After last night, the ABC show Black-ish should change its name to Black-AF. Kenya Barris and crew decided that they wanted the crown for blackest prime-time television episode of all time (appropriately titled “Juneteenth”) and basically created a live-action version of a super-black episode of Family Guy complete with musical numbers, the Roots and the cartoon “I Am a Slave” (remixing Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill”)—which you really have to see to fully appreciate the blackness. In fact, the episode was so black that it featured Aloe Blacc.
THEN, because they wanted to make sure you didn’t have their blackness fucked up, they had a Hamilton-esque musical number titled “We Built This” dedicated to the fact that slaves built every fuckin’ thing in America. On ABC, at 9 p.m. On a Tuesday.
What started everything? The episode opens with a school play where the principal has bussed in lots of “colored” kids to make up for the lack of diversity as they attempt to re-create the events where Christopher Columbus did the first Columbusing of all time, and of course Dre goes ballistic, upset that Juneteenth doesn’t get celebrated. Shenanigans ensue.
Y’all, there’s even a song called “Juneteenth,” where they sing about what freedom means, with the words “goodbye to white folks, ” “miscegenate” and “get my 40 acres and a mule” all sung with tremendous and beautiful blackness.
This episode was so black that I inadvertently got up during the episode and did, well, black shit. Like what? Glad you asked.
- I made red Kool-Aid and didn’t realize it until this morning and measured the sugar content with my heart—the only way to truly make Kool-Aid.*
- I threw an extra ham hock into the collard greens I didn’t even know I was making. Why was I making collard greens last night? Because I’m black, that’s why.*
- I grew my hair out, found some Luster’s S Curl, brushed my hair into waves and then put on a wave cap to make sure my waves stay crispy.*
- I sent my grandchildren out to the corner store to get me some lottery tickets with numbers I saw in a dream last night sent by Jesus himself.*
- I thought I heard thunder outside, so I made those same grandchildren turn off all the electricity as we sat in silence and prayed that the lightning wouldn’t come.*
- I closed the door to make sure that we were not air conditioning the whole gotdamn neighborhood. And then let everybody in the house know that we ain’t air conditioning the whole gotdamn neighborhood.*
- I pretended it was Sunday and banned my children and grandchildren from playing cards or doing any cleaning.*
- I went to stand in front of my picture of Jesus and Martin Luther King Jr. shaking hands and threw up a fist for Black Power.*
- I threw up a fist for Black Power while sitting in my wicker chair that Huey borrowed from me but never gave back. I’m not sure how I got it back to sit in and throw up a fist for Black Power, but my daddy told me don’t ask questions I don’t need to know the answer to. He black.*
- I rapped, “I’m black, y’all, I’m blackity black, cuz I’m black” over and over again while staring in the mirror and hoping for Marcus Garvey to show up and call me a Black Star. See what I did there?*
*This probably did not happen. I can neither confirm nor deny the happening.