and returning home to your devoted wife & teenage children.

Okay, so that concludes today's lesson. What did we learn? Well hopefully we learned that if we too closely identify with the characteristics that I have addressed, instead of taking offense to my words, we should take a long look in the mirror so that in the future we may no longer be so susceptible to these pittfalls that constitute "The Black Conundrum".

                                           "And contrary to popular opinion, I'm the head nigga in charge!"