The Righteous Indignation of the Woke!: Can “Black People” have fun and be conscious?

The Righteous Indignation of the Woke!

Can “Black People” have fun and be conscious?

Ever since the “Chicken Wars” started between Popeye’s Chicken and Chick-Fil-A over their respective chicken sandwiches there have been two trains of thought. One side laughs, make memes and videos about how good the sandwich is and chooses sides. The other side talks about how silly it is for black people to run around making such a fuss over a damn chicken sandwich. Which side is right? But a more poignant question comes to mind . . .  Can Black people simply enjoy something and just have fun? Some plain and wholesome fun without having to always "be woke" or turn everything into a civil rights issue? Do we have to analyze every facet of our behavior to see if it measures up to the Malcolm, Martin, Marcus standard?

I will admit it, I too am judgmental and tend to look at “our” behavior from a collective group perspective. Meaning that the individual represents the group and vice versa. But this phenomenon is unique to the African-Americans. I don’t see this happen to other groups and cultures unless you count the “every Middle-Eastern person is a terrorist” mentality. But, I digress, most often it occurs in the black community that when one of us does a wrong we all look bad. And so it is with this Popeye’s versus Chick-Fil-A sandwich mania. There are some who simply look at it as fodder for entertainment purposes while others see it as “coonish” buffoonery that is making Popeye’s and Chick-Fil-A even more rich. I submit again . . . Can Black people simply enjoy something and just have fun?

There is a time and a place for everything, but sometimes we conflate one issue with another. Enjoying or making light of and having fun with one company's challenge to anther using a staple of the black community(fried chicken) is not betraying the ancestors or the struggle. Even soldiers at war are given leave time to decompress and restore some normalcy to their lives. Black people have always been at war in America. Constantly striving for dignity, freedom, and opportunity against seen and unseen entities. Can we, black people, simply have a moment to not take life so seriously, laugh, and have fun and then resume the seemingly never-ending “fight for freedom”?

Some of the “enlightened and prestigious woke” will say black people have too much fun as it is. We need to take life more seriously and stop all the clowning. I submit to you that sometimes we are our own worst critics. Every achievement is minimized, every goal reached is tarnished by goals missed, each accomplishment is belittled because we are reminded of the things we have been denied.  I get it, I often feel the same way too. When I see the clownish behaviors in music, on videos, “the Gram” it often reminds me of how far we have to go as a people. We are inundated with negative images constantly and it is a bit much to take but I am reminded of a very old expression . . . “Take time to stop and smell the roses”. Surely Malcolm, Martin and Marcus took some time away from “the struggle” to live and enjoy life? They too had families, traveled, loved, laughed and made memories. Even the most serious-minded among us need a little levity in our lives. A laugh a smile and chuckle will not set the race back. So, I ask one last time . . . Can Black people simply enjoy something and just have fun?


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