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New Colonia: Reparations Realized

I lied.  I did.  I lied to y’all.  I didn’t mean to, but I did.  It wasn’t even my fault, but I did.  It happened. An entry or ten ago, I wrote about how rage-filled I was about the new show from the Game of Thrones production team.  Following the success of The Man in the High Castle, a show that imagines if the Nazi’s won World War II, those Games of Thrones sonsofbitches, along with two black folks they trotted out in an effort to squash the ensuing outrage, are bringing to HBO a show that imagines that the south won the Civil War and slavery still exists, Confederate. FUNNERS!  Let’s watch a show the re-imagines the darkest part of our history that some think we should just get over! Can’t think of a better way to spend a night of tv watching.  Damn, I lied again. There is a show that takes us back in time and asks us to look at that period through a different lens, a lens that shows what life would have been like for us if we got that forty acres and ol’ Bessie as we were promised, and this show, my dear Myalogists, is BLACK AMERICA. This show takes place in current day America, with free black people owning Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, meaning the rest of the country is in nuclear winter, cuz BLACK PEOPLE KEEP CREATING IT AND OTHERS KEEP ON FAKING IT.  Black America is coming to us on Amazon via the creative team of Will Packer and Aaron McGruder.  Did you wet yourself a bit?  I did.  The powerhouse of Packer is enough, but anyone that ever read or watched The Boondocks has GOT to know that McGruder is gonna be the real difference in this show.  Left alone to his own devices, the comic strip FAR outpaced and outsmarted the show, which is saying a lot – cuz the show was incredibly brilliant and subversive. A more detailed description of the show from Mr. Packer’s interview with Deadline: “It envisions an alternate history where newly freed African Americans have secured the Southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama post-Reconstruction as reparations for slavery, and with that land, the freedom to shape their own destiny. The sovereign nation they formed, New Colonia, has had a tumultuous and sometimes violent relationship with its looming “Big Neighbor,” both ally and foe, the United States. The past 150 years have been witness to military incursions, assassinations, regime change, coups, etc. Today, after two decades of peace with the U.S. and unprecedented growth, an ascendant New Colonia joins the ranks of major industrialized nations on the world stage as America slides into rapid decline. Inexorably tied together, the fate of two nations, indivisible, hangs in the balance.” WAIT WAIT WAIT. Today, after two decades of peace with the U.S. and unprecedented growth, an ascendant New Colonia joins the ranks of major industrialized nations on the world stage as America slides into rapid decline. Does this mean black folks gonna be on tv winning while our oppressor gone be losing? And if you need any further cajoling, here’s Will sharing his sentiments on slave-based entertainment. “Slavery is far too real and far too painful, and we still see the manifestations of it today as a country for me to ever view that as a form of entertainment.” Ever. Um Yes, travel service representative? One way ticket to New Colonia please.  Window seat.

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DjangNO: Not Another Slave Story

Let’s imagine, shall we…. That we are: an Academy Award winning screenwriter a Golden Globe nominated director creator of a critical darling unwitting participant in one of the biggest flubs in Oscar history recipient of a bounty of goodwill due to the aforementioned flub a black man that took on a topic that can be uncomfortable and made it into a thing of beauty You are pretty much able to write your own ticket at this point in LaLaland – mega superduper pun intended.  You begin to mull over your next project and you select: SLAVERY. Yes.  Barry Jenkins’s next project is a one hour series based on “The Underground Railroad”, the acclaimed Colson Whitehead novel of the same title.  I could go on to explain the subject of the show, but Im too fucking over it to do so.   I’ll just get to griping.  First, WGN America already has beloved show about the exact same thing.  I’ll stop there. Now I know…one of you is sitting there reading this, dismissing me and thinking to yourself all the trite shit people say when it comes to slave stories. “It’s a must see.” “This story needs to be told.” “If we dont know where we been, blah blah the fuckity fuck fuck blah” Listen, I know what “they” are doing, with the “immigrant” talk, with the “slaves were well fed and happy” fuckshit, with the “sally and thomas had an affair” gobbledegook.  But the fact is, we know what happened.  That’s our conversation to have with our children, to ensure they know their history, cuz its OUR HISTORY.  No one else cares.  We know the names Toby, Nat, Chicken George, Toussaint, Harriet and Sojourner. Mention them to some of your other friends and watch the look on their faces. Others have just been introduced to Frederick and I guess they are happy to know that he’s done a great job. Jesus wept. I for one am good on the stories of our suffering, especially when there are great stories of triumph to be made – and that people will pay to see. Hidden Figures proved that.  Our history didn’t start or stop on Juneteenth.  With that being a solid indisputable fact, some stories I’d like to see told. How CJ Walker built a beauty empire Tulsa, Black Wall Street Dr. Carver manipulating the hell out of that peanut The Genesis of <insert your fave BGLO> (but only 5 out of the 9 matter – LMAO, fight yourselves) Timbuktu How Hiram Revels or Blanche Bruce were Barack before Barack was Barack The founding of Cheyney University or Lincoln University, the oldest HBCU, depending on who you ask. That’s just off the top of my head.  What are some stories that you would like to see told?  Hit them comments. Oh wait…Im lying yall.  There is one more slave story I’m eager to see……Forty Acres by Dwayne Alexander Smith, which you should read if you haven’t.  A young successful black man is taken under the wings of some older more successful black men and invited along to their exclusive club where the “staff” does NOT look like the staff’s of most members only clubs.  That’s all I’ll slave.  Awwwwww fuck it…the jig is up, the post is bout slaves.  Yall know where im going.  These black men done started a plantation with white slaves!  YES. PLEASE.   If GET OUT worried them, wait til they get a load of Becky in leg irons! When it drops you can find me and my popcorn, reese’s pieces and water center last row.    

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