The Blacks

UPDATE: Yes, yes I know goddammit. Just pipe down now. It's been several weeks since my last 'weekly' apology, and that hasn't been made any easier by serving out my penance picking up roadside garbage in Burkina Faso (and thank you very much, Vice Commissioner Nieuwschlander!).

But I'm back now, and as always, very sorry. You know, when I was in the 'Faso, I noticed that you can't swing a dead cat in a circle (which I DID NOT DO, I'll have you know) without hitting a Black, when you're in Africa. They were very nice people, and not at all the people I remember when I discovered them.
Back in those days, they were items for sale made available to me and my partners by The Islamics, and sometimes tribes from further inland. It made me shake my head sadly, shortly before loading them into the cargo hold.
And I thought to myself: hey, there's that damn thing I have to do!

So to you, the Blacks, I say for my race and gender: no hard feelings, okay? I DIDN'T KNOW that you're not supposed to kidnap others and force them into servitude. Apparently God frowns upon such things (so much for that direct connection to Him I have been told that I have!), and certainly history views it dimly. That's to say: MY HISTORIANS! MINE! THE ONES I PAID FOR! seem to find it simply hideous that Their Employer once upon a time did this thing.

Well, do you remember a little thing called The Civil War? THAT WAS ME, YOU UNGRATEFUL-no. I shall quietly and privately note my ironic role in freeing you from Me. But you're welcome.
I gave you religion, though! And none of that 'there's a magical goat' stuff, either: a direct line to The Almighty (he loves being called that). When The Islamics noticed you, they just went about killing you/enslaving you. I gave you a new home!

And what a home! America! There's things here that don't include a single damned tsetse fly, to put it shortly. And music/sports to play!
If I haven't said it clearly enough in the past, by the by, I have always appreciated the little dances you do, songs you sing, touchdowns you score. It's almost like God made you specifically for the purposes of my entertainment!
Hell, I'll even come out and say it: you gave us the notion of Cool, unknown to 'whitey' heretofore. Everything you do, give it ten years, all of us will be doing it too! You really hold all the cards in this relationship, if you want a private opinion.

I hear some of you say things about Crack, and AIDS, and other things that You People have to deal with. Well, I don't see it. If you just put on a nice suit and accept that I'm still always going to be your boss, there's a lot of room for people like you. So why do drugs and have intercourse with everything that's moving? I DIDN'T DO THAT!
I mean, look at George Washington Carver! He was too busy inventing peanut butter to sit around smoking rock cocaine and getting sex diseases! You should be more like him! And the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.! What about him?

I would have gladly given you this 'freedom' you speak of, if only you had been content to wait. It was coming, my dusky friends, on the order of a little sumpin' sumpin' every hundred years or so. BUT NO-some of you started talking about 'revolution' (a concept never far from lesser minds), and some of you had to die, or go to prison. These days, people with VERY funny names are running for president, you know, and that's happening on MY WATCH!

Peanut butter (though give me margarine any day; personal preference), Michael Jordan (though I'm a Larry Bird man, myself), Jazz (even though I say no one can touch that Kenny G): I mean, WHAT HAVEN'T YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY? You're so wonderful, it's no wonder you have so much pride in yourselves!
I've decided from here on out, any time I speak of You People, I'm only going to do so in glowing terms. I won't ever talk about you without endless mention of how very great you are as a people. Maybe it will make you feel better about yourselves, and it certainly makes me feel better.