This is the second part of my ramblings about conventions. This post really isn’t important. But I want to ramble, and since this is MY blog, and I am grown…well you all know the rest. Well here are some more things that happened, life lessons learned, etc.
Being in the NAACP and fighting for racial justice doesn’t exclude one from being a douche: So the six of us from last time. Myself, Mr. Pres, Daisy, Cox (who will now be referred to as Penny Proud or PP), Uh-OH, and Ye-Ye were at the Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinnati. You know…the whole place devoted to enlightening people about the fight for racial equality and justice way back in the day so that everyone could live as equals (more or less). Well a few people (PP, Daisy, Myself) were with some friends that we had made from another chapter. We stood and listened to this old super militant Black man (who most likely ended up with a White woman just because the world is ironic). He talked about how women were bought for breeding, and men were bought for labor (as well as breeding) and about the evils of slavery and why it isn’t over just yet, and how we should better ourselves (not just Black people, but all people) and other things that I already knew about. So we walk around the side to see what is going on with this old slave house that was owned by some rich Kentuckian (big surprise there…) who owned slaves. Right before we walk into the house some guy who looks like a cross between Boss Hogg (dukes of hazard), Katt Williams, and Shaft (so basically as Mr. Pres later put it…a Mississippi pimp) leans over to Daisy and starts talking about how she would have fetched a good price back in the day (I didn’t catch all of it, but I believe it had something to do with being a breeder). I couldn’t believe what that man said. Seriously, he had on a name badge just like the rest of us. He was part of an organization that has been devoted to stomping out injustice. Yet he chose to act like a douchebag and use a pick up line that was
- Disrespectful to the woman he was with (I assume this to be a female relative most likely his wife)
- Disrespectful towards Daisy
- Disrespectful towards Black women
- Disrespectful towards all women everywhere
It just goes to show that those membership dues we pay every year doesn’t necessarily buy someone class.
Sam is just my adopted Uncle, he isn’t pointing at me: The second day we were at the conference we walked around to get free stuff. Aside from getting lots of free things we got to meet some interesting people. The most interesting person I personally met was this beautiful woman. She was amazing. Like if I were to give her an archaic, misogynistic rating on a ten point scale it’d have to be a 9.3 RPS (regular person scale) easily. Anyway, Ye-Ye, me and this woman started talking, shooting the breeze (turns out she was almost 30) and had a good old conversation (SIDENOTE: I love my name. It is like one of the easiest pickup lines ever. Because females swoon over it because it is a rare biblical name…anyway, I’m taken, so back to the story). Fast forward to our last day there and we were all at some luncheon sponsored by the army. We didn’t get there early so all the seats were taken. However I saw the stunning women from before and directed our group towards the table where she was sitting. (*mistake!*) Everyone sat down, and of course I sat next to her. There were two other people at the table already. One was dressed in an army officer’s clothes and perhaps I hoped too much. “Maybe, this guy actually knows because he’s Black too. The army wants to use us young, Black men to fight old rich white men’s wars…maybe he won’t rep, and publicize the army because he knows that it isn’t the path that most minorities should take” was pretty much what ran through my head…and it was pretty much wrong. We all started talking and the second thing out of his mouth was “So have you thought about joining the army,” Uh-OH was to my left and conversing with Daisy about Bruce Willis or something. The woman was to my right so when he asked me that question I tried to catch her eyes to give her a “Negro please!” type of look when I saw it. She had on a go army pin (not really, it was just an army pin) on her left lapel. She was military…and I was pissed. Not because I was trying to cheat on my girlfriend or anything of the sort (so I don’t want to hear BS when you read this…you know who you are) but because I had placed myself in a situation where I had to listen to two people (who were cool otherwise) publicizing and glamorizing the army. For the rest of the meal he tried to convince me (with little help from his sexy army cohort) to join the military and pay for college and all that other good stuff that gets people killed. Now, I’m not anti-military. I think that it is great (in ideology…not that much in practice), and that the people that are protecting our country are heroes (not like the amazing show that is coming back 9-22-08). But…like the rich old white people who have their own sons and daughters who want to join up, I wanted the military to find somebody else.
The brilliance of educated Black people gone horribly wrong: I tried to avoid talking about the following subject for a few reasons
- I don’t have anything against the ideology behind the Black Greek system
- Every other blog (not every
other one…95% tops) that is owned by a Black person in college will touch on this subject and I try to be different
- I don’t want to be a hypocrite because I was actually going to join one before I realized that I didn’t want to take ridiculous orders for no particular reason for x amount of time
- I don’t care that much about the Greek system, so why talk about it
To me Black Greek Letter organizations are just a way for educated Black people to feel like they are in a gang. Obviously there are no real thugs or gangsters in college (that’s right…the US Census Bureau did a study, they found 0 real thugs/gangsters enrolled and attending college in all of the US…imagine that), so there needs to be another outlet in which educated Black people can act hard and represent. They have colors that Black folk not affiliated with that organization can’t wear without fear of being ‘clownt’. They have hand signs for the respective organizations that manage to get thrown up and represented at any gathering with more than 10 college aged Black people (I can’t wait until David Stern or Roger Goodell fine a player for throwing up their Greek signs thinking that they are gang signs…hilarity will ensue), the way that you almost never see just one by themselves unless they are at work or haven’t had the time to see someone else’s letters and connect with their ‘frat’ or ’sorror’. However, all of that is amusing and there are deeper reasons (I hope) than what I just mentioned (so I don’t want to hear crap from any Greeks that happen to read this). Go read a book. I don’t care that much. Now…with that being said, I will reveal one of the stupidest things/ideas/concepts I have ever witnessed in my entire life that pertains to all of Greekdom. For the first time ever, I heard about something called a ’sweetheart’. For those of you who don’t know. I will drop knowledge. Basically if Greeks are high school boys, then the sweethearts are middle school girls. If Greeks are the NBA then the sweethearts are the D-League cheerleaders. When we first heard about this phenomenon, Uh-OH had an interesting question she said and I quote, “I don’t get it, why would someone pledge just to be a hoe?” (I almost crapped my pants thrice after I heard this.) The concept blew my mind that someone would go through the same crap that it takes to become a Greek…just not to really be a Greek. It is like masturbating alone in the dark because you want to get pregnant. It makes ZERO EFFING SENSE! The rationale behind females doing this was that they actually do more things than (insert organization here) on their campus. Even if that is true…that is good (even though you can do community service on your own time if you want to), but just because you happen to do more community service than a Greek organization, doesn’t make you a real Greek organization. You’re just a Greek groupie that happens to read to kindergarteners when you are doing potato-knows-what in your spare time. Yes…I am a hater. But you are also a floozy. Why not take all the crap that it took and join a real organization? I dunno…things like this make me question my own race sometimes.
But the entire trip was fun (for the most part) and very educational. FIRED UP!
