What’s the purpose of Black History Month???

Ahh its February 1st. I can smell it in the air. All the teachers are redoing their billboards with the usual suspects. Of course the great Reverend Dr. Martin Luther “the” King has to go up first. Let me dust off my Fredrick Douglass picture, definitely only use this once a year! Let me throw up this one of Harriett Tubman too. I know all we are going to teach the kids about her is that she ran the “Underground Railroad”. Since that is likely the extent of the knowledge, they will probably think she created the subway system. And wait who’s this new cat they are putting on the board? Is that Barack Obama?

Ok so I will slow down on the sarcasm but I think you all get my point. On the same month, the same thing is discussed, about generally the same people, and using the same vagueness. I mean is there truly a point to briefly discussing individuals that are a huge part of the formation of this nation that we all know and love, if it will be reduced to small blurbs in the educational process? Why would I expect adults to know anything about these individuals if the true importance of their work is barely a part of a lesson plan in social studies when they are young?

We should be talking about all Americans throughout our history classes at all times! Not singling out African Americans during one short time. We should also broaden the horizons of what we learn as adults. But if we are going to focus on African-Americans during this month, there are plenty more individuals that made huge contributions that need to be recognized. We all love peanut butter so hey lets discuss George Washington Carver’s part in that. Don’t want to run around with your hair looking like Macy Gray, better thank Madame CJ Walker! Have a best friend in school that was of another race, sounds like a good time to learn about Thurgood Marshall.

So its kind of a double-edged sword. Can we abolish Black History Month? No unfortunately we cannot. This is the one time where the contributions of African-Americans are recognized exclusively. However I don’t think it should be that way. I think these contributions should be blended in with teaching throughout the year just as every war general and treaty signer is. I actually wonder when they will change it to African-American History Month! Got to be politically correct you know! At the same time I see the hypocrisy in it, that if someone wanted to establish a White History Month, we would be up in arms stating that it was racist. That’s probably the next blog! If we can’t get the information disseminated throughout the year can we at least do two things? First can we move it to a longer month? I mean would it really hurt to get in two or three more days?? And two, can we abolish BET? I mean if we are going to only have one month to talk about the good, do we really need 365 days to show the bad?!?!?

MAN CARD: REVOKED!!!

From the time every little boy is born the first thing their father or sometimes their mother if said father isn’t around, gives them, is their Man Card. Now these Man Card’s don’t become fully active until they have reached the 3rd grade. This provides time for all the borderline things to work themselves out. You know the things like playing with dolls, wanting to go to the hairdresser with mom, and general other non-manly things. Now if these things never go away, then hey, you were born a little different and the rules don’t apply. The struggle however is with the teenage demographic today. They have taken Man Law and thrown it out the window. These are some of the most gross violations I have seen:

Section 7.3.2 of the book of Man Law clearly states: “There shall at no time be a crossover of men’s and women’s apparel.” This brings to light the advent of skinny jeans. These are completely fine in my opinion, as long as they are on a woman! No male should ever be caught dead wearing an article of clothing that should be normally worn by his sister. And on top of this, they have the nerve to try to sag these things!

Also similarly in this part of Man Law is Section 7.4.5 which states: “The only time a man shall wear pink is on shirts, occasionally hats, and in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness.” Now notice this says nothing of pants, shoes, belts, and definitely not luggage. There is way too much taking pink and attempting to make it masculine. As the rule states, it is fine in some instances, but a man in pink pants does not look masculine EVER! I mean take a look at this picture I took walking in the airport back in June!

These are just the egregious uniform violations! We could continue down the lines of the following.
Section 3.2.1 Involving the use of colored contacts

Section 6.3.15 The elongating of certain words in the English language

Section 6.4.2 The addition of the letter “S” to words that don’t have them

And finally Section 12.5.3 otherwise known as the “multiple violation” section. The most gross violation of that probably comes from this video which made its rounds on FB. You may be talking about women, but unfortunately all you are really doing is acting like one!

Rumble at the Rec Game

Ok so many of you probably know by now that I am a referee for high school football. I also do recreation games at times and find these kids to be some of the most funny and entertaining people I come across. We always hear though about the parents of some of these kids acting a fool. Well this past Saturday, we had plenty of that!

The game I had was for a Christian league where they travel in the metro Atlanta area to play each other. I was up in Winder, GA which is north of nowhere! So we had gotten through two games and the third was to be a 10 & under game. Now I am not sure where the visiting team was from but if I am being honest, they had some of the biggest 10 year olds I have ever seen in my life. I could understand one or two, but they had about 6 really tall kids. Needless to say, the other kids were a little psyched out to begin the game. The coaches for the home team were not pleased because they obviously felt something was wrong and some of the kids had to be too old. Now as a referee, its not my job to police that. I just call the game, they handle the administrative stuff.

Well needless to say, the home team was losing 28-0 in the third quarter and on a fourth down, they bring out a kid who was conspicously tall and big himself. Well he breaks out and runs for a TD and to make the game 28-6. I didn’t even proceed down the field and just stopped and asked the coach where this kid came from all of a sudden. Well no sooner than that, the other coaches are barrelling across the field. As you can tell, this wasn’t going to end pretty.

He’s screaming at the other coaches that he wants to see their book, referring to where all the players should be listed. He was relentless on that. Then for whatever reason in his anger he grabs the kid from the other team and tells him to come here. From there all hell breaks loose! Parents are jumping out of the stands taking off coats and ready to fight.  We had mom’s getting at it with each other and everyone trying to restrain others. It was a mess!

So once the Barrow County PD shows up you would think it would all cool down right? NOPE! Somebody even had the nerve to scream out, “And you all are supposed to be Christians!” Well that’s when the HOLY WAR started. I was quite impressed with everyone’s ability to throw out Bible verses to support their cause!

So we called the game, got our statements taken by police and just laughed in amazement. The funny thing is, none of the kids got into it. They just talked to each other while watching their parents go at it. I guess the positive was that I got home in time to watch the Michigan game…

The Wussification of America!!!

Over the past few years I have noticed entirely too many episodes of kids or rather parents who turn kids into poor excuses for kids. I mean truly what is going on in this country? Kids can’t do anything anymore, they can’t take a bump or a bruise, and lord knows that discipline is out the window! No offense to any of my friends that fall into this category but I refer to them as the “Time Out Kids”!

Let’s look at a couple of examples.  A few years ago we were at a youth soccer game, this kid gets bumped into by another kid and fell down. I presume he hurt his wrist a little so the coach took him out of the game. This kid has walked clear across the other side of the field to his mom, who promptly pulls a bag of ice out of her cooler, sits him on her knee and ices his wrist. Is this kid in pain? Absolutely not! He’s just chillin! When the coach looks to put him back in the game, he can’t find him, why, cause he’s on mommy’s lap. Come on this is sports! I watch the same age group of kids play football and maybe cause the father’s view it as more of a man sport, they don’t even look at the kid unless he is seriously limping off the field.

On to the next example! Growing up on the mean streets of Grovetown, GA, I had to learn a thing or two. No matter rain, sleet, or melting snow from the weekend (that came and went and we never got school cancelled because of), I walked my tail from the bottom of Bennett St. to the top to get to Williams St. to catch the bus.  No matter what, that was the bus stop, plain and simple. When I was in elementary school it was worse. I walked a mile and a half to school everyday. Nowadays every kid has a bus stop in front of their house. Distance be damned!!! Literally, I was behind a bus a month ago, where there was approximately 50 feet separating bus stops. The kids and their parents were standing in their driveways talking to each other while waiting on the bus!!! What kind of you know what is that? They can’t merge into one stop? And this is not isolated either! I see it everywhere, can’t figure it out for the life of me!

One other thing I am trying to figure out is what happened to discipline? In this day and age, I can understand the lack of public discipline. Everyone is watching you, and no one needs that problem in their life. But when you are home if you don’t kick your kid in the chest and make them listen you are asking for issues! Time out is just funny to me! We as parents count down to our kids. We give them a three count that’s really like 10 seconds once we make it to the number three. And they use every last second of that countdown to do what they want. Surprise them sometime! Throw them a curve ball. When you get to two, punch em in the eye or something. Ok I don’t really advocate abusing your child but you get the point. Well all got our tails whopped when we were young and most turned out ok. Hell I was pretty much abused! Did we learn not to do some things? No! We just learned how not to get caught!

So here’s my point. Stop crippling your kids. You can’t hold their hands throughout their life. Sometimes you gotta get hit by a bus and dust yourself off. The scar on the side of my head and my leg teaches me to never begin to cross a street with any traffic. And if I do, RUN! They have to learn to deal with adversity. They have to learn that you are the parent and not the friend. All they are learning to do is manipulate the system instead of building a better system. If handing out a whipping turns your child into a rebel and a criminal, well hell at least they will learn how not to get caught!!!

Subjective Grading Nightmare

Ok so I know its been a while since I have made a post. My apologies, life has been busy to say the least. Well last night I received a good amount of inspiration. I hope that this will help bring light to something and those of you who are parents with school age children will check to see if this is happening at your school. (Note: Names have been redacted to protect the innocent!!!)

So yesterday when this person who lives at my house who happens to be a teacher, comes in to tell me about their day. She begins to talk about how the Reading Specialist has informed them how to give grades on the students reading ability. Essentially if the child is in the 4th grade and reads at a 4th grade level then they are to receive a “C” for a reading grade. Immediately I could feel my face scrunch and am pretty sure the first thing that came out of my mouth was “Why?”. In essence for the children to receive an “A” or a “B” they have to be reading above their current level. At this point I am steaming! My daughter is 16-months old but I am acting like I have a 4th grader.

Why is a teacher being forced to give a subjective grade to a student? If the student goes home and says the teacher doesn’t like me and their parent sees a “C” on their report card, well guess what…the kids feelings seem justified even if that’s not the case.  How is a teacher supposed to explain to a parent that your child is an average reader when they are doing what they are supposed to be doing for where they are?

Let’s look at this hypothetical scenario. If I give a 4th grader a math quiz and the question is what is 16/4 and they give me an answer of 4, should I give them a “C’ because they only answered what they had learned up to that point? Under that same logic, I guess they should get a “B” if they say, “Well also, 20/5 equals 4.” That means they did better than their “average” amount of knowledge. God forbid if that’s all they have learned! But if a 4th grader wants an “A” in math I guess they also have to tell me that for the equation 2x=8, that X=4 also. I mean according to how they are forced to grade, you better give me more than your level to earn an “A”. Sounds stupid right?*

I mean whoever came up with this, isn’t remotely thinking about the kids.  A student could grasp every concept and just be at their grade level in reading. I would have been devastated to come home with all A’s and one C. I would have felt like I failed.  And when the irate parents come to the school looking for the teacher to get an explanation, you know who won’t be giving it…the Reading Specialist, who mandated the grade in the first place!

*All calculations were verified on my calculator

Are We Truly Blind to Color?

There are three hot topic issues that cause people to either stand up tall or shrivel to the background. They are politics, religion, and race. How many times have you driven down the road and seen a bumber sticker with someone who voted different than you and you turned your nose up? For what? They just have a different view point than you, doesn’t make the person bad. Religion is a whole other issue, but since the object is to make one think rather then get mad, I will skip it. But race relations…Ah now there’s a topic that makes many people shrivel. Yeah let’s talk about that!

When it comes to race, it seems like people’s favorite phrases are “I don’t see color” or “I have many [insert race] friends”. The problem with both phrases is that it does nothing but make someone seem phony. I mean truly, you may look at me and see a man, but somewhere in those first three adjectives will be ‘Black’. Now as long as the first two adjectives are ‘Tall’ and ‘Sexy’, that’s even better! But the point is, you recognize my color, you have to! Now the difference is whether or not my color affects you. I’m smart enough to realize that to many it doesn’t affect outwardly, however inwardly that can be very different. Can you look at someone of a different race and say to yourself, “I can take them home”? I understand that there are generation gaps and how you may think and how older family members may think can be completely different. Are you strong enough in yourself and your convictions to stand up for what you think though? If not, are we not still letting color dictate our actions?

All in all, we as humans want to do anything but be looked at as racist. We associate with all types of people and feel that makes us a certain way. But yet again ask yourself, if you are white and one day your daughter came home with a black man how would you feel? On the reverse if you are black and your daughter came home with a white man, what would you think? If it would be uncomfortable, that doesn’t make you racist, it just says that color makes more of a difference then you think it does. If you think I am off base, take a look at all the friends you have on Facebook and then look at your true inner circle of friends. Does the same diversity exist? I bet 90% of you already know the answer without even looking…

As Seen Through the -4.00’s: Ghetto Convenience Store 08/17/09

Life has been pretty mundane lately. Work, home, and various other activities, but nothing that has sparked the mind or incited any particular rants. I’ve even left the obvious sports stories alone, but its almost football season, so that won’t be for long.

Alas on Monday, I just had to have something to drink before I went into my referee meeting. Now mind you all, I am from the bustling metropolis of Grovetown, GA. Its far from Urban, ghetto, or any of those other adjectives other then country! Hell, we probably used to have more trailers then houses there. The worst we had to worry about was some fool saying that a sign on the store says, “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service” and deciding that since it didn’t say “No Pants” that would be acceptable! Anyway, our meetings are held down off of MLK (which will be its own blog real soon), and well lets just say the stores have bars on the doors too.

So I walk into this store looking for a non-soda to drink. Naturally you walk into a store and you look for the cooler section in the back. So I walk back there and the whole wall is nothing but alcohol! There were beers in sizes I had never even seen before! I’m pretty sure they even had an 8oz “Fun Size”! So then I get to the much smaller section where they have the other drinks and low and behold I saw more flavors for stuff I didn’t even know had different flavors. You would think it was a Kool-Aid aisle with all the peach, strawberry, green apple, orange, etc… flavors of absolutely everything. I just laugh to myself and pick up a watermelon drink and head towards the front of the store.

As I approach the front, there are the normal patrons which there’s no need to discuss because you already know, but they have the individual coolers that they fill with ice and put beverages in for people to grab quickly. The first two are filled with bottles that they have apparently took from six-packs of beer, you know the kind which usually aren’t for individual sale! Well they were selling them! And the next bucket just made me laugh. It was full of Big Hugs, well actually I guess they were Little Hugs since they are the 8oz “Fun Size” variety. Now this isn’t really ghetto as I remember seeing these growing up. The problem was, they were gouging these kids at like $0.50 a pop! Anywhere else you see these things they are like $0.25, that ain’t right!

Oh well, I am standing in line waiting for people to stop yelling at the clerks about what cigarettes they asked for and looked behind me and noticed they had a big display of Little Debbie Snack Cakes. No big deal to me until I started realizing that they had every single type of snack cake Little Debbie has. I expected an Oatmeal Creme Pie, Nutty Bar, and a Star Crunch, but they had Zebra Cakes, Boston Creme Rolls, Cosmic Brownies, etc… When did they individually wrap all these? So I pick up a Star Crunch and go to the register! Dude at the register sees me pull out my card and tells me that I have a $5 minimum to use my card. I have seen this many places, but never a convenience store. So I go back and grab a Green Apple drink, yeah I know and come back. He’s like, “Still not enough”. I’m figuring the man will cut me some slack on $0.50, not happening. So I decide to grab a bag of chips, which I have never eaten and have no idea where they are. And I see Flamin’ Hot flavors I have never seen in any grocery store and was unaware Lay’s even made. I knew about the Cheetos, but they had Flamin’ Hot regular Lay’s, Fritos, and even Funyuns. Yet, another laugh.

So finally I can check out as I have met the cover charge! Why it took this man, 3 minutes to run a card I have no idea, but I have been checking my account just in case, I am just looking at all the products behind him. Naturally, they have the condoms on the wall on those little pegs. On two of the pegs they have some Lifestyles, another peg has Durex, and on eight pegs, stacked five deep, Trojan Magnums. All I could do is laugh and think what someone said once which essentially was, “Why does every black man think he’s a Magnum?”

This episode taught me two things. First I should have listened to Naughty By Nature when they said, “If you ain’t never been to the ghetto, Don’t ever come to the ghetto. ‘Cause you wouldn’t understand the ghetto, So stay the #&$@ out of the ghetto.” Second is, I need to start carrying cash!

As Seen Through the -4.00’s: QT 08/03/09

Ok so let me just start this off by saying that I think anytime I see something that is just strange, outlandish, or downright foolish, I am going to blog about it. I decided to just title them, ‘As Seen Through the -4.00’s’, to go back to my introductory blog and to talk bad about myself on my horrible eye sight. Anyway here goes!

So Monday I am headed home around 10pm and naturally I see my little yellow light come on saying, ‘Hello I’m Thirsty!”. After ignoring it for a bit, I get off on East Paces Ferry. Why was I on East Paces Ferry? Because I was leaving MLK. Why was I on MLK? Because I have referee meetings there. As you all can see, between my daughter and two folks at work, my every move and who I am around is questioned. I am beginning to think the wife is CIA! But anyway, as always, I digress! So I pull into QuikTrip, which for those of you not in the Atlanta area, is a lot like a 7-11. I am getting gas and decide I may as well grab a hotdog while I am here.

I proceed towards the door and these kids are getting out of their car to go inside, and one has no shirt on. Teenagers, so no big deal. So kid starts to attempt to put his shirt on and is STRUGGLING! Now I could understand if this was a T-Shirt or a polo, but this was a button down shirt. Dude could not get his arms in it and was standing right in front of the door. I just had to say excuse me, and when I walked by I realized that they had been drinking or smoking something. So into QT I go, and he finally got that shirt on and made it into the store. So I went to get me a Cherry Dr. Pepper, my secret addiction, don’t tell! And as I walk over towards the hotdogs, that same dude is putting taquitos in a bag. Usually not a problem, but he then drops one on the floor and it rolls. Dude looks at looks down, breaking the 5, 10, even 15 second rule, all of which should never exist for a convenience store floor and sticks it in his bag! Well needless to say, I just shook my head and walked past to the hot dogs.  While over there, I hear a woman’s voice and look up and just see a black lady with a scarf on her head to wrap her hair. Next thing you know she walks around the corner and its this burly black dude sounding and looking straight like a woman, with a purse on its shoulder! I am sitting there like WTH!! She, it, whatever, just prances to the counter with the drink and sashays out the door.

Oh the things I see when being somewhere late at night! The hot dogs were good, though but my stomach ain’t been right since! Once again, Welcome to My World!!

Yeah I Watch NASCAR! And???

It amazes me the amount of people that look at me with surprise any time I mention that I watch NASCAR. Guess what, I watch golf too! And I did that before Tiger Woods started playing, but I digress. Why is it just because I don’t look like this, I can’t enjoy the cars going “round in a circle”? So here is my take on the whole thing.

I started watching NASCAR when I was young. I was a big fan of the #43 STP Dodge. That was back when The King, was called the The King because he won 200 races, 7 Daytona 500’s, and 7 Championships. Unlike now-a-days where someone is called the “King” because his first name goes with a historical figure and not because he accomplished anything. Once again, I digress! This King really made things happen and changed the way racing was done. The young folks though probably just know him as this guy. Also during this time and later on I was a big fan of #3, may he rest in peace, #2, and in the late 80’s/early 90’s #17, more on him in a minute. If you are in the know, then you can tell I have no manufacturer loyalty.

Times have changed though, drivers move around so much its hard to keep track, and the tracks are changing. The sport is growing and I love it. When you look at the drivers today there are so many story lines and things to capture and wrap your mind around its hard to keep up. Let me see if I can help you.

Let me first say, I miss the old car which I guess is considered the Car of Yesterday, since the Car of Tomorrow is now the Car of Today, so I guess they can still call it the C.O.T. Make sense? Currently the #48 is on a tear but he is still behind the #14 who used to be the #20 which is now driven by him (Man I have got to stop doing that!). Which is amazing since this is his first year as a driver/owner with a two man team including the #39. Speaking of, Mr. H really has a good thing going with that team and his own including #24, the aforementioned #48, and #5 all of which will be in contention for the championship except for one individual. THAT individual only happens to be the most popular driver in the circuit and of course he is the #88 who used to be the #8, which consequently doesn’t even run on the series anymore.  Ahh the power of popularity! If he even takes a lap in first place the crowds rise! Alas he hasn’t done much this year and it just opens him up for criticism from one punk kid in particular. This just so happens to be the #18. Interestingly though the only time the crowd rises like they do for the #88 is when the #18 crashes. He drives like Waltrip, who I am pretty sure had this movie made his life. Speaking of crashes you will find that often they often are caused or centered around the #42, #77, #82, or the #07. All of which should go back to driving these! I’m sad to see the #17 lose DeWalt, but he picks up a new sponsor which takes me back to childhood. Makes you wonder though, what will happen to the #26?

All in all, the sport is amazing to watch if you listen and know the backstories. All types of people watch regardless of the roots of the sport. Stop questioning my loyalty and my knowledge! And whenever watching a race at Daytona or Talledega just remember to watch out for the person who’s leading the last lap cause he’ll probably end up like the #99 in one of these!

So if you are keeping score at home that’s Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Sr., Rusty Wallace, Darrell Waltrip, Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Joey Logano, Ryan Newman, Rick Hendrick, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch, Juan Pablo Montoya, Sam Hornish Jr., Scott Speed, Casey Mears, Matt Kenseth, Jamie McMurray, & Carl Edwards.

ANY QUESTIONS???

All Things URBAN!

At what point in time did everything associated with black folks, become URBAN? I have always kind of thought about it, but it really made me think when I was looking at some stuff on Netflix and saw that they have a categories for URBAN Comedy, URBAN Drama, URBAN Action, etc… Getting the picture? I had to check the kids section just to see if they had an URBAN cartoon section. Now I understand that some of us like to watch and support all things black. Not sure why, but that’s another story. But when did all things Black become URBAN?

Phat Farm, Roca Wear, Sean John, look it up all URBAN apparel. R&B and Rap, yep you got it URBAN Music played on URBAN Contemporary stations.
URBAN youth, only seems to be black people, which makes me wonder, does the inner city only start where the majority of black people live? I mean its like for Atlanta, its only inner city once you cross Auburn Ave. What happened to the entire city before that?

I guess it just makes me mad cause its not like Abercrombie and Fitch is called Sub-URBAN Apparel. Everything we do as a people shouldn’t be classified as to state “this is black”. Hell if we are going to categorize it, we may as well call FUBU, “Black people’s clothes”. And to top it all off, I am a black man raised in Grovetown, GA. I am nowhere close to URBAN!!!!!!