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omg its still black history month! had you forgotten yet?? i hadnt, in spite of what my sparse updating may otherwise suggest. i didnt forget; im just exercising my right to be blatantly shiftless without having a white man cracking a whip at my earlobes (let us all thank the ancestors for fighting for that right).
its been on my mind, continuously, and i thought to myself, self? you know what black history month needs? black history month needs a king and queen. the competition has been fierce, let me tell you… ive been considering some top contenders, including Tuffy from ‘Bamboozled’ (the guy who sang his heart out about how he be smackin his hoes), Leon (who made love to the silver screen as Little Richard in The Little Richard Story and David Ruffin in The Temptations), and Mr. T. but it was not until i saw a re-run of the Colbert Report yesterday that i made up my mind. or more appropriately, my mind was made up for me. ladies and gentlemen, i present to you, Mr. Black History Month: John Fetterman, mayor of Braddock, PA.
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i’m sure you’re askin yourself which one is John. he’s the big white one in the front. now, i’m sure you’re asking yourself how the fuck some big white dude got crowned Mr. Black History, and i will answer that question to the best of my ability*:
…look at him! is that not the coolest mayor you’ve ever seen??
okay okay. let’s start at the beginning. John Fetterman is six foot fucking eight, three hundred fucking pounds. though he looks like he could have potentially been kicked out of your friendly neighborhood neo nazi group for being just a little too angry, or like he listens to nothing but ICP all the live long day, Fetterman is a Harvard grad and has an MA in public policy. his arms are covered in tats, most notable being the dates of deaths that have occurred in the city of Braddock during his tenure as mayor. yeah, kind of like how your cousin Pookie got ‘RIP MAN-MAN 1976-2009 REAL GANGSTAS DO DIE’ tatted on his back after Man-Man died of complications of being shot in his ass by his girlfriend Raynita. oh, and you know how members of the Crips purposefully mispell words that have ‘ck’ in them, using double ‘c’s instead? (ie – ‘trick’ becomes ‘tricc,’ etc)? …he changed the spelling of the town’s name from Braddock to Braddocc. no, seriously. it’s on the freakin website.
no, seriously. this guy is a MAYOR! of a real place!! not a made up one!!
speaking of the website… LOL. did you SEE it?? when you choose to sell your city by putting a picture of you standing and ice grilling in front of a big pile of something that was destroyed likely by the most depressing societal elemants you can muster… dude. it looks like it was created by a 15 year old emo kid sittin in the dark in his mom’s basement listening to My Chemical Romance, struggling to find just the right font to use to express the irony and misunderstanding that grips his soul on the regular. it’s awesome. it’s so inappropriately awesome.
oh, further evidence that he isnt an excised neo nazi? the town of braddock/cc is only about 30% white (as of 2000), and his first course of action was not to expell other 70% of the population. (i should note that the town is 66% black. dude. i currently cannot imagine or think of a blacker city/town/state). see? he likes brown folks! i dont believe in bestowing honorary blackness on non-black folks but i gotta admit. if i did, this guy would get it.
all jokes aside tho, this dude is really awesome, and the town itself, the history and all, is pretty interesting, imo. read about it! write to the mayor! he’s got a gmail address! lol! AWESOME!
*the real answer: affirmative action. i got quotas to fill. 
AFROs most wanted: Chili & Ginuwine, notorious baby hairers
In 1962, a radical black nationalist organization called the AFROs (Afrikan Foundation for Righteous Out-of-sight Sons) was formed in Cleveland, Ohio. By 1965, the group had caught the attention of both the FBI and the CIA, who recruited a small group of 5 black women to infiltrate the organization. One of the women was Rashida Daniels, a licensed hair stylist, who soon fell in love with Bruno “Buddy” Sampson.
Rashida told Buddy of their association with the federal groups, and to help identify the other informants, Rashida decided to give them a sort of Star of David to identify them to the rest of the group. When she next washed and styled their hair, she took a jar of pro-con gel, an old toothbrush, and a spraybottle of water and plastered some hair to their foreheads in an attempt to emulate the thin, whispy hair that babies have when they are young. She assured them that they were trendsetters, and when they walked into the AFROs headquarters, they were immediately labled Uncle Toms (and all-around ridiculous for creating baby hair when they weren’t babies no damn more) and run out of town.
From then on, to this very day, those who purposely wear baby hair are considered all-around ridiculous embarrassments to the black race.
welcome to this year’s first official edition of Your Nappy Ass Roots, a series that will bring you little known black history facts that The Man has tried to suppress in an effort to keep us all complacent, misguided, and misinformed. i’m all about teachin the babies; please pass these important facts along to any and everybody you know. this goes for you too, white people. because its not just black history; it’s OUR history.
first up: the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
would you, could you, employee? could you back it up on me?
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. was born in Greenville, South Carolina on October 8, 1941. Jesse showed an affinity for poetry at a very early age, completely memorizing the works of William Shakespeare by the age of 14.
At the tender age of 18, he became a ghostwriter for the renowned Dr. Seuss, who borrowed from some of Jesse’s own works, including “How the White Man Killed the Ghetto” (Every black in the ghetto could have a fair shot/if the White Man would stop feeding them cocaine and pot),” “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Jew Fish (too offensive to repost here. sorry.),” “Black Man’s a Sham (I will not kiss Obama’s butt/I’d rather cut Obama’s nuts!),” and “The Dance of Denial (I would not, could not have a child/outside of wedlock, ’cause that is foul./Okay, I had a little fling/but yall, that baby don’t look like me!).”
He is currently working on a rap album featuring Lil Wayne, T-Pain and Young Somebody entitled “Down with Foes, Up with Hoes” to be released this summer.
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hi, all! happy monday to you!
so you know the big fantastic Great Big Gotdamn Black History Month Extravaganza i’ve been creamin my pantydraws about? well, id like to quickly thank Supervalu grocery store in Delaware for sponsoring the festivities. they’re currently having an amazing sale in honor of black history month, so stop on by and partake! they have specials on everything a black person needs: cornbread, grape soda pop, glory greens, hot sauce, seasoning salts, jiffy corn muffin mix, aaaaaaaand the crowning glory: obama memorability.
yassuh, you gots everthang yall gon need fo yo black histruh momf party! git enuff fuh you, yo semn-lemn kids, AND they baby daddies!
why do i have a sudden urge to get up and do the electric slide?
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im bringin back this feature as a part of my Great Big Gotdamn Black History Month extravaganza. this installment brings us: ’slow love’ by doc box and b. fresh.
i asked a couple of people about this song in the past couple of weeks and nobody remembered it but me. surprise surprise, huh? this was my shit tho; its another of the songs i used to sit and watch the jukebox for hours for, waiting for it to come on. this joint dropped in 1990. that’s 18 years ago. i dont want to discuss how old that makes me feel. i was 8 years old then. eight!!!! eight young tender supple years old!! omg. i loooooved this song man. firstly, the beat was and still is bangin.. when it drops in the beginning after dude is like-
‘…buss it.’
what??! are you kidding me?? if your head is sittin still on your neck when you hear that, then you may have gotten some faulty musical judgement genes and you have my sympathy. and when i was little i liked dude in the vid because i thought he had pretty hair. i clearly had no knowledge or concept of the s-curl back then.
anyway, this song stands out to me today because it reminds me that there was a time when you couldn’t say the word ‘breast’ in a song on the radio. oh yeah. those days did exist. tough to believe when you got shit talkin bout ’she gon let me beat beat beat beat beat’ on the radio these days. it’s true though. listen for the censoring around the 2:31 minute mark. in the middle of the rhymin, debra killings (who is supplying the vocals) randomly and arbitrarily sings ‘baaaay-bee!’ where the word ‘breast’ would/should have been.
i dont remember anything else these two did. brownie points if anyone else does. brownie points + my eternal gratitude if anybody else at least remembers THIS song.
anyone? bueller?
are your insecurities tingling right now? if so, it’s probably because you’re sitting right now in a lily white office or classroom or whatever your choice of employment, just waiting for someone to break out some kente cloth, collard greens, or a tape of dr. king’s ‘i have a dream’ speech in honor of black history month. or maybe you’re just afraid that you look fat in your jeans, i don’t know your life.
at any rate, it is now officially black history month and i am EXCTIED. if you’ve been with me for at least a year, you may remember my Great Big Gotdamn Black History Month Extravaganza with such features as ‘black music nobody remembers but me,’ ‘black history month spotlight,’ and a sundry collection of little known black history facts that i combed the recesses of the seedy information undeground for on behalf of the folks @ postbourgie. well my friends, i am pleased to inform you that you can expect another heaping helping of inappropriate information this year. cause i mean somebody gotta teach the babies the truth, right? if not me, then who?
so we’re gonna start off with this little jewel. i didnt watch the superbowl on account of im allergic to sports that move as slowly as football does, but i usually watch for the commercials. i didnt even do that this year. but, my mama was tellin me about the funny e-trade baby commercials and, remembering the genius of the clown commercial, i just had to run to the interwebs to check it out. i found the new commercials, and i also found this little real of outtakes from the shoot.
yeah, they’re cute. and funny. but there is a morsel of golden information here that i’m sure no one picked up on but me. firstly, how bout a round of applause for the first black e-trade baby, huh? james meredith is doin the shoulder lean in heaven in celebration as we speak (we not gon talk about how the first black etrade baby is SINGING though. black folk always gotta be singin in some shit, dont we?). secondly, pay attention to the 0:53 minute mark.
the burning question has been answered. nature vs. nurture: black people have a naturally occurring, genetic predisposition for big asses, developing early in life. totally natural.
thank you e-trade.
tune in for more of my Great Big Gotdamned Black History Month Extravaganza! it’s gonna knock ur weave off. it’s gonna be AWESOME.
this is Disco Rick. he wants to sing and dance with your children. now before you say no and gather your babies and run screaming ‘bedlam!’ in the streets, hear me out.
i think you’ll feel a little better when i tell you who Disco Rick is. you remember that song ‘Your Mama’s On Crack Rock?‘ if the title (and link) somehow elude you, it was a very important song that helped raise awareness of the chronic childhood teasing that the children of crackheads often face. that should make you feel better, my beautiful nubians, but if it doesn’t, hang in there.
Disco Rick is a big name in Miami bass music history. as his wikipedia entry states, “Rick began his music career with the Gucci Crew in the early 1980s, mixing music and writing lyrics that would go on to help define the Miami sound.” hear that? this man helped to define the music of an entire city. after making a name for himself, he then quit all that and went to making songs exclusively featuring a bunch of young, vulnerable, loudmouthed unfortunate-haired kids on both on the chorus and in the videos.
now who else was giving kids like this a chance? nobody, that’s who. nobody but Disco Rick.
Disco Rick had other hits (i’m guessing,) but to my knowledge, very few people outside of Miami have a recollection of the classic “The Nasty Dance.” in context, the setup is perfect: he’s in Miami, on the beach, plenty of thongged, bikini-clad beach bunnies available to grind, gyrate, and air-hunch in the video. and oh, there’s gyrating. there’s air-hunching.
but its those same little crack rock kids doin the hunching.
there are several things (clearly) wrong with this video. first, Disco Rick is not the only grown ass man dancing in this pre-pubescent fountain. there are two muscley, sweaty twins dancing very erratically. remember the black panther type people dance-marching at the beginning of the ‘fight the power’ video? imagine them on the PCP. that’s what these twins are doing.
there is a little girl in the video, probably around 5 or 6 years old i gather, who is seemingly the only one who has any sense. in the beginning, she looks at Disco Rick and asks ‘what are you doing?’ while making a face that plainly says ‘..what in the blue hell is YOUR problem, punchy?’
in the beginning, you’re rooting like shit for this little girl, praying that she will walk away with hips that have not yet humped or bumped or grinded or anything before their time. but…
..fucking Disco Rick gets to her too.
i totally forgot that i was supposed to be convincing you that its okay to let your kids hang out with Disco Rick. fuck it, i got nothin. find these babies’ parents and charge them with neglect, asap.
libations and harambee unto you, my brothers and sisters.
i wanted to give you guys a black history month treat that would surely tickle the ancestors pink. how many times have you said to yourself, ’self, i wish there were other Black History songs other than that ’sing sing celebrate’ song that was out when i was a wee toddler.’ well my friends, bow your heads and say a thank-you prayer for kfc, for they have heard your call.
with hits like “KFC Pride 360″ and “At the KFC,” and “Let’s Have a Party” (‘let’s have a party/in the community/bring out your family/down at the KFC’) you can reflect on how far you, my nubian beauties, have come; finally, you can put on your kente cloth and do a ceremonial interpretive dance celebrating our progressive triumph over horrible, defaming stereotypes against the backdrop of an album full of black folks singing of the irresistable deliciousness of fried chicken.
no, i am not making this shit up.
thank you, KFC. my blackness now finds you inexplicably relatable.
ashe, brothers and sisters. happy Black History Month.
the Jukebox was my boyfriend back in the day. there was a pretty long stretch of time where we didn’t have cable at my mama nem’s house, and there was like, nothing on. by that time, i had gotten pretty used to watchin music videos, so i took to the Box really quickly. there are a few songs that immediately jump into my brain when i think about that tv channel, and they’re usually songs that nobody else remembers. especially this one.
this was 1988, man. 88! i was six years old!!
now this video is great for approximately 2,523 different reasons, and here are the top three:
-the hair. i was gonna say the clothes, but late 80s fashion is late 80s fashion. the hair is spectacular because this plainly shows us that back then, there were no hair or makeup teams. these chicks rolled outta bed, went straight for the procon gel and royal crown hair grease, slapped on some baby hair, and said ‘i am ready for the entire music world to see me now.’
-the sappy lyrics. i dont think i have to expound there.
-the ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS SINGING. i really dont have to say nothin else there.
its great. it’s just so great anyway you look at it.
i would like to herald Anquette as heroes of black music. thank you, Anquette, for paving the way for other talentless musical acts; without you, Ashanti, T-Boz, and Mary J Blige* would have never found record deals. we salute you.
*YEAH, I SAID IT.
yes yes yall. its that time again–time to learn about how martin luther king and rosa parks invented peanut butter, died for our sins, and saved the black race by writing ‘we shall overcome’ when they were resurrected on the 7th day.
or, if you’re me, its time to correct your nieces and nephews when they come home with the tall black history month tales they’ll learn in school everyday, like how Lincoln freed the slaves and all that jazz. as your resident conspiracy theorist, i have decided to dedicate myself to sharing with you guys the same truths that i share with my babies. it’s the least i can do–the world really needs to know the truth.
so im cookin up a black history month menu fit to feed an army of al sharptons. im talkin features such as interviews with the people (and facial accessories) closest to our favorite black celebrities; diatribes on the most unknown black history month heroes (ie – Burnita Smith-Jones, inventor of putting foil on the ends of little girls’ braids to keep the beads from falling off); and something im very, very excited about, ‘Rap/RnB Songs that Nobody Remembers but Me.’
im pretty excited. the truth kind of does that to me, and i cant wait to serve yall up a big helping of it. we can start with a trip to PostBourgie, where throughout the month, i’ll be contributing a little-known black history fact for the masses. for example- i bet u didnt know this abt Whoopi Goldberg:
Born Caryn Elaine Johnson in 1955, Whoopi Goldberg rose to fame in the acting world, becoming the second back woman to win an Academy Award for her role in the 1975 blackploitation film “Blackface Jones and the Temple of Jive.” After beating pinkytoe cancer in 1963, Goldberg established Brows(e) for a Cure, an organization that encourages people to donate their eyebrows to make wigs for others battling the disease. She continues to donate to this day.
milky baths are great for pinkytoe cancer!
now if that aint some delicious shit, i dont know what is.
happy black history month, yall. ashe.
