Every year people get highly snorting when black history rolls around. Or they are very celebratory and wear traditional African garb go see the latest Kevin Hart movie and listen to Beyonce's "Drunk in Love" on repeat. Ok maybe all of that stuff regarding the celebratory stuff is me. I love being "black" although I didn't always know I was black. I tell this story while doing stand up when I have at least thirty minutes of stage time. I will try to keep it tight. Like I said I didn't know I was black until I was 4 years old. My mom and I went to Northland Mall right outside Detroit in the then affluent suburb of Southfield. It was 1984 and I was out with her shopping. I really loved to go shopping with her because I got lots of treats and a pizza lunch with a Mickey Mouse sundae for desert, if I didn't touch anything or cut a fool like I did when I was at home. So there we were in the department store waiting for someone to help her after she had an item to return. I was playing under the clothes rack when all of sudden my mom said, "lets go"! I was like what about my lunch she said we would go somewhere else where they would treat us better. I get to the car and she said they wouldn't treat us like that if we weren't black. Black I thought was a color not us. I told her I was caramel colored not black. Then she started to tell me about how we got to this country and how people used to own us and we couldn't go places because our skin was darker than white people and all this other stuff. By the time she was finished I thought the Ku Klux Klan was going to kick in our door and drag me away. It didn't help when I found out who Malcolm X was and who Martin Luther King was and how they died. From that day forth my world change I thought if you didn't like someone you just didn't like them. Not because of their skin color, I embraced being black that day. I embraced all thing African American actually from the hard hitting truth of Alex Haley to Wacka Flocka Flame's loud trap heavy lyrics. Black history month is a means to celebrate who we are our history. It is very live to me, I know people feel like we just go back to not talking about being black after the month of February is over, not so we always talk about we live it everyday. I just can't wait for the day when someone doesn't have to explain prejudice and racism to their 4 year old. -thegqlife
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