Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 335

 

Here is an excerpt from a comedy routine I recently watched, "The Bird Revelation," by Dave Chappelle.

Don’t forget what I am. I am a black dude. And don’t ever forget how I got here. My ancestors were kidnapped. I don’t even know where the f*ck I’m from. They were put on the bottom of boats. They sailed them across the Atlantic. Many of them died. Only the strongest survived. And once they got here, they beat the humanity out of my people. They turned us into beasts of burdens. They made us do their work, and the irony is, hundreds of years later they’re calling us lazy. We fought in the Civil War. We damn near freed ourselves. Then, with Reconstruction, black people did great. My great-grandfather was a very wealthy man. But then the Black Codes came, Jim Crow came, and it was a hundred years of unspeakable oppression again. Lynchings, all kinds of terroristic acts to keep us in the margins of society. Yet, we still fought. And Dr. King was born. And then, things got better. Twenty years after Dr. King was assassinated, Michael Jackson was moonwalking on television. Something, something, something. Barack Obama. [laughing] Donald Trump and… Now here we all are. 400-year nightmare.