Judging from recent social media comments about whether to boycott the NFL in support of the still unemployed quarterback Colin Kaepernick, the same one who is being “whiteballed” by the 32 white or white-ish NFL owners for kneeling during the Star Spangled Banner to raise awareness about police brutality against unarmed black men, women and children, I conclude that had their been Black Twitter, Negro Facebook or Colored Linked-in back in the separate and unequal day, I imagine that some enslaved or newly freed naysayers would have been like:
*”Who do Gabriel Prosser and Denmark Vesey think they is? Massa been good to us and ain’t nobody got time to be killt following them uppity nigras.”
*”Nat Turner ain’t no real preacha, what seminary him went to? If Ol’ Nat was a real man of God he would not turn to violence and kill dem innocent white folk. Plus, Jesus the Christ said turn the other cheek, Massa told us so hisself when he forgave the po’ white overseer the Sunday after Mr. Overseer whipped the whole plantation because we ain’t pick enough cotton for the week.”
*”They need to go head and put dem Africans on that Amistad to work in these here fields. If we ain’t free, why they free?”
*”Harriet Tubman ain’t hardly no Black Moses. What her need to do is press out them naps in her head, find her a man and have some chirren before Massa catch her and skin all us alive.”
*”I know Massa and all his kin done gone off to fight dem Yankees, but we best to stay put and tend these here fields. If we run away that’s just gon make Massa whoop us when he get back from whoopin’ de North.
*”Ol’ Honest Abe done set us free? But what do free mean? We still need Massa ‘nem to give us clothes, food and shelter.”
*” 40 acres and a mule? What us gon’ do with all dat land? I mean, I ain’t like plowing the couple-few acres Massa told me to plow in de first place because it’s hot, and I’se tired.”
*”I don’t know why all these high falutin fools spending they time building these schools across the south. Most us can’t even much read and write English, so I’m laughing my ass off at these fools talmbout reading Latin and Greek.”
*”Meharry and Howard building some medical schools for colored doctors, nurses and pharmacists? Hell nawl, I wouldn’t want no colored doctor operating on me, they might let me die on the operating table.”
*”What is a Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill gonna really do? Politics is a waste of damn time for Colored folk. What Colored folk need to do is mind our business, work hard, be nice to white folk and stop committing crime and being uppity. We do that and they will stop the lynchings.”
*”I ain’t got time to be joining no NAACP or no Urban League. Them ain’t nothing but bourgeois acting, uppity, high yella Negroes who want to be or think they white folk.”
*”I don’t care that President Truman done integrated the armed forces, I served in an all colored outfit and I am telling you, ain’t no way no white soldiers gonna take no orders from no Colored officers and high ranking enlisted men.”
*”Rosa Parks should have gave up her seat. She knew better.”
*”I just burst out laughing at this 26 year old preacha, I think his name is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, talmbout leading some Montgomery Bus Boycott. Colored folk ain’t hardly gonna walk to work. Good luck with that but in the meantime, now I can stretch all the way out and put my feet up in the Colored Section” #UppityFools
*”I don’t know why these students sitting in at these downtown lunch cafes? White folk ain’t never gonna let us eat in the same places where they eat. Plus, who wanna eat they nasty food when you can get two fried mullet sandwiches, fries and a sweet tea for 25 cents at the Sugar Shack in the ‘hood?”
*”I know President Johnson signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts into law over the past year, but this ain’t nothing but a trap to make black folk think that it is alright to sit in the whites only section or register to vote without getting our heads busted. Watch, some black folks gon’ have to learn the hard way.”
*”I tried to tell y’all when they shot Medgar Evers in ’63, Malcolm X in ’65 and now Dr. King in 1968 that if them Brothers had just shut up and gone along to get along, that they would still be alive right now instead of dead with families trying to figure out how they gonna survive.”
While the aforementioned examples are in jest, the truth is that history is replete with examples of Black progress or protest being castigated and made light of by some Black folks whose imaginations are limited by “what is” as opposed to what could be. I wrote on Facebook this week that I refuse to “woke shame” Black folks in 2017 who refuse to Boycott the NFL for myriad reasons, some legit, some lame, but each to his or her own. But at the same time, I provide this form of humor to place the mirror before the naysayers so that they can determine where we would be as a people if the doers in our history had succumbed to the derision and shade thrown out by those timid souls who hated from the sidelines? For those who are not boycotting but are in the arena fighting against police brutality and other social justice issues each day, kudos to you. But if you are Black, refusing to Boycott and not doing anything but criticizing doers from the sidelines, yes, this article reflects my contempt for you.
