I haven’t ranted in a while.
One of Black America’s biggest problems, in my humble opinion, is that our presumed leadership are some of the most non-visionary folks in the world. Recently, Kamala Harris, vice president of the United States, who is one heartbeat away from being president, decided to give a reporter a lecture. She said it was going to be a breakdown history lesson. She then went on to state that the women’s NCAA basketball championships didn’t have any brackets until 2022. Of course when the internet got hold of that nonsense, they began to post pictures of Obama’s bracket pics for the women teams from 2013.
Now if she had merely answered a question incorrectly, I could understand the capacity for error. But when you tell someone you’re going to give them a teachable moment, the lesson should be accurate! The imagery of her saying something so foolish and erroneous will forever haunt her.
Social media can be a very cruel and unsympathetic platform. The mother of Dexter Reed, the young man shot 96 times by Chicago police, held a press conference recently. She was wearing a black outfit and matching hat. She also wore a bright orange wig/weave. And the internet was very cruel about critiquing not only her behavior in front of the cameras, but what she was wearing. After she initially finished speaking, she collapsed into the arms of those who stood with her. The memes about her reaction were unusually cruel. The hatred and the mockery of her anguish poured out at every level.
Black people have always been fodder for mockery by others. Some of it has been based on pure racial stereotypes, while others mock what we choose to do. I’ve always had a pet peeve when a male gets to be the spokesperson for some tragic occurrence, and wears a brand new sports team pullover with matching baseball cap. That attire makes it hard sometimes for people to take the situation seriously when the spokesperson doesn’t even dress in a serious manner. All one has to do is go back 60-plus years to the men and women marching for our civil rights, who did not do so in sports attire and leisure wear. The men wore business suits because they were about business. The women wore clothing that made them look like any other woman, and not an outfit that could easily pass as a Halloween costume.
Speaking of imagery, prom dresses are now starting to appear across the internet. There’s something sickening about the half-nakedness these young girls and their parents are choosing for them to wear. One dress I saw, there were appliques covering her breasts, but the rest of the dress was sheer fabric cut at an angle to expose the left hip and thigh with the right side being solid fabric. How any school would allow such an outfit to be worn at the dance perplexes me.
There’s also now a trend to expose one’s behind … especially the crack. I’m not a fan of that look either. Then again, when we have some of the most famous folks in the world exposing themselves in that manner, we should not be shocked that young girls are trying to emulate it.
The old folks used to say, if folks knew better they would do better. I guess in today’s world the saying has to be updated: They don’t want to do better even if they know better!