This week in blackness had many of us profoundly proud or sadly subdued in head shaking shame. And the week started off strong with the profound feeling of blackness. We had a moment with Shannon Sharpe and the new episode of Blackish dropped. After that, things took a turn for the worse as Cam Newtoncame out saying something foolish. All of that will be elaborated on as I review the last week’s shenanigans sans the shamrocks.
Shannon Sharpe and the Good Smoke
Shannon Sharpe has officially made himself into a national treasure by gesturing his true blackness through his love for good smoke and drank. Yes, my beautiful ebony citizens: Shannon is a fan of Black & Milds and Hennessy. We all know that Blacks are the smoke of college campuses and strip clubs. Plus, many don’t know how to act on that ‘yak. If anyone think that Shannon Sharpe was going to deny his blackness, then they are surely mistaken.
And there was no moment that made this situation more complete than the white confusion around him. Joy Taylor thought the cigar was “off brand”. Skip Bayless thought that he got it from Rite Aid. But we all know that Black & Milds are bought in the hood for the sake of freshness. Also, Black & Milds are hood royalty. With his street value cemented, Shannon Sharpe can probably go to anybody’s block and kick it.
Blackish Went Full Black with Slavery History Lesson
So, Blackish brought its season premiere on a Tuesday night. Instead of hitting on a gentle note, the show came hard. And when I say “hard”, I mean “demonstrate my blackness to the point of loss of comfort” hard. The show was all about celebrating Juneteenth. What I expected was hilarity (which occurred). What I didn’t expect was the amount of truth put into less than 30 minutes.
You see, this show’s demonstration of blackness was so entrenched that most of it stopped being funny. The School-House Rock redux for “I’m A Slave” done by The Roots was both informative and haunting. The entire cast being in a play about slavery was both a mixture of modern understanding and historical burden. All the dance routines and singing could not take away the seriousness of the subject. After a while, it stopped being polite and started getting too real.
Needless to say, I will be showing this episode in February.
Cam Newton and Sports Sexism
So, Cam Newton made a sexist statement the other day. The most hilarious part is that the statement was made to a racist sports reporter.
Oh, the irony is thicker than country corn bread.
Let me get this out of the way: Cam Newton was wrong. He shouldn’t have made reference to her gender. He should have just answered the damn question. Her being a woman is irrelevant to her job. She is just as qualified as any man to ask those type of questions. So, being surprised that a writer employed to cover your team (in particular) asked a certain question is silly as hell. Sarcasm or not.