Straight Outta the Boondocks

Before my current writing life, there was The Hilltop, Howard University’s and the Nation’s Oldest Black Collegiate Newspaper, where many of the questions and themes I still explore first found their voice. What follows are my early published works, preserved in their original form.

From The Hilltop Archives

Originally published in The Hilltop, Howard University — February 9th, 2005

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Straight Outta the Boondocks

I'm not shocked, not taken aback nor am I even surprised that black folks question and criticize Aaron McGruder's The Boodocks. It's expected. I've been a loyal reader of the strip since it first hit the national scene as a member of the Universal Press Syndicate fam in '99. I've got all the books - well not the newest one Public Enemy #2 (I know, I am slakin') see what had happened was…never mind. 

And I've been following the soap opera that was McGruder's struggle to get his pilot picked up. First FOX said they had his back, then they backed out and the search for a home was on again. When I heard Sony Pictures was going to take the risk and Cartoon Network was going to pick it up, I knew it was over. I messes with Cartoon Newtork, especially Adult Swim. Beside ESPN (SportsCenter right after Adult Swim), The Discovery Channel and occasionally HGTV (what?!? A brotha can't get in touch with his interior decorative side?) rarely do I watch the idiot box. 

So when I got home for winter break and got a chance to watch The Boondocks with my little bro, I was not disappointed at all. 

Dare I say: the best cartoon since School House Rocks, Silverhawks, Voltron, etc, etc… I was, however, shocked at the number of times Riley, Grandpa, Huey and Uncle Rukus used the word nigga. For a brotha who used to say the word nigga a minimum of 100 times in a day (rough estimate) McGruder uses the word nigga a lot in a thirty-minute span. 

After watching the show, we decided to start our own tradition: my bro and I started calling each other coon because of our disgust with the word nigga. It was catchy. If he or I did something that was a bit niggerish, out came, "you coon!" and we said it so emphatically. I don't particularly like the either word, but seeing as how black folks continue to say the word nigga, we thought we might as well go just as far back for another degrading term. If you get offended by people saying the word nigga, call them a coon. To take it a step further, pick a particular caricature to combine with coon (i.e. the sambo, the picaninny or the golliwog) and I bet they think twice before they say the nigga again. 

My bad, where was I…oh yeah, the show. I have no qualms with the show or McGruder. As far as congruency is concerned, it's a great addition to the strip. 

No, my beef is with people who: A: have never read the strip or seen the show B: people who have seem the show, but call it, "a misrepresentation of the black community in the eyes of the late night white viewers." In the words of Riley Freeman, "game recognize game and my people are looking real unfamiliar right about now." For the latter, it's a cartoon. 

And second, every show on the idiot box misrepresents black people & the black community. People criticize The Boondocks for speaking a bit of truth in this lying society, but praise Hustle & Flow for its Oscar Nomination. 

I am not knocking the movie, in fact it's in my shopping cart on Amazon.com. But when a pimp named Djay (Terrence Howard), a gangsta detective Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington) and a ho-housewife Leticia Musgrove (Hailey Berry) are the representations the Academy approves for future generations to look back at and recognize as great black roles, then there's something wrong with institutions like the Academy Awards. Who's misrepresenting whom...or in Djay's case who's getting pimped now, suckas? 

And speaking of nominees, you would think that after Chris "Ludacris" Bridges played the hell out of that role in Crash cats in the rap game would question themselves and their motives. Yea…right. Lets be honest, I bet if that coon movie Pootie Tang was nominated by the Academy the same year Poitier got his award, they would have given it to Lance Crouther also just to save face in the black community. Sa-da-tay. As for the former, I believe all the fuss came after McGruder appeared on Nightline last month. 

He said, "I don't think his (MLK Jr's) philosophy and his character would work in a modern context. I don't think he would talk fast enough to be able to be interviewed on television because everything's so fast nowadays. I just think he wouldn't fit in." People heard that and immediately thought it was an assault on King's character. I bet people were saying, "He's probably turning in his grave right now." 

They might have been right. He was turning in his grave… in attention, rather, disgust. If McGruder's comment supposedly shook the spirit of MLK Jr., what the hell you think the last 30 years have done to him?!? 

Let's put this in focus: in this instant gratification world you can eat your instant rice, instant grits, instant food (not nutrition), lose weigh instantly for that instant body and with instant messenger (take your pick: AOL, MSN or Yahoo) you can find instant love or your soul-mate in an instant via instant access to the information superhighway. You'll have an instant wedding, have instant kids who are instantly smart, athletic - you name it - because of the instant craze for stem-cell research (Gattaca) and on Sunday you can take the fam to church and get your quick fix of instant religion. 

But you forget that this marriage - an instant response to an instant feeling - doesn't make for legacies, for long-term commitments or long-term encouragement and you get an instant divorce. Then yes, MLK Jr. would be to slow for this world with fast-talking, shuckin'-n-jivin' presidents, politicians, preachers, police and parents; where words mean more that actions. 

Everybody sells woof-tickets; people talk a great game, but "Where's the beef?", the substance…I'm from Missouri: "SHOW ME." 

Ain't nothing going to change; Coons are going to be coons. 

Why do I even waste my breath with black people? "Because they're our people and you gotta love them regardless." - Huey Freeman