Last week the national treasure and former NFL tight end Shannon Sharpe sent Black Twitter into DEFCON 1 when he pulled out a Black & Mild cigar on national TV and exclaimed how he smokes Black & Milds and drinks “Hen Dog.”
“I don’t know why y’all be playing with this boy Sha,” he said, black and mildly. “Y’all know Sha be on these Milds and this yac, hard!”
The short Instagram video shows the former Bronco and Raven Pro Bowler brandishing a bottle of Hennessy while holding a Black between his lips, and our investigative team launched an investigation and determined the following:
It was a Black & Mild.
Initial reports accused Sharpe of perhaps substituting a Black & Mild with one of the lighter, more delicate flavors. Opinions were split on whether he used the apple or wine flavors, while some even suggested that he was attempting to perpetrate a hoax and actually smoked the light-skinnededed version: Black & Mild Milds.
We can report with confidence now that it was indeed a regular-flavored Black & Mild. Sharpe apparently prefers the plastic tip to the more bougie wood-tipped variety.
He freaked it.
Our forensics analysts in the CSI Unit (Cigar Smoking Investigation) determined that Sharpe actually used a process called “freaking” to get maximum smokability and health consciousness from his Black.
We used high-resolution imaging technology to notice the subtle change in angle from the tip to the cigar, hinting that Sharpe removed the “cancer paper” and reassembled the cigar in a process known as “freaking” (recommended by 4 out of 5 Black & Mildologists). Zooming in on the pool in the background, we saw tiny flakes of tobacco floating in the water, indicating that freaking had taken place.
In fact, an Instagram post revealed that Sharpe may have used a very advanced freaking technique that involves lighting the cigar before freaking it, to seal one in of the prefreaked Black.
He is on the Hen-Dog.
Although the seal had not yet been broken on the bottle in the photograph, a 2012 Gallup poll shows that 99.303 percent of all Hennessy bottles are consumed within two hours of purchase. Looking at the raw data reveals that the more expensive XO bottles do last longer because they are either saved for when company comes over or are for the exclusive purpose of “stuntin.”
We are giving Sharpe the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Correction: White people know what a Black & Mild is.
After our first article, we received several angry variations of “not all white people” when we insinuated that white people were not familiar with Black & Milds. We would like to issue this formal retraction with the caveat that we are aware that there are thousands, perhaps millions, of white people who have seen, smelled or smoked a Black ...
If there is anyone who had no clue what a Black & Mild was, they are probably white.
As evidence, we present this tweet from a Becky white reader outraged because she couldn’t relate to the story:
So there you have it. The Root’s investigation unit has uncovered the fact that Shannon Sharpe’s epic blackness is anything but mild. In a time of unrepentant respectability, we hope that Sharpe will not appear on his Fox Sports 1 show Tuesday and say that he was not smoking a Black and drinking cognac ... he was praying.
Although to be fair, that is how I take my communion.