Life with white folks ain’t been no luxurious affair.
It’s had tragedies in it,
And bullshit,
And patience torn up,
And times when you wanna snatch ‘em bald—
Bare…
—Excerpt from “I’se Still Shinin’,” by Alexander Hardy, 2015
Being a chocolate wonder amidst the armed Zimmerbitches and institutional hateration in the dancery is no easy feat. Contending with White Fear-n-Fuckshit on the daily is spiritually draining and has been shown to advance aging in Black men. A break from the incessant madness would surely add years to many a life.
Sometimes, dammit, I just wanna go where everybody knows my [pain], well-intentioned nice white ladies don’t ask to touch my hair and the residents don’t further beburden my Black ass life with bitchass-flavored passive aggression. A delightful place where one can do the Electric Slide while devouring fried chicken skin in the moonlight, without the Zimmerbitches and Riff Raffs and the culture vulturing, and so on.
Key & Peele had the same idea. In under five minutes, a cast of sangin’ and dancin’ ass chocolate wonders takes us on a fantastic voyage through the garden of White Fuckshit. A primer on Black frustration, if you will. A sample:
In Negrotown, you live long and well,
There’s no disease, no Sickle Cell.
No stupid ass white folks touchin’ your haaaaaair,
Or stealing your culture, claimin’ it’s theirs.
The sketch is pretty fucking brilliant. It's almost two weeks old now, and I still cry collard green tears of joy after watching it. And after I stop crying , I plunge into despair once I remember Negrotown is but a dream. Sigh. Maybe next lifetime.
In other news, I am considering hiring Fatima to choreograph a performance of “Negrotown” in the style of the Emerald City sequence from The Wiz at my 31st birthday party.