You Darkies Need to LIghten Up

The other day on CNN I saw a story about the high school graduation rate for black boys being below 50%. I've read reports about the disparity in pay and promotion in the workplace between whites and blacks. I know the housing market demise mostly effected people who look like me and I know I still have to operate under a different set of rules in the professional arena because there is an expectation of me being ignorant, unprepared, and incompetent. Knowing all these things doesn't keep me from having a sense of humor. If anything, my amusement levels have gone up because most times I have to laugh to avoid a mental breakdown. Nonetheless, I maintain a status of equal parts laughter, rage, and struggle because I cannot in good conscious ignore all that ails people who look like me.

After reading the transcript of Laura Schlessinger losing her mind with a black caller who called about dealing with racism from the friends of her white husband the other day, I considered many of the things she said during her bigoted rant. One thing that stuck out for me was her telling the black female caller that if she couldn't take a joke, she didn't need to be in an interracial relationship. I mean, why should one still get angry every time she is discriminated against based on race, addressed with racial slurs, or disrespected because she isn't white? What exactly do YOU PEOPLE want? Shouldn't the fact that she's "in" with the white crowd based on her husband's whiteness help her get over all her silly feelings of racial oppression? Well, Laura, I have to say the answer is a resounding HELL NO.

Tiring of the negative assumptions, stupid questions (How often do black people wash their hair? If that your real hair? What does "junk in the trunk mean"? Don't you just love that Barack Obama?), and stereotypical beliefs about black folks, Jade reached out to someone she thought could provide a morally sound piece of advise. Instead, she was insulted, attacked, and made to feel as if her feelings were unwarranted by yet another one of those people who insists that black folks are really just too uptight about this whole "race thing". I mean, we have a black president now which means America is no longer a racist place, shouldn't you people be happy? Again, Laura, I have to say, NO.

Though I will always maintain my pride and God given joy, I will NEVER sit in satisfaction as long as young black boys are dropping out of high school at an alarming rate, threats are being made against the man elected President simply because his whiteness has been entwined with black DNA, and young black women are walking around believing the hype that they are irrelevant and fit to be nothing more than some man's punching bag or ho. You see, it's hard to lighten up when one's reality can be so dark. It's hard to behave as if all is well when there are those who seek to destroy every good thing one has just because they can. So beneath the smiles and laughter remain agony. Behind the jokes lurks the rage and it is dark- just like my skin.