Trask Avenue

Apparently I am missing out on all the fun because I am not on Twitter. On July 4th Chris Rock, the comedian, tweeted the following.

“Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren’t free but I’m sure they enjoyed fireworks.”

Oh boy, did that piss off the Twitterverse and beyond!

It is not spilling state secrets saying this country, like many others, has a dismal history regarding slavery and race relations. I guess some folks don’t like the reminder, especially delivered by a person who never had to endure the horrific injustices he so blithely references. I suppose that has merit. Although by that reasoning no one should complain about anything which doesn’t directly affect them. Perhaps hearing this from a person who, from all appearances, has crafted a pretty successful life for himself within the framework of a racist America is the really off-putting part. A ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you’ kind of thing. Maybe that’s it. I don’t know since this tweet didn’t piss me off. But I know what would.

I would be pissed off seeing people instinctively tense up whenever I entered a restaurant or feeling the suspicious eyes of security guards on me every time I browsed the aisles of a store. Or being pulled over by police when I wasn’t bending, much less breaking, any laws. Or constantly hearing disparaging things about a group I am associated with simply by the virtue of skin color. Or knowing with absolute certainty that by merely showing my face someone somewhere would treat me with disdain. Of course those things would piss me off. Wouldn’t they piss you off? And if we got pissed off enough, if we had decades of getting pissed off under our belt and hundreds of years of ancestral history buttressing that, it is easy to see how we may feel compelled to lob a sobering reminder at people now and then. Even if it pisses them off.