By A Negro And A Keyboard

In the infamous quote that led to his suspension and ultimate departure from the Nation of Islam in 1963, civil rights leader Malcolm X, when asked for his thoughts on the then-recent death of President John F. Kennedy proclaimed, “Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they’ve always made me glad.”

Brother Malcolm’s comment was made shortly following one of his most noted speeches about White America and its failures to learn lessons from the history of the world; particularly those pertaining to the ways in which hate, violence and corruption in the long run would only lead to the demise of a nation, not its glorification. In the case of President Kennedy, “chickens coming home to roost“, was meant to symbolize of all of the negative aspects of American society, at that time, backfiring on their perpetuators.

Almost 50 years after these comments, Black America is experiencing its own “chickens” coming home to roost, yet assuredly not any of the type that Brother Malcolm or even Colonel Sanders himself would be “glad” to see.

As the Northeast was slammed this week with a series of snow storms, I had the opportunity to spend some time catching up on my guilty obsession, reality TV. Interestingly, as I caught up on reruns of shows like For The Love of Ray J, Celebrity Fit Club and The Bad Girls Club, my eyes were witness to a very disheartening trend in every one; the seemingly obligatory minstrelization of black women in the stereotypical role of the “chickenhead”.

While having 63 varying definitions in the Urban Dictionary, in the “hood”, a chickenhead is essentially characterized by pure ignorance, foul language, vulgarity, physical aggression and of course, plenty of sexual promiscuity, mostly fellatious (a nicer word for sucking a lot of you know what) in nature. Every one of these shows based the core of its storyline on characters who were more than willing to accentuate this stereotype in exchange for a little extra camera time.

On For the Love of Ray J, we witnessed a harem of women, mostly of color, engaging in orgy-like activities with Brandy’s little brother, appearing a bit too willing to accommodate these “aspiring” actresses and models as they dropped it like it was hot in his lap daily and childishly bickered over who would have him for the night. It was kind of like HBO’s Big Love on steroids, minus the polygamous wedding vows and the Mormons.

Worse than this was The Bad Girls Club, where two black women on the show, Natalie and Kendra, single-handedly set black women back about 20 years with their stuck-up, $hit-don’t-stink, bed-hopping and weave-shopping antics, which of course led to two very predictable physical altercations between the ladies. I particularly could not bear the sight of the Natalie character, who while having a jawbone and chin that draw eerie similarities to those of Jay Leno, incessantly states that she “runs L.A.” in a manner that irks your nerves more than someone scratching their nails on a chalkboard.

Even on Celebrity Fit Club, a show about physical and mental transformation, the season would not be complete without the chicken head character. This time in the form of another alum of The Bad Girls Club, Tanisha Thomas, best known from her previous reality stint for her favorite phrase, “I’m from Brooklyn, Yo”.  Apparently focused on keeping up her urban-influenced (nicer phrase for ghetto) image, upcoming clips for the season prominently feature her in fits of cursing and conflict with the show’s hosts, particularly the men of color, drill sergeant Harvey Walden and Dr. Ian Smith.

I would love to say that I am even the least bit surprised with this type of Negroidian tomfoolery, but you and I both know I’d be lying. Could it be in the same way that Brother Malcolm preached about whites not learning lessons from the past, we as black folk are also none-the-wiser when it comes to issues about our history? Have we as a race, failed to learn from the shameful humiliations and exaggerations that our ancestors have bared since the origins of our experience in America?

As a man who grew up in a single-parent household, surrounded by nothing but strong-willed and gracious women like my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, aunts and younger sister, I find these types of images on our televisions to be as an absolute disgrace to the legacy of these women and the many others who have toiled their entire lives for the betterment of their children and communities. My father isn’t worth much of $hit , and it was my mother who did her best to make me into the man that we lacked in our household. Now, let’s do a show about that right there, shall we?

Yes black people, it appears that our own chicken(head)s have come directly into our homes via the television to roost, and we have yet again failed to learn our own history. So, in order to help us get back on track, I have a little history lesson that should help us move forward as we strive to shape more positive images for our women:

In 1890, former slave Nancy Green was cast to play “Aunt Jemina” as spokesperson for the pancake mix company of the same name. Donning a headscarf, kitchen apron and big hoop earrings during her public pancake-making displays, she became the face of the brand that the entire world came to know. While there were different variations of that logo over the years, it took 100 years for the scarf to be taken off of the head of the Aunt Jemina character.

You draw it up. 

Recklessly Yours,

A Negro and A Keyboard

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