itainteazy's Blog

My friend showed me this a while ago and I thought it was pretty cool so here it is.

#1. Black People
Black people like black people. Mostly because we actually do, other times because we have to. Most of the time it's because we want to like black people, and since black people want to like black people, we generally meet black people who want to like us. The liking is mutual and self-replicating. This is especially the case whenever we are in areas that are predominantly white. We immediately find some other black people to like and we go and like each other. When we're mostly around black people, then we tend to only like certain black people. Some people like to talk about black love, but in fact, black love is at a premium. Black like is all over the place. So much so that even white people like black people.

#2. Freedom
Black people like freedom. We're never really sure if we have it or if we have freedom-lite, you know, that freedom that they sell down at the corner store. We have plenty of it, but it always seems to be that discount freedom that breaks when you really need it. It's plain wrap freedom, not the expensive good kind like they sell at Macy's. Still, we love the freedom that we have, and we tend to be a bit showy with it. Plus we always invent new kinds of freedom. Problem is, not everybody digs black freedom, like the freedom to interrupt anything any actor in any movie is saying, or the freedom to tell anybody anything at anytime. But that won't stop us from really, really liking freedom. Do yourself a favor and try not to get between us and freedom.

#3. Mama
I'll always love my mama, she's my favorite girl - the onliest one. Black people like mama, and also momma, and moms. We like big mama, skinny mama, foine mama and bad mama jamma. But we only like our mama, we don't like your mama. In fact, your mama is so old she pees rust and poots dust. OK now I dare you to say something about my mama.

#4. Education
Ask any black man woman or child what's the solution to the problem and sit down and prepare yourself for a lecture on the benefits of education. It all started when mama, yeah mama, walked five miles to and from school in the snow with no shoes, uphill both ways. And before that with Carter G. Woodson. Black people love education so much that we've decided that every American ought to wake up with night sweats over a dream that they forgot to study for the test, and that test is Black History Month. Education is that thing we know that can be denied but once achieved can never be stolen. Sure it would be nice just to have enough to buy, but we are Saturday's child, we have to learn for a living.

#5. Hair Preparations
It could be Glover's Mange or Creme of Nature, but it's certainly not Prell or Head and Shoulders. There is no reason at any time for any black person of any stripe not to have a very specific regimen for hair care. That goes double for those who have to travel. We make doubly sure that we bring the right dose and boy are we persnickety about it. If somebody were to document all of the stories about curling irons, #1 clipper guards, barbershops & beauty salons, jheri curls, doo rags, pressed hair vs natural, dreads vs braids and other aspects of black hair preparation, it would strain the capacity of Google.

#6. Cell Phones
I don't know if you've noticed, but ever since cell phones were invented, there has been no color line. Black people got them as soon as they became available. We didn't get cable TV when it first came out and we didn't get the internet right away. We also didn't get invited to Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, but we actually didn't miss it much. But when it came to a cell phones, black people would not put up with being left behind on that score. So we made it known, with our awesome consumer clout in these United States, that we would not be ignored. We even got a hiphop phone company just for texting with flavor. Unfortunately for Kwame Kilpatrick... ahh but that's another story. What's your ringtone?

#7. Telling White People Off
One of the most fun thing about being black is that white people listen to you, especially when you get all up in their grill. They act like they hate it and they get all huffy about it, but in the end they're always grateful for the experience. White people tend to forget who they are and what they're doing on this planet. That's why they watch foreign films. They know that they live two inches off the ground, and of course they often forget whether or not they are living in reality. They ask themselves stupid questions like, how do I know everything I'm experiencing is not an illusion and maybe when I'm asleep, that's reality. That's why white people made The Matrix. And who did they turn to in The Matrix? A black man, of course. Morpheus. White people need black people to ground them in reality, so the next time you feel like slapping the taste out of some white person's mouth for doing something spacey, go ahead and give them a neck shaking verbal beatdown. They'll act offended, but deep down they're really glad you did it. They call it an intervention, and we really like to give them.

#8. Church
Black people legendarily sin on Saturday night and make up for it on Sunday morning, which stretches into Sunday afternoon half the time. Don't forget Bible Study on Wednesday night. Now I was originally motivated to say that black people love Jesus, and a lot of us do, but not as much as we love Church. You and I both know there's a lot of black people in Church who don't really love Jesus as much as they say they do, but I suppose that's pretty much universal. Black people church. Which is to say we have turned it into a verb. Next to education, church will get you right. It is more than a ritual, it is a way of life, you've got worship, praise, singing, dancing, dressing up, eating, socializing of all sorts, gossip, showing off, redemption, celebration. There isn't much that doesn't go on in Church. Yes even that.

#9. Loose Clothing
Some people think that drooping pants is a new trend among young black teens. In fact, it is a tradition dating ancient Egypt, or should I say Kemet. The Man won't let you know but recently archaeologists found some hieroglyphs showing Pharaoh Ramses Extra II sagging big time. Of course our Arab brothers in North Africa still wear the flowing robes today and we are gradually making the full circle complete as our white t-shirts get longer and longer.

#10. Basketball
I know. I know. I know. We like track and field and we like baseball, and we really like football. We like tennis and golf now, but maybe that's just an infatuation. But basketball? That borders on something unhealthy. We like the sound of the ball on a hardwood floor and the echo off the cinderblock walls of the gym. We like the squeak of the sneakers on a pivot foot at the high post. We like sounds and the energy and the fact that in the blink of an eye you can go from being on offense to being on defense. We like the drama of the final seconds of possession and the elbows down in the paint. We like the swish of the net and the metallic clank of the spring loaded rim snapping back after a monster dunk. We like the improbable little men, the stylish guards and the miraculous ball control. We like the unstoppable big man charging the lane and snatching rebounds with authority. Ahh. you get the picture. What's not to like?

#11 Dap
Dap is a fudamental element of black greeting and communication. It can be as subtle as a split-second head bob between strangers crossing paths in a city street. It can be as complicated as a hand game between blood sisters. It can be as sassy as a neck working snap from a man in tight jeans on Greenwich Village or as decorous as a triple cheek kiss at the after party at a Paris couture event. It could be a father and son rubbing foreheads at bedtime or fraternity sisters making triangles with their fingers. I can be as sinister as a gang sign or as welcoming as warm embrace. Every American baby learns to high five before it can speak. Dap says acknowledge me and a language of gesture that is a black gift to the world, we like that everybody likes dap.

#12 Shine
There is nothing quite so annoying to black people as a drab existence. So when we get a chance to show off, there ain't no half stepping. We could set Warren Buffet back on his heels trying to calculate the value of all the chrome rims adorning black people's automobiles from coast to coast. Black people have reinvented jewelry, it's not just glitter, it's bling. But bling is too narrow to describe that element of flashiness that's why I say shine. It's about a megawatt smile, a showtime attitude, and acheiving just right mix of upper crust sophistication and gutbucket style. Like all the greatest inimitable styles, it's hard to describe shine but you know it when you see it and you know it had to come from black people.

#13 Hot Sauce
Obviously because most of us are not from New Haven, Connecticut, if you are black you have got to have some element of spice in your diet. Tobasco, Rooster, Red Hot. I could go on. And we like not only our own native hot, we like habanero hot, and kung-pao hot, and Indian curry hot too. It could be in a Jamaican patty or a Nigerian jerk goat head. It could be on french fries or on top of the already hot salsa in our heuvos rancheros. Black people like all kinds of hot, and that's hot. (You go hottie!)

#14 Heads
Now this may seem strange to outsiders, but black people have a great deal of admiration for a well-shaped black male head. Now for a time there, black men were somewhat undercover of the Afro and that was cool for a time, but the basic aesthetic of the black skull could not long be denied. We chuckle when those Minoxadil commercials come on because we know the very essence of masculinity is the shaved black man's head. Except for Christopher Darden. He's got a pack of hotdogs crawling up the back of his neck and nobody respects that. From the time we And black women can work it too. Sure you've got your Annie Lennox and Sinead O'Connor gave it a shot, but they don't hold a candle to Julianne Malveaux.

#15 Swap Meets
Black people can make a dollar out of 15 cents at the swap meet. Sure white people have garage sales and estate auctions, but there's something about an acre of tables with cheap stuff that makes me want to get my shop on.

#16 Center Stage
Black people like attention. Because when we have something to say, man it's just not sufficient to employ the King's English. It could be the pulpit or the end zone. It could be the dance floor or the waiting room at the doctors office. You just never know when a black person feels that they have been quiet for too long. But the moment that decision is made, well there's just no stopping us.

#17 Dancing
You will notice that I say black people like dancing, not Dance. Dance is something you observe from the balcony, or seventh row center if you got it like that. Dancing, is something you experience more fully. It is the cure for the body-mind duality those silly Greeks tripped on. Contrary to popular opinion, black people can't all dance, but that incompetence stops very few of us. In fact, if you go to any club in which you are likely to find a floor full of dancing black people, it wouldn't take you much time to see that half of us would not last a minute if the dance floor wasn't packed and people could actually see what we're doing. Be that as it may, black dance is generally very simple and repetitive. You need only practice it at the club once a week, and after a month, you're as good as you ever need to be. That goes for the Electric Slide and all of its variants. What white people don't seem to realize about this simplicity is that there is a time and a place for everything under the sun, and there is only one place for the Cabbage Patch and that is 1989. The time and the place for the Chicken Dance is an eternity in Black Hell.

#18 Bass
I'm not talking about the fish here pardner. I'm talking about bottom, boom, the low end. And if you catch my double entendre then you know that there's something about booty bass that's the bomb. My favorite book by Toni Morrison is Sula, and the paradise of that book is called The Bottom, the analogy was not lost on me because black people find, in the absence of the privileges of society ways and means to celebrate the simple. There is nothing more simple and fundamental than the notes way below the treble clef. I'm talking about the groove, the bassline, the fundamental foundation of all music. It is the great contrast between the melody and the subharmonics that allow us to feel the music in totality. but a funky bass rhythm is its own reward. And ever since Nile Rodgers gave us Good Times, we've extended the break into its own arena. We dub the bass, we slap the bass, we attempt to personfiy the bass. And it's not just now, but then too. All you had to hear was Paul Robeson start off with 'Go Down Moses' and it was over. With nary an instrument the stage was set, deep deep down in the basement of the soul is the bass. The earthshaking primal force of all that stirs the emotions, bass will always be in place.

#19 Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton is famously known for being the first black president. We cut him some slack because he was trying to be the man, but The Man wouldn't let him be The Man. Now what kind of deal is that? A familiar deal as far as black people are concerned. Bill Clinton could shoot the gift, and you know wherever he went, the first thing out of his mouth was 'Where all the white women at?' But why hold that against him? Bill came from humble origins and people never let him forget so when it was time for him to have his office, he put it in Harlem. How could you not love that?

#20 Tyler Perry
If you don't know, now you know. And if you still don't know, don't ask because nobody's gonna tell you. OK one small hint. Movies about black people (who like black people).

#21 Radicals
Having been part of the outsiders going on three or four centuries in the New World, black people have had few opportunities to get the real scoop on what's really going on in the minds of the powers that be. But we have a pretty good idea that one thing that's going on is that those powers don't mind that we remain outsiders. So every couple or three decades, black people fall in love with some order of radical who demands that change be made. Sometimes they are serious radicals, like Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X, sometimes they are dime store wannabe radicals like Tupac and Al Sharpton. But black people are often disposed to like things that stick it to The Man despite the fact that we all understand no revolution is afoot. So there will always be a show of support, with emphasis on the word 'show', when a radical pokes his head above the radar. The point is that black people don't mind being suggested as the a massive force to be reckoned with - anybody who says that will get our rhetorical backing if not our blood, sweat and tears. As often as not, the radicals only get our money, and then we wake up.

#22 Horoscopes
Libra and my name is Charles
Now I like a woman that's quiet
A woman who carries herself like Miss Universe
A woman who would take me in her arms
And she would say, "Charles, yeah"
And if you fit that description
This is for you especially

Mmm take my hand
Come with me, baby, to Love Land
Let me show you how sweet it could be
Sharing loving with me, I want you to

Float, float on (Girl, yes)
Float on, float on (With Charles)
Float, float, float on (Ooh, yeah)
Float on, float on

(need I say more?)

#23 Africa
We like the Africa of legend. The Africa of possibility. The Africa lost and never recovered. The ancient, the modern, the rust colored dirt, the mystery of the interior, the history of its coasts, the long suffering motherland asking why we don't call. Africa is our talisman and the liberator of all thoughts of pride and hidden memory. It is our magic Mirror of Erised reflecting to us whatever it is we want to see. We defend mother Africa without really knowing our cousins, and in fact get real American upon hearing some African thoughts about women, but the romance never dies. One of these days, somebody is going to make a mint building 'Africaland'. It will probably be Robert Johnson, the CEO of BET. That will be essentially, the end of Africa. We like the myth and the majesty of the place and the people but we are constantly frustrated by the editorial vapidity of National Geographic. It ain't just animals, plants and geography. But let me chill.

#24 Poetry
There is something about black people that simply we cannot resist a rhymed couplet. Perhaps it is a deep longing for the rhythms of our lost native tongues that forces us to twist and turn English into something it isn't by itself but miraculously becomes when we work it. The urge to turn even the simplest explanation into a syncopated soliloquy is almost irresistible. Of course it doesn't always approach art and we often suffer from it. How many times have we been seduced by the some line Jessie Jackson and wake up the next morning asking what we were thinking. How many times have we let that Ice Cube line slip above audibility in mixed company? Ahh but when it works, there is nothing like the grandiloquent heights we can reach.

#25 Brooklyn
When did Brooklyn become 'the planet'? Well it was long after Jackie Robinson had gone, but there's something about Brooklyn that black people love in deep and mysterious ways that had been a long time coming. Sure there's Harlem's Sugar Hill and there's 125th & Lenox, but the magic of Brooklyn goes for miles and miles. Brooklyn has every flavor, ethnicity and class of black people, which is one reason it became 'the planet'. There are affluent American blacks in Park Slope, there are argumentative Hatian Blacks in Prospect Heights, there are rowdy Jamaican blacks in Bed Stuy, and all sorts in between. Everybody shows up to the annual Caribbean Parade on Eastern Parkway and it is a festival that puts just about every other to shame. If you haven't experienced it, you really have been watching too much television.

#26 Hamburger Stands
Every ghetto, every 'hood, every blackified 'burb in America must have it's hamburger stand, and you are bound to find black people there enjoying some grease. We know about apple pie and hot dogs, but I'm sorry, it's got to be a hamburger to get black people really interested. Bacon, chili, cheese, egg if you can, a little bit of lettuce and one slice of tomato thank you. Ketchup, mustard - hot mustard if you got it. Pickles onions and hold the mayo. Now that's eatin'. Also give me a side order of crispy fries, not crinkle cut fat fluffy fries, skinny ones with Lawry's Seasoning Salt on it. And a suicide. Orange soda mixed in with Rootbeer. Now you're talking. Turn on the radio, call out to your buddy across the street. Have a smoke, check out the action. It's a fine way to spend a sunny afternoon.

#27 Pork / No Pork
Black people have a love/hate relationship with pork. It started off as a hate relationship because none of us wanted to eat them parts of a pig that Massa left us. But we figured out a way to turn that sow's ear into a silk purse, and no I don't mean head cheese. And by the time we could afford to go whole hog, well Oh Happy Day. I mean BBQ spareribs, smoked bacon, honey ham... I'm starting to drool right here. So the love affair went pretty much uninterrupted for 200 years until black people started turning Muslim. And now a great number of us refer to it as 'the swine'. Of course there are healthy ways of eating pork but we tend to like the traditional stuff too - hogmaws, pigs knuckles and chitlins, although not many of us go for tripe. Mmmm fatback! And oh by the way, we never call it 'the other white meat'. If you happen to know dude, you just tell him to chill on that advertising campaign. He's not doing the industry any favors.

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I have not, by a longshot exhausted the possibilities here, but I wanted to get this piece out today. And of course there are many more paragraphs I could have exhausted on each of the above 27, but I wanted to share the meme in a spirit of fun.

MORE!

Continuing on.. (and remeber these are not ranked)

#28 All You Can Eat Buffets
There are certain things that black people like so much that it's embarrassing. You take a likable thing and then you know a particular black person that just acts a fool, and then when you come to think about it, you can remember acting a fool your damned self. What can I say? One of the great miracles of the post Jim Crow era is the all-you-can-eat Asian buffet. Not just Chinese food, but all the Chinese food you can eat, plus catfish and good macaroni salad. It's on. The one in my old neighborhood is packed, every weekend from sunup to sun down. The only problem with these places is that black people take that same attitude to every function, like your graduation party or wedding reception. And then they act like we're never going to run out of crab legs or drumettes. Then they start complaining, like they paid for it or something. It's going to be the ruin of us.

#29 The Club
It doesn't matter what kind of club it is, as long as black people can get in, we're happy. You know that old Groucho Marx joke about not respecting any club that would have him as a member? Does Not Apply. Black people will wait in line for twenty minutes, subject themselves to a search, complain about the price of drinks, complain about the crowd, diss people's hair, style of dress, diction, method of dancing, & brand of cologne, complain about the DJ skills, the general quality of the opposite sex and the people they came with, but still go back week after week. There are about 50 books that need to be written about the subject as well as a psychological research organization funded by the World Bank.

#30 Michael Jackson
We don't like Michael Jackson so much as we like the idea of Michael Jackson. But then we come around to the fact that we like Michael Jackson. Why? Because Michael Jackson is the last innocent black man on earth. That's only because nobody can find out where Urkel disappeared to. Yeah yeah, but we know he's hiding. Even before Thriller was Off the Wall. And before that was The Wiz. I don't have to tell you that when he started easing on down the road, we were in rapture. The idea of Michael Jackson is that we could all be innocent and cool at the same time, and he will always represent that somewhere deep in black people's hearts, no matter how he ends up.

#31 Picnics
Somewhere, not far back in your memory is that picnic. You know the one. Where you and all your friends were at the park and there was fried chicken and a football game on the grass. Where little kids were running around blowing bubbles, or shooting water pistols and screaming, where you were stretched out on your second best blanket from off your bed and you chilled with your sunglasses on - until the water balloon fight started. I have to say right here and now that the greatest black folks picnics are at Belle Isle Park. Sorry, but that's a fact.

#32 Family Reunions
There is nothing so black people as a family reunion where all your cousins and family take over the local Radisson. You already know who you can't wait to see. You already know who is going to get on your last nerve. Auntie Jane has been pestering you for the money for six months now and you didn't realize how fast time flew by before it's time to get out there. Big mama's looking healthy but a touch slower since the last time you saw her. Crazy uncle Jimmy is acting a fool again. But it's so good to see everybody, and look at those cute babies. Mercy. You always leave your family reunion wondering why black people can't get together like this on a national scale, and then you remember the cousins who didn't show up and thank God for that. Family is quite good enough, thank you.

#33 Car Wash
You may have guessed by now that the last three entries are all about that Will Smith song, Summertime. Yeah well he got that right. The greatest car wash in America is the Crenshaw Car Wash in Los Angeles, the car capital of the world. Now I know Detroit comes in a close second because of all the brothers who opened up their own little car wash that does one car at a time, but really. The car wash is a social tradition like getting your do did, and there are few things that give black people the satisfaction as waiting for that Mexican dude to spin his towel in the air indicating that he's done polishing your rims, tip please. It is money happily spent as you turn to see that everyone sees, yeah that cool whip is me.

#34 Funerals
I knew this all along, but now I'm old enough to feel it - that strange attraction we have to funerals. We all have the funeral dress or suit, and the dark sunglasses. How many times have black people in their youth thought about how many cars would be in our very own funeral procession? I guess just about every time on a Sunday morning we have to stop in traffic as the motorcycle cops wave one by and we just sit there getting late for Church. Then of course at the wake we just have to see who is here that we don't know but suspect. Like who is that woman and how did she know Uncle Bert? The art of making our evil aunt seem kinder in death than she was in life is the great skill we long to see employed by the officiant, and we usually get it, although sometimes they just pick the wrong picture to put on the program. The funeral directors are still some of the last organic Talented Tenth businesses still in the old 'hood. Me? I definitely want a New Orleans style funeral, oxcart, second line and parasols, and you had better party when I'm gone.

#35 Spades & Dominoes
No get together is right without some smoking, drinking, cursing and gaming. And while the young folks think gaming means XBox and Playstation, black people ain't all young. That means slammin' bones and running Bostons. People who ordinarily look meek and mild somehow get transformed when they start playing these two traditional games loved, loved, loved by black people all over. The foldup metal table with the brown pleather top is dragged out of the closet and a foursome is seated. The glasses of Mount Gay are handy and the business gets going, but never without comments from the peanut gallery. It's just as much fun, well almost, to talk smack when you're not a player as when you are seated. It's a tradition that will be with us until Kingdom come.

#36 Al Green
I happen to believe that of all the singers we've known over the latter half of the 20th Century, there are few that have been responsible for more black babies being born than Al Green. Something about black men and women becomes unhinged when slow dancing to Al Green. Or at least I can say with confidence that smooth move never failed for me. The great thing about Al is that he never fell off in his short, and therefore perfect career. The man understood. Simple and plain.

#37 Denzel
Black people love Denzel Washington. Always did and always will. Unlike so many others in the business of entertainment, DW has always kept his game on and his head up. You can always argue about which movie he did was better, but you can't argue that he ever was an embarrassment, which is one of the things that black people hate. I could go on about Denzel, but uh.. real black men don't.

#38 Kool
Being of Black American Prince extract, Shabby Gentility Division, I am quick to notice others of my krewe. Think 'Carlton Banks'. Once I met such a gentleman at (the notorious) TGIFridays in Marina Del Rey who had found the ultimate secret to success. He was the manager for the marketing of Kool cigarettes. All the billboards with the Kool models? That was him. Kool Jazz Festival? That was him. He was single-handedly responsible for 17.3% of black culture. He even had a pet penguin.

Artists:
#1: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
#2: GZA
#3: TQ
#4: Outkast
#5: Soul Position
#6: The Roots
#7: Tech N9ne
#8: The Pharcyde
#9: Donell Jones
#10: Aesop Rock

Albums:
#1. The Art of War - Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
#2. Liquid Swords - GZA
#3. They Never Saw Me Comin' - TQ
#4. Stankonia - Outkast
#5. Food & Liquor - Lupe Fiasco
#6. Bizarre Ride II - The Pharcyde
#7. It's Dark and Hell is Hot - DMX
#8. Where I Wanna Be - Donell Jones
#9. No Said Date - Masta Killa
#10. None Shall Pass - Aesop Rock

Songs(Current favorites):
#1: Me and My Drink - Lil' Wayne
#2: Enjoy - Tech N9ne
#3: He's The DJ, I'm The Rapper - DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince
#4: Hey Lover - LL Cool J
#5: World On Fire - Above and Beyond
#6: Me and You - Sharp Skills
#7: Streets On Fire - Lupe Fiasco
#8: Closer - Ne-Yo
#9: Falsetto - The Dream
#10: The Waitress - Tech N9ne

First (and maybe last) blog woot my last meal before my surgery tomorrow was potato chips...how exciting :D I will be going to the dentist tomorrow to get my wisdom teeth removed and since they havent actually come in yet i have to be put to sleep so they can dig in and get them out....fun stuff. I'm kinda nervous since i've never been put under before and I cant eat between now and the surgery which is at 1 tomorrow or i would probably die... D: definitely not the way I want to go out. *sighs* I really hate this....Oharuhi-sama, let there be no late night trips to the kitchen.