Apparently unable to find 28 black Bostonians worthy of recognition, the Boston Police Department decided that it would commemorate Black History Month by honoring the legacy of one of its most notable heroes: the great and noticeably Caucasian Celtics Coach Red Auerbach.
Before you start calling this seemingly intentional oversight racist, allow me to explain.
First of all, when the BPD posted the now deleted tweet, the decision was probably made by a white person who works for the Police Department. You know white people only know two or three black historical figures at most. And neither the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. nor former President Barack Obama is from Boston, which leaves them with, ummm ... the other one.
Plus, it’s Boston, a city known for racism, tea parties and racism. They were likely still fuming from that raging pack of Negroes from Philadelphia who defeated New England Patriots quarterback Tom “White Jesus” Brady last week, so it might have been a simple case of post-Super Bowl depression.
And how were they supposed to know that black Bostonians would react this way:
To be fair, the above Facebook post was made by Tito Jackson, a former city councilman who was targeted by the Boston Police Department’s Negro-surveillance software for using the words “Ferguson” and “police brutality” on social media in 2014.
Now, you know The Root would never criticize a police department, a city or anyone else who participates in the erasure and whitewashing of black history. Instead, we’d like to offer some solutions. We recognize that it is extremely difficult to find 28 whole black people to celebrate, so we thought we’d highlight three tools that might prevent this from happening going forward (I was going to say “again,” but according to WHATTHEFUCC—the White Handbook of Apology Tricks to Help Excuse and Forgive Us Clueless Caucasians—white apologies must contain the phrase “going forward”):
- The internet: There is this little-known tool for looking up information called the “World Wide Web” that the BPD might find extremely useful. I Googled “famous black Bostonians” and only 2.3 million results came up. If the person responsible for tweeting doesn’t have access to the internet, maybe they can try ... wait. Scratch that last sentence.
- The library: I think there are libraries in Boston, but I can’t be sure because white people from Boston often sound like illiterate Mississippians with clam chowder in their mouths. I’m still trying to figure out which one says the n-word the most.
- Asking somebody: Are there no black people in Boston who could tell the cops that tweeting about a white man for Black History Month is “wicked dumb”? Or maybe you could ask an Ivy League historian, but I’m not good at geography. Harvard University is probably really far from Boston. I’m sure there’s a local community college or something.
Anyway, here’s to Red Auerbach and tomorrow’s honoree, Paul Revere, the great black equestrian who rode through town yelling: “The Negroes are coming! The Negroes are coming!”
I’m pretty sure that’s right.
Maybe I should tweet it.