All the world's a stage.

I was flipping channels this evening and got caught in a trance of what life was like in the past. I didn't catch the name of the program but it looked like the original version of the 'Johnny Carson Show', featuring young talent and different entertainment acts. We've come a long way. Something that is so hard to explain to the generation that my 15 year old nephew is a part of. To them, it's like the whole era of the minstrel show never existed so when they see the modern day version it's considered "normal". I give props to renegade directors like Spike Lee who brought the movie 'Bamboozled' to the main screen for all the youngin's.

They don't understand that it was once considered "normal" for white men to put on the black face in order to play black characters instead of just hiring them. The whole aim of the black participants was to just sing and dance. Never give any of themselves. They were the joke. Censoring their songs so that the content would be marketable for television. Forced to wear the grins and smile when they know that they had to go out the back door after performing and the rest of the world remained the same. It was all about the show. The song and the dance that didn't end after the director said "cut!" Because in order to be accepted and seen as decent in society, you literally had to kiss so much ass that your lips looked like powdered donuts. 

It disappoints me the way that most black youth, including myself, take for granted the advances of the ones who came before us. And even though it is perfectly acceptable for us to be who we are, so many prefer the flair of someone else. I don't think the band standing stopped during the 1930's. I think it's still going on today with all the bullshit people are pulling these days. You can find your latest example on page six. Don't get me wrong, I love to play dress up and sing loud and sporadically through out the house, and take a half an hour choosing a restaurant because I'm that picky. But that's me. I'm not cooning and putting on for anyone but the one on the other side of my looking-glass. I wonder what the world would be like if originality was cool? 

this is what happens when you give a girl a sunday afternoon, an opinion, and a mac.