I gotta hand it to you, America. This extended April Fool’s Day joke has been one of the greatest hijinks of all time.
Unlike some people who get pranked, I’m not going to pretend that I knew what was going on all along. I thought it was real. It was so well done that I didn’t suspect anything. It was only when I woke up this morning and realized that it was April 1 that I started reflecting on the things going on in America that I realized that this must be all be some kind of a joke.
It can’t be real.
I can’t even decide what was the best part of your trickery. At first, I was going to say it was the part where we handed over the most powerful nuclear arsenal on earth to an egomaniacal, entitled dullard being controlled by Vladimir Putin. There were times when I felt like the only kid at the puppet show who can see the strings, but I figured that I must be tripping. Oh, and the part where you hired Robert Mueller and got black people to pull for the FBI? That was genius.
I’ve been told that truth is stranger than fiction, but the way you almost convinced us that the same organization that terrorized Martin Luther King Jr., infiltrated every movement for black freedom, and compared Black Lives Matter to white supremacist terrorists would somehow punish a cabal of rich, powerful white people was a master class in manipulation. I almost fell for it, too. But now, I’m sure the last line of the Mueller report is: “J/K, lol.”
The part about the racist president wasn’t necessarily unbelievable to me. Even when Kanye West tried to make me believe that Donald Trump cares about black people, I thought it was peculiar but figured he was off his meds. It was the little things like Dr. Umar Johnson actually buying a school or Tucker Carlson declaring that he wasn’t a white nationalist that tickled my negro Spidey senses and tipped me off that white people were up to shenanigans.
I really liked the part where the guys who singlehandedly keep the international chinos industry alive started complaining about white men being oppressed. And when wypipo legitimately believed that there was such a thing as “reverse racism,” I nearly soiled my shorts laughing so hard. When they referred to racism as “economic anxiety,” I almost didn’t get it. I thought white people were losing their minds. I’m actually glad to see that you were kidding because, if economic anxiety gave people a legitimate reason to lash out against the opposite race, I’d advise all my white friends to never leave the house because black people are gonna be on some other shit when they realize this loophole.
Plus, there were times when your joke went a little too far. When Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said that the only people with too much privilege are the kids in the Special Olympics, I’m sure you were only kidding, but it was a little too ridiculous to believe. When you put migrant children in cages, I’m sure that was some kind of CGI special effects because no one could be that cruel. However, when I saw the recent reports that the Chicago Police Department was planning to protest the criminal justice system for letting someone get away with a crime, I began to get a little suspicious. That was too absurd.
I was going to bring up how you demonized NFL players for acting free and brave just because they wouldn’t stand while people sang about the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” But I get it now—you were just playing. It was kinda funny, in a front-row-at-a-public-hanging kinda way...In a “superpredator” kinda way...In an “if they’re black, just shoot them” kinda way.
You know...the white way.
Ultimately, I should have known it was a joke all along, America. You get me every time. Remember that time you tried to convince me that the Civil War was about states’ rights? How about that one time when you suckered me into believing in the concept of “separate but equal” or that “every vote counts?” Or that a lone white man killed Martin Luther King Jr.?
Perhaps the funniest wisecrack I’ve ever heard, I learned when I was 12 years old and started going to public school. Every morning, everyone would repeat the same, lame joke. I haven’t told it since I was a kid so I can’t remember the entire thing. But, because it was so absurd, I definitely remember the punchline. It goes:
“...with liberty and justice for all.”
LOL...Good one.