Michelle Huxtable

Dear Dad, Mom, Marcus, and Alex,

I’ve called you guys. I’ve emailed. I’ve texted. I’ve posted Facebook statuses. I’ve tweeted. But there just are not enough outlets for me to express the love that I have for you guys. We’ve been through some stuff, us Allens. (Yeah. I know. Allen isn’t as awesome a last name as Huxtable but it is what it is.) Through it all, we get stronger. We get closer.

I took my final final exam of my undergraduate career earlier today. So that explains my current sentimental mood.  As I left that building and headed back to my room to figure out what to do with all this newfound free time, it hit me. Now I never walked around thinking I did it by myself. But I never really stopped to think about how I got here. My ambition coupled with God’s grace were some key factors there. But let’s not forget about the reason I am who I am: you guys.

Now this could easily be a letter to just my parents. But Marcus and Alex, you guys had a HUGE role in who I am, too. Have. You have a huge role in who I am.  Marcus, you’re the oldest. Watching you have a dream since you were a little kid and doing everything in your power to see that dream come to fruition was nothing short of inspiring. When your goals changed even after you were handed that initial dream fully paid for and you took the road less traveled to do what you really wanted, you changed my life. You could have stayed on course and probably ended up super successful in that field as well, but you deviated. Deviation was never my strong point, and I admire that in you.

I’ve mentioned this to you before but maybe never with this intensity. You’re the reason I never worry when things don’t go my way. At the end of the day, the security net I have in you and the rest of the family dwarfs any fear I may have of failure. There are things you do that have seemingly nothing to do with me but still leave me thankful.  For example: thanks for marrying the love of your life, Amber.  She’s the sister I never had and having her in my life has been a dope addition as well. Seeing you live your life the way you do: bold, unafraid, stubborn tenacious, has encouraged me to go after my dreams no matter what.  Watching you graduate, get your first apartment, buy your first car, and get married has shown me how to mature and how to grow. Thanks for being an amazing role model even when you didn’t know it.

Alex, oh Alex. Our relationship is hilarious.  We moved around a bit as kids but I was never afraid of a new school. Why? Because it didn’t matter if we were at a new school in Virginia, Maryland, or North Carolina. I would always be able to eat lunch with my best friend. You. Remember that one time I snitched on you to mom and dad about something or another? Doesn’t matter. I do. I remember how you looked when that happened. Betrayed. And since then I knew I never wanted to jeopardize our bond. We’ve always had each other’s back no matter what.  We didn’t even need to know all the details to know that no matter what, family comes first.

I always joke that Marcus is the older brother due to our age difference but you’re more like my best friend. And while you both know how much I love you guys I think that somewhat undermines the role you’ve played in my life. I look up to you. I’ve watched you grow as a person and it’s been amazing.  You’re one of the most focused and determined people I’ve ever met. What I admire most about you is your humble moves.  You quietly take over the world.  You don’t make huge announcements that you’re about to change the game. You just do.  You follow your own path and you always have. You’re brilliant, by the way. People always labeled me the smart one of us three (Marcus the all-American jock/Class President/Homecoming King/token Black guy of the year, and you the cool one) but that’s just because I was socially awkward so they had to give me a win. But you showed me you could be smart AND cool. You introduced me to greek life. You also taught me a lot about what I should and should not stand for in relationships. Thanks bro.

Mom and Dad, separate paragraphs are pointless. That’s one thing I appreciate about you guys. You’ve always been a united front. On every issue. I used to watch shows as a kid and whenever kids wanted to get what they wanted they tried the old “Ask dad first and if he says no ask mom” routine. That never worked. I stopped trying after the second time. I think you guys have telepathy.  I remember when Marcus, Alex, and I were mad young. I was maybe 7 you guys asked what we wanted to be. I said Psychologist. Dad and his super annoying lovely excel spreadsheets then plotted a plan for us to get to that point.  He worked backward.

“You want to be a psychologist? Ok you need to go to grad school. Which means college. Which means graduating high school. If you want to get into a good school you need to have the highest GPA and a competitive academic workload.  That means taking advanced classes as early as middle school.”

You know what? We did just that. With some tweaking here and there, you guys kept us on track.  You went to book stores and got us books in the fields of our passion and made us work all summer. Remember when we were all talking sometime around Alex’s graduation and we found out that Marcus, Alex, and I all took on Africana/African-American Studies as our minors? While it wasn’t planned among the three of us, that also wasn’t an accident. You guys instilled us since day one the importance and honor of being Black.  Being Black was never a bad thing. I was genuinely confused as to how anyone could dislike Black people (but not ignorant to the reality). You never created a “them vs. us” mentality in me, either. And I appreciate that.  Surrounded by Black barbies, Black paintings, movies and TV shows with Black actors, and then you two as my ultimate role models, how could we not come to love our people?

I say all this to say that as Black parents in America, the media might be saying that it’s hopeless. Black sons and daughters aren’t graduating high school. They’re not even making it 18. They can walk down the street, skittles and tea in hand, and be shot with no regard. But with odds against us, and you as parents, you put three amazing children through college. You made us independent thinkers.  Question askers. Authority challengers. Change makers.  I’m forever thankful for that. I’ve always respected you guys. Raised in a Black home, there really wasn’t room for any other option. But the admiration I have for you guys was built over the years. I know Marcus and Alex agree.

To this day I don’t know how you guys woke up everyday, worked out, commuted to and from DC, made dinner, cut the grass, ate dinner every night at a table with us, and still had the energy to help us with our homework. But wait! Then, after all that, you volunteered in city elections at polling places. You were on countless church committees. You made every parent/teacher conference. You made every Christmas and Birthday memorable. Honestly, if I’m a quarter the parent you guys are, my future, currently non-existent, please don’t read into this, kid will be super lucky.

So to my dad, mom, and older brothers, thanks. Thanks for making me who I am today. Thanks for always challenging me and loving me. I can’t wait to see what we do in the future.  I know we’re gonna be great. We don’t really have a choice. We’re Allens.

“Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society … –then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern.”

-MLK, Jr. 1963

Now while Dr. King was speaking on the topic of segregation, his dissatisfaction with the current treatment of Blacks in America is still relevant.  I’m writing today to talk about Trayvon Martin.  A simple google search will tell you about the case but here are the facts. Trayvon Martin was 17. He was walking home from a 7-11. He had a bag of skittles and a can of tea in his hand.  A neighborhood watch member shot him. There is a 911 call that has been released where you can hear Trayvon screaming at the top of his lungs for help.  Then another shot is heard. Then there is deafening silence.  George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch guy, has not been arrested. Oh. Trayvon’s Black.

So let’s talk about this. There are many layers, obviously. The race one seems the most obvious. But when there is a Black child dead, the last thing I’m here for is to debate if Zimmerman is racist or not.  I’ll leave that to sensationalists who want to start race riots instead of talking about the real issue here. A murder took place. Damn near an execution.  Zimmerman is claiming self-defense. But if you simply listen to the tape, Zimmerman had enough time to casually walk over to Trayvon’s screaming body and shoot him in the chest. Does that to anyone with a fully functional frontal lobe sound like self-defense? I’m going to assume no.

To be transparent, if this wasn’t already obvious, this is not an unbiased post.  I have two brothers. I am Black. I am incredibly concerned and invested in this case. I was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia.  When my parents moved us to Northern Virginia in 1998 my folks gave my brothers and I pocket Constitutions.  My dad sat us down and in a solemn tone usually reserved for “death in the family” conversations, my father told us things would be a little different here. He told us we had to learn our rights because nobody was going to enforce a law if we weren’t even cognizant of its existence. He even warned us of police.  He said if we were driving on a back road (Virginia is famous for these dark, winding country roads with no lights) and were pulled over, to keep driving to an excessively lit area with people around. I thought my Dad was doing the most.  I thought he was being way too cautious.  My Dad was born and raised in Compton, California, why was he afraid of Stafford, Virginia? He survived neighborhoods that Ice Cube and NWA earned their street credit in! Why are we afraid of a neighborhood where people ride horses and measure their wealth by how many acres their house sits on? We moved on up like the Jeffersons. My parents were overreacting.

Mom told us that if we say we’re going somewhere with someone, we need to be at that location with those people.  There should never be a point in time where we aren’t doing what we said we were doing.  I, of course, thought they were being strict and wanted to damper my fun. What they were really saying is, always have an alibi. Because some of you may not know me or my family, I guess this is the time for a disclaimer. We’re cool people. My “Michelle Huxtable” moniker is not for nothing. People meet my family and within 5 minutes they say as though they have seen a unicorn, “Woah. You guys are the real Huxtables”. In other words, we’re wholesome. We like each other and what not.  Before we all left for college, we used to eat dinner together nightly.  My brother Alex and I hang out, party together, and text almost daily. We have a family group chat on our iPhones that is on and poppin’ daily.  I love them. These rules that my parents put in place weren’t because we were delinquents. It was because my parents knew the Trayvon Martin reality, before it was Trayvon Martin.  They knew the Trayvon Martin reality back when it was Emmett Till. They knew that you can do everything right, be raised in the right neighborhood, follow the law, be respectful to police, get good grades, wear the right colors in the right hoods, but if you just happen to be wearing the wrong skin color in the wrong place at the wrong time, nothing matters.  As J. Cole once said, “Got good grades but A’s can’t stop strays, so pray for me”. My parents knew that although their good parenting offered us opportunities that they were never afforded when they were our age, there is only a surface-level difference between Black mortality in the streets of Compton and the avenues of Virginia.

That being said, we need to make known the reality of being Black in America. Word to Soledad O’brien for the series, but it hasn’t even scratched the surface of what it truly means to be Black in America. And I’m here for that. Usually nobody wants to talk about this because it screams of playing the race card.  But, this is necessary.  Being Black in America means being incredibly aware that your life value is mythical. It means knowing that you don’t have a voice. It means being expected to be satisfied with muted voices and stolen culture.  It means never speaking up out of fear of being accused of victimization.  It means seeing people who look like you on TV being gunned down and the man who confesses is able to walk free. It means the government can put you on death row with little tangible evidence and kill you. It means all of this can happen with little outrage.  It means getting a few thousand signatures on a petition and a few retweets. It means truly feeling outrage and physical pain with knowing that in a few weeks, nobody, including yourself, will think about this again.  It means knowing that nobody cares about you.

I feel personally attached to this case because as mentioned, I have two brothers who I am incredibly close to. Trayvon Martin could be one of them.  At the risk of sounding like a bad PSA, Trayvon Martin could be your friend, cousin, nephew, uncle, or you. And try not to feel safe if you’re a woman and reading this.  Just because you don’t hear about women being gunned down, don’t for a second think your womb or femininity in America is safe. Let your Black mother or sister go missing and see if America cares. But that’s a different conversation.  The point for this post is simple: Let it be known that it is perfectly legal and acceptable to murder Black people in America. What can we do to change that? There needs to be a  movement of epic proportions.  People were down with the whole #KONY2012 movement. We were down for the #OccupyWallStreet movement. Where is that same excitement for revolution? Where is Jay-Z with his “I Am Trayvon Martin” t-shirts? Where is Obama calling Trayvon’s family like he did when Limbaugh called that girl a slut? Where are you? Where is your name on the petition? Where is your phone that should be dialing the DA? This will keep happening if we don’t make a move. America has spoken. You will NOT kill or kidnap America’s sweet white babies or women. The FBI will be called. SWAT teams will assemble. They will shut this country down. But go ahead and be a serial killer who targets Black women or children. You’ll be fine. So now that America has spoken, what are we going to say in retort?

Be safe, people.

“Being here in America doesn’t make you an American… No I’m not an American, I’m one of the 22 million Black people who are the victims of Americanism.  One of the 22 million Black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disgused hypocrisy… I’m speaking as a victim of this American system.  And I see American through the eyes of a victim.  I don’t see any American dream: I see an American nightmare.”

-Malcolm X

We were meant for more.  From whips to the White House, from plantations to the Presidency, we advance. Wait. That kind of lofty, victory lap rhetoric might be the problem.  Most people are familiar with the following lines from  Tupac’s “I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto” (1) “And though it seems heaven-sent/ We ain’t ready to have a Black President”. Whether Tupac is the first person to utter this sentiment or not, it is certainly the most popular of recent memory.  And thus possibly marks the beginning of the Victory Lap Rhetoric that we associate with a Black President.  What I mean by Victory Lap Rhetoric is simply that it was established that once we elected a Black President, we would have in essence “made it”.  From that moment forth, a Black President became the highest possible accomplishment of a Black American.  It became the culmination of everything our ancestors fought and died for.  The dogs, the fire hoses, the beatings, the lynchings, the degradation, all that is nothing in the face of the election of our Black President.

There are two ways to look at this.  The first is short-sided but not uncommon. This sentiment says, “When we get a Black President, things will change”. The second thought process says, “We’ll get a Black President when things change”.  Either way, the ending thought is that a Black Presidency is the highest possible resolution of racism in America. It’s as though the idea of a Black President was so far-fetched, a la jetpacks and time travel, that a Black President surely would naturally coincide with other radical change. Most of us don’t envision teleportation with an iPhone 3 or flying cars like a Honda Civic. We just expect some major technological advance to come that will allow us to be even lazier than before more resourceful. Much in the same way, a Black President daydream came with income parity, no achievement gaps, social equality, probably a lack of global warming and other amazing feats. A true racial paradise. We get appalled when other people make our Black President out to be a Magic Negro but we in essence have been making that claim for years.

Unfortunately this is not the case.  We, as Black people, have overcome a lot. I think this is important to note because it helps to know what we are capable of. But from whips to WorldStar, from Black Mammys to Basketball Wives? We can, and have to, do better. We earned freedom.  We earned voting rights.  We toppled Jim Crow. We have jobs in places we couldn’t work.  Homes in places we couldn’t live, and we receive an education from places we couldn’t step foot in. We did that.  And we’ve taken our victory lap. But now this is the hard part.

Going back to “I Wonder if Heaven Got a Ghetto” most people leave out the next lines of that song, “It ain’t a secret don’t conceal the fact/ The penitentiary’s packed/ And it’s filled with Blacks/ I wake up in the morning and I ask myself/ Is life worth living or should I blast myself?/ I’m tired of being poor and even worse I’m Black/ My stomach hurts so I’m lookin’ for a purse to snatch.” We have much more to accomplish.  The jails are packed with Blacks. Our kids aren’t graduating college, high school, sometimes not even middle school. We don’t  have income parity. Someone once said, “When White America gets a cold, Black America gets pneumonia”. If you think our current economic crisis and unemployment rates are dismal, a quick google search for Black unemployment rates will make you realize just how true these lyrics still are. And after President Obama, do you know how long it will be until we have another Black President? The Presidency was never the ultimate goal.  It is an excellent accomplishment.  But we have more to do.

My appeal is simple: set new goals. Do you realize, to quote James Baldwin, that the limits of your ambition were expected to be set forever? “That you were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being?  You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity.  You have been told where you could go and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could live and whom you could marry… If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go.”

“What they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear.”

I’m not a big fan of personal posts but I felt like blogging. So here’s one of those. As a Senior in college, I’m extremely introspective about my experience over the course of these four years. What memories did I make? What did I set out to do? Did I accomplish that? Did I leave a lasting impact on this campus? Who will I pass the torch to? These thoughts cross my mind every second of every day it seems.

Regardless of the GPA I graduate with, the honors I receive, the Nobel Peace Prize I will inevitably be nominated for, and the experiences I gathered, what truly has been on my brain is, “Who did I affect?” Don’t get me wrong. You could ask any of my peers, I care very deeply about the honors and accolades. I do, after all, plan on a career in academia. But you know why that’s not my main concern at this very juncture in life? Well for one, I’ve already established a pattern of excellence. At this point, my GPA is what it’s going to be. My internships have been earned and carried out. My letters of recommendation have been written. My responsibility is to just maintain what I’ve already worked hard for. The REAL reason I’m not stressing right now about that is because my youthful naivety was put in check the summer before I entered college.

At Orientation in July of 2008 the rest of the incoming freshman class and I were in an auditorium of some sort where the Dean opened with some facts. “You all makeup the most competitive and successful class we’ve had thus far!1 We have students from all 50 states. The incoming class has 40 valedictorians. Someone in your class published a book at age 8. Someone else founded a charity at age 12.” Before that very moment, everyone was on top of the world. We graduated from some of the best high schools with the highest GPAs and were fortunate enough to attend an incredible University. Then you hear these stats and realize, “Yo. Everybody is as successful as I am.” There’s this line in The Incredibles2 where someone says, “If everybody is incredible, nobody is” or something like that. That’s always stuck with me.

You have to find your success where you can. We, unfortunately, live in the Facebook/Twitter/YouTube generation where we are 24/7 reminded of the success of others lives. To think that Willow Smith makes more as a 12 year old kid3 than I probably ever will? Little depressing. Sure. But this realization only has the possibility of sending me into a major depressive episode4 if for some completely illogical reason I’m comparing my success to Willow Smith’s. That example seems obvious. Why would I, a college student, compare myself to a musical artist? Well, the same principle should apply to our peers. We see someone getting internships, fellowships, jobs, interviews, etc and instead of celebrating Black excellence, opulence, decadence we act like crabs in a barrel to ensure our survival.5 I on the other hand decided my measurement of my success wasn’t going to be in comparison to the next man’s.

The other day a friend asked me what my Black College Experience was. It took me a minute to think about this. I don’t know if my experience was atypical or if it was completely normal for a Black student at a predominantly white institution. To sum it up, Freshman year I was the only Black person on my floor. I knew a few Black people but only in a “Hey, you’re Black, I’m Black, I’m gonna wave when I see you”67 kind of way.

Sophomore year I discovered the Howard Thurman Center. This was the SPOT. Between classes if you had an hour to kill, you’d stop by and end up getting incepted. You think you’re stopping in to say a quick “what up” to some minorities on campus and next thing you know you’re debating everything from double consciousness to the proverbial Biggie versus Tupac discussion. Three hours later you missed lab and you’re not even mad at it. This was essentially how I integrated into the social aspect of college. This is when I felt most like I was getting a college experience. Don’t get me wrong, I was always getting an amazing education. After all Mama and Papa Huxtable didn’t send me 9 hours from home to be bored AND uneducated. But finally I found that “I love college” aspect. Had my go-to crew and I had my healthy balance of work and play. I was achieving academically and socially.

I had successfully become a normal college student. Sweatpants were worn, 2am crab rangoon was consumed, Facebooks were stalked, the usual. But as is on par with the rest of my life, once I’m content I gotta up the ante. So now I wanted to be involved. I made the mistake wise, wise decision of becoming friends with this guy who was graduating. He was therefore as introspective then as I am now and I was lucky enough to be around for his senior musings. The “What legacy will I leave?” questions fused into my head. So I got involved. No but really. I got INVOLVED. I decided to apply to be an RA. I decided to pledge the greatest sorority on the face of this earth8 . I decided to run for an executive board position in the Black Student Union. I decided to work with Sir Bowtie himself over at theFreshXpress.com. Oh and I decided to go hard in all kinds of paint academically. I also decided to start eating less cheese but that seems insignificant in comparison.

Junior year came and went with all of those responsibilities on my plate. Senior year arrived and I had another epiphany. I was talking to a freshman and in passing said something like, “You live in South? Oh word. Jen used to live there.” And I got the Dora blink. This person had no idea who Jen was. But in my head Jen was a rockstar. Jen changed the face of this campus! That’s when it hit me. Yes. College is important. If you want to be somebody, if you want to go somewhere. You better wake up and go to your 8am. I got it. But it’s also not important. I used to stress myself out with this legacy business. Why doesn’t the incoming class know of the great things that 2010, 2011, and my class of 2012 did? Why do they think we’re all some player hating simps? This I will still never know. But I sure won’t be racking my head over it. I know the few people whose lives I’ve touched because they’ve told me. I know the difference I made as an RA. I know the little smile I put on someone’s face when I used to consistently blog. That’s what’s important these days.

So no, I won’t graduate with a statue erected in my honor. Yes, in September of 2012 my name probably won’t be mentioned on this campus anymore9 . No, I never did climb to the top of CAS and see what that pumpkin was all about. Yes I made memories that will last a lifetime. Yes I forged bonds with people I never knew I would. Yes I gained weight, lost weight, cut my hair, had a snowball fight, got pneumonia, survived swine flu, fell in love, fell out of love, fell in love again, decided to chill with the whole love thing, achieved, failed, surprised myself, disappointed myself, drank inordinate amounts of redbull, made Dean’s list, slept in the library, pulled allnighters, used the Citgo sign to get home, swindled my way into free meals, felt the dining points struggle, waited in the middle of Comm Ave to see which would come first: the shuttle or the T, and so many other things. And that, my friends, is why I’m ready to graduate with no regrets.

Dedicated to Kyle Anthony Trotman

1. Imagine my shock to learn that this was said to every class. Sigh. [↩]
2. Pixar’s greatest creation [↩]
3. Honestly it’s 3 am and I don’t even feel like googling her real age. I’m sure it’s around there though. [↩]
4. I may or may not be dramatic. [↩]
5. If Karla reads my blog, she’ll appreciate this. [↩]
6. ..which is apparently a level of comraderie lost on these new kids coming in these days [↩]
7. And stay off my lawn! [↩]
8. I don’t even need to say it. You already know. Aye. [↩]
9. That is, until they hear J. Cole shout me out, “Never wanted a grammy, but I got a couple though/ Now I’m at the top – Michelle Huxtable” Off the top. I’m not a rapper. I’m not a rapper. [↩]

The epitome of code switching gone wrong. Click the picture if you don't know what I'm talking about.

Deep down inside everyone wants to be a rapper. Not only are they allowed to make ridiculous and outlandish statements, they’re expected to do so. And while everyone wants to relate to rappers in GENERAL (i.e. financial struggle, haters, living life to the fullest), nobody wants to hear a rapper express their exact same sentiments about day to day musings. You’ll never see a rapper release a mixtape about working an average job where they make average pay (not good, not bad), where they muse about feeling stressed about all the recorded shows they have to catch up on, and the ego boost they felt when they got 5 retweets on a funny tweet. Rappers aren’t a Seinfeld scene.  ”So how about that parking, right? You spend 20 minutes driving around for a spot! By the time you’ve found one, you’ve forgotten what you came to the store for!” Rap is escapism.  We like to aspire.  It’s why we enjoy listening to “Aston Martin Music” while riding the bus driving a civic.

We like to aspire to a better life.  There’s this unspoken rule, though. We let them rap about things that most of us will never afford and we ignore the  fact that they’re most likely posturing to sell us a dream.  The ultimate dream.  The ability to fully embrace our double consciousness. Imagine.  SECOND TO SECOND being able to switch back and forth between two worlds.  This completely explains the appeal of Nicki Minaj.  In a single verse she can switch between being this “thug” to being a “lady”. The “Monster” verse/video definitely illustrates that.

(If you don’t already know, every other line, or every two or three, she switches between Barbie-ish Nicki and Monster Nicki.) But in general, we let a rapper say “I bust gats. I slang coke.” and then leave the studio in their Beamer Benz or Bentley to drive to their Honeywell-secured homes in gated communities patrolled by the boys in blue.[1]

We all code switch.  At least if you’re successful in any capacity, you know how to code switch.  It’s not as intense as it sounds.  If you’ve ever been around friends and answered your phone and it was your mom and noticed yourself speaking slightly differently, congratulations you’ve code switched.  It simply means adjusting your behavior to fit the new environment. It’s usually brought up in race relations.  Imagine at your job or in your classroom being able to blast the most ratchet of music. Let’s use “Racks” shall we? So there you are blasting Racks. [gibberish gibberish gibberish rhyme/ gibberish gibberish gibberish rhyme RACKS ON RACKS ON RACKS!] You’re hitting your douglas.  You’re stanky leggin’ in your chair. You’re doing rapper hands like it’s nobody’s business. And then your coworker says “Hey did you get that TPS report done? Can I see it?” You answer “Yep. Got it right here, Trevor!” Then you go back to rapper hands.

End scene.

Hopefully, and I really do mean hopefully, you aren’t already that person.  But in general, most of us can’t do that.  What we do is on the way to and fro work blast Racks and hit our respective douglasses (douglai?) while doing rapper hands and once we get to work we turn that radio from 10 to 2 and walk into work properly.  Then we have surface level conversations with coworkers until it’s time to stanky leg on home. But the dream that rappers sell us? You can be wildly successful and still stay “true” and “real”.

But that brings me back to Nicki Minaj.  I don’t have a problem with the split-personality, double message. It’s the foundation of rap.  Suspending disbelief.  If every rapper sold as much drugs as they claim, you and I would both be strung out. Anyway, conflicting messages, or rather a conflicting messenger and message are just what life is all about when it comes to music.  We let a married Beyonce sing about “Single Ladies” so it is what it is.   But I guess my confusion is with the previous situation of “detached rapper raps about hood empathy”, the consumers have agreed to suspend disbelief.  With Nicki Minaj, I’m not so sure the same memo was sent out.

[1] I mean, sure, possible exaggeration.  But you get my point.  The Jigga, Diddy, Russells of the world aren’t rapping about the thug life then taking the bus back to the projects.

Over the course of these past few weeks two seemingly random people were featured on news networks to defend their political opinion.  Jon Stewart, a comedian, and Lupe Fiasco, a rapper. While their articulation of their views is certainly blog-worthy, I actually wanted to talk about the very atmosphere of their defense.  The atmosphere for both celebrities was strikingly similar: an atmosphere of discreditation.  Now my Mac’s sneaky red underline is telling me discreditation isn’t a word but I’m convinced it is.  Essentially all I mean is both news networks seemed to invite Jon Stewart and Lupe Fiasco on to offer a platform to discredit their opinion based on their career choice – as comedian and rapper.

Recently Jon Stewart graced the Fox News Network with his presence. His unedited interview is about 24 minutes long and it’s awesome. It’s a popular opinion that Fox News is one of the most biased news outlets today. Jon Stewart has consistently held Fox accountable for this on his show The Daily Show.  For those that aren’t familiar, The Daily Show is at face value a news-style comedy show on Comedy Central. However in my mind, and I can’t be alone in this declaration, it is at its best a satirical news program. It both satirizes the subject of mainstream media and mainstream media itself.  It’s fantastic. But, we must keep in mind that Jon Stewart is an actor and a comedian.  His best role is alongside Adam Sandler in Big Daddy. So… let’s just keep that lens in tact.

As part of some agreement, Jon Stewart appeared on a Fox News program with Chris Wallace to explain why he seems to always pick out Fox when talking about media bias. Stewart defended his views not only with outstanding fervor, but also with excellent evidence.  You’ve got to love the feeling of being right and being able to prove it. Wallace tries to prove to Stewart that Fox News is a “counterweight” to NBC news’ liberal agenda. Jon Stewart sort of lays the smack down with a simple retort of, “I think their bias is towards sensationalism and laziness. I wouldn’t say it’s toward a liberal agenda.” Ok. Point. Stewart. But then this show became hilarious.  Instead of continuing this productive debate on whether Fox has a conservative agenda and if mainstream media bias is affecting reporting, Chris Wallace launches a personal attack on the validity of Jon Stewart’s political opinion because he is a comedian.  He pulls up a video from The Daily Show in which Jon Stewart compared a Sarah Palin commercial to a herpes commercial. This is somehow Chris Wallace’s evidence that Jon Stewart is making a political statement on Sarah Palin. In the words of Jon Stewart, “You’re insane.”

“Here’s the difference between you and I. I’m a comedian first.  My comedy is informed by an ideological background.”

Now the preceding quote is the entire reason I wanted to write this. Chris Wallace went on this ridiculous rampage to discredit Jon Stewart’s political opinion solely because he is a comedian.  Somehow his opinion shouldn’t be taken seriously because his original field of expertise is not politics.

“The embarrassment is that I’m given credibility in this world because of the disappointment that the public has with what the news media does…In the polls who is the most consistently misinformed media viewers? Fox. Fox viewers. Consistently. Every poll.”

Do you know what Chris Wallace says next? Do you? He says, “Can we talk about your network?” This dude! This guy really thought in his head he was taking to Peter Jennings.  Yo. I’m not usually one to do the hoodrat all caps lock thing but, YOU’RE TALKING TO JON STEWART. He’s not some political heavyweight.  His show comes on Comedy Central. You know this! You showed the roast of Pamela Anderson as evidence that Comedy Central isn’t a credible outlet?? Sir. Sir. Sir. Stop. “I had to go through episodes of South Park. I had to look at Reno 911… The next time you’re sitting there haranguing Fox. Just remember that’s where you work.”

Here’s the reason this is a problem: it’s irrelevant.  Now if Jon Stewart decided to have a Comedy Central News show a la BET News and claimed to be legitimate, this would be a perfectly valid focus. Jon Stewart is a comedian. He never claimed to be an activist. So to hold him to the same standard as NBC or CNN, just makes you look crazy. On the most basic level, this is like when single people go in on relationship-centered trending topics on twitter. Nobody wants to hear it. So I understand the craziness of Chris Wallace to some degree.  He was offended that a large number of people probably get their news from The Daily Show on Comedy Central instead of Fox News. He’s salty. It’s fine. But this goes both ways. 1) Jon Stewart isn’t a political heavyweight so we shouldn’t treat him as such and 2) Jon Stewart NOT being a political heavyweight does not discredit his political opinion.

Now the funny thing is, most people will probably agree with me on that point.  But then you bring up Lupe and the side eye comes out. People can’t decide if Lupe was right or wrong in calling Obama a terrorist.  My first instinct when first hearing the debate on this was that most of the people who wanted to say Lupe was right really just wanted to prove that they weren’t going to defend Obama on everything just because he’s black.  Young, impressionable, and probably politically immature fans of Lupe Fiasco didn’t want to say “Lupe was wrong!” because they couldn’t defend that.  It’s much easier to just agree with him and argue a completely different point – that Obama and America are not always right.

The honesty and aggressiveness that Jon Stewart exhibited on Chris Wallace’s show is probably what people expected when they heard Lupe Fiasco was to appear on Bill O’Reilly’s show, The O’Reilly Factor. But that didn’t really happen.  O’Reilly opened with his consistent journalistic integrity, “We’re used to irresponsible statements from rappers.” [2] And then made a joke to get the audience comfortable, “The United States is not a bad nation.  It’s a noble nation. We’re trying to defend ourselves against people who killed us on 9/11″. Bill! Stop! My sides are aching! Haha. Oh gosh. Okay. Let’s focus. Woo. Too funny. Then he continues my point about people completely discrediting the opinions of non-political experts, “This is what gets me. Your constituency are not exactly political science PhD’s.” So because Lupe didn’t share his misguided views on voting to a room full of PhD’s, somehow his message is inappropriate? C’mon.

My point in writing this? Get involved in the political process. You don’t need a PhD. You don’t have to be a Political Science major.  But be informed. Whether you’re getting your news from CNN, Fox News, The Daily Show, or Lupe Fiasco’s twitter, get your news. My other point, don’t discredit people based on their background.  People have opinions.  Take them in context but don’t ignore it.

[1] Chris Wallace’s smile sincerely bothers me. Don’t know why.

[2] You maaaaaaaaad.

[3] Shoutout to Matt for giving me a topic to blog about.

I purposefully waited until the first day Black History Month was over to prove a point – that Black History should be celebrated every day of the year. Actually I’m just lazy and didn’t get around to writing about Black History Month until it had already passed. Whoops. So throughout this cold and harsh February I heard the usual gripes about Black History Month. “It’s played.” “It’s outdated.” “It’s irrelevant.” “I make Black History everyday! I don’t need a month!” I even heard a new perspective from the homie Jen E. aka J dot aka J Eazy, “I feel like Black History Month isn’t for Black people. It’s for White people. To make themselves feel better.” Interesting!

I think it’s interesting to note that regardless of where people fall on the opinion scale of Black History Month – from “It’s a form of oppression” to “It’s the most important month of the year. I spend the other 11 months planning Black History Month events” – if you were to poll people on what they do to commemorate BHM, everyone falls on the same side. [1] Outside of college campuses, nobody does anything particularly special.  You might tweet a Malcolm X quote and call it a day. Even on college campuses, attending a forum on “Is BHM relevant?” kind of seems redundant.

So what’s the purpose of BHM? Somebody let me know.

Without commenting on the relevance of Black History Month, I do think I’ll say this. For all the teachers out there or counselors or tutors or anyone else still forced to somehow incorporate Black History into their curriculum, the reason kids don’t seem interested these days *might* just be due to the black and white photos in every presentation. Quick story. I was forced asked to create a BHM presentation with photos of notable Black people and a caption with their reason for fame.  So the usual suspects were added – MLK, Malcolm X, Du Bois, Hughes, Washington, etc. And I noticed that the pictures were all in black and white. Even Malcolm X and MLK. Which is stupid because there are obviously color pictures of the both of these men.  While I do understand the aesthetic beauty of a black and white photograph, it just looks old. And that insinuates that Black History is old instead of ever-evolving.It implies that Black History month is past tense.  I’m Black History. You’re Black History. #Message.

While Kanye was being arrogant per usual by saying, “I make Black History every day! I don’t need a month!” he’s actually right.  About the first part.  And this is why I thoroughly respect theFreshXpress for their “Black History is Made Everyday” campaign.  Their (color) photos of Raven Symoné, Jay-Z, Barack Obama, and Steve Perry just to name a few are perfect.

Now. Do I think BHM is relevant? Mmm kinda sorta. No Drake. I think in elementary and middle school it can be done nicely.  That’s usually the age where people still care about racial equality in a pure sense.  It’s also the age that common misconceptions are swept under the rug instead of addressed and debunked.  Side eye to you, Mrs. White, 5th grade teacher who told my brother that there were “good” slave masters. Outside of an educational facility, I’m not sure what effect Black History Month has on the world.

Your thoughts? Is Black History Month relevant? Do you do anything special for it?

[1] My IB English teacher would throw up all over her keyboard if she saw that ridiculous run on and random use of hyphens in that sentence.

Is this Facebook’s push for equality or just another way to make Facebook relationship statuses more complicated than it needs to be?

So I put this on my tumblr at first and you know what I realized? I don’t even like tumblr.  I got one because I’m an incredibly inconsistent blogger and thought that would appease my blog itch. It doesn’t. The conversation that comes from blog comments are far superior to “reblogs” from tumblr. So I’m going to treat this like a tumblr whenever I feel like it.  Randomly short microblogs when they come to mind. Or maybe long in depth posts if that is what I’m feeling.

Happy Friday!!!! The weather is great. Go enjoy it.