The Top 20 C👀NS of 2020

Let me let you all in on a little secret. I’m talking about one of those Love Craft cosmic intergalactic travel type secrets. One of the reasons why 2020 seemed like the longest and most unbearable years since Jesus was merked and the dawn of the AD era began is because 2020 started five years ago in 2016. Real talk– we been on some real live Ground Hog’s Day type shit for four whole years. That’s why 2020 was such a never ending saga. No bullshit, it’s in the good book. Not the Bible, but the one that Atticus and nem was beefing over with that white lady/man.

The only thing that has been more consistent, persistent and perpetually disappointing to the culture than 2016-20 are those pesky mammals from the procyonid family (🦝). You see there are two pandemics wreaking havoc on and within the Black community. The COVID-19 outbreak which of course incubated in 2019 and gave us the Corona Virus and the lesser talked about COONVID-16 outbreak that took form in 2016 and ended up saddling us with the Coonrona Virus. Both have combined to raise the misery index of the Black community to epic levels. And while heard immunity, a vaccine and time will do away with one of these major maladies adversely affecting the culture, the other one shows no sign of going away. After all, their archetype has been around literally since the slave ships. I say all of this to say that being ever more vigilant about the ethos and intentions of our “cousins” in politics, media, arts & entertainment and anyone else with a modicum of influence is germane to our survival as a culture as well as our collective peace of mind. It is for this reason that we highlight annually the top purveyors of coonery for the year. It’s normally a top 10 list, but 2020 has been so coontastic that we have no choice but to expand it to 20. Even with 20 there will invariably be many coons that deserve to be on this list that will not make it. And for that I apologize. With out further ado I present the top 20 coons of 2020.

NUMBER 20. VANN JONES

I struggled with whether or not Vann should make this list. Not because he ain’t been coon tripping–clearly he’s had some major moments of coonery. But because the year 2016-20 has been so Coonified, by adding Jones there will invariably be coons out there well more deserving of the spot that will be either left off the list or relegated to mere honorable mention. He was added First and foremost to dispel the myth that black conservatives have a monopoly on coonery. They don’t. There are indeed liberal leaning black folks with coon like proclivities. In other words Cooning is a bi-partisan sport.

Maybe it’s the coffee at CNN maybe it’s the water in the water cooler. Whatever the cae may be Vann seems to be going through the same intermittent episodic bouts with coonery that Don Lemon struggled with years back before he grew his hair out, switched to a black barber and uncooned himself. The good news is Vann at worst is what we call a redeemable coon (as Don Lemon proved to be). He has not done or said anything that would warrant a permanent ban from the cookout or block party but he did book end his coon spree in a way that would make us remiss not to acknowledge and chide him for. The first was giving a teary eyed co-sign of Fuck Boy 45 after he managed to make it through his first State of the Union Speech by reading verbatim from the teleprompter with minable ad libs (never mind the speech was riddled with falsehoods and shameless campaigning) and the second being the more recent balling tears when the news media finally called the 2020 race in favor of Joe Biden. Again, not the worst coon act in the world, but this nigga needs to get it together.

Another reason why Vann Makes this list this year is the fact that he don’t know what IDFWPWFWPWIDFW means…

…So while even though he’s a redeemable coon, he gotta stay in the coon corner until he learns what the fuck IDFWPWFWPWIDFW means and adheres to the standard.

Number 19. President Obama

I know I know. How dare you call the first Black president a coon. Just so you know, it hurts me to have to add him to this list almost as much as it hurts some of you to read it. I never thought that we would have to add him to a list of such dubious distinction, but here we are. Now two things can be true. Barack Obama could be both the best president in modern history as well as a rather mediocre one–especially given who his predecessor and successor was. It was not exactly a high bar that he had to hurdle. But this is much less about Obama the president and much more about Obama the former president.

After Dumbo the 45th took his oath of office, aside from the occasional where’s Waldo type photos from vacay island on our social media timelines, or public appearances where Michelle would gross us out by eating candy from George Bush’s dirty ass sweaty palms, we did not see or hear much from our beloved first Black Family. It was not until Bernie Sanders looked as though he was headed towards the Democratic nomination did we begin hearing from this guy again. And I’m not necessarily mad at him for that– I get it. Joe is his boy who was his wing man of 8 years. And while it’s clear as day the former “community organizer” chose collegiality over community, if his meddling in the affairs of the people would have stopped there he does not make this list. Even with both he and Michelle Obama authoring books replete with residual smoke for Reverend Wright while all but erasing the disdain that they collectively shared with the people for the Bush crime family and other odious white supremacist elements in American politics that propelled him to the legacy he has today, he would not have made this list. The 19th addition to this years top 20 Coons list was actually an 11th hour addition. So as off putting as it may come across to call the first president a coon, he kind of earned it.

The movement to defund the police seems rather nascent but it’s actually part and parcel to the larger prison abolitionist movement that goes back at least 20 years. The idea gained rapid traction after George Floyd was lynched on camera for all the world to see. That moment along with the state sanctioned and state approved murders of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor the movement to defund the police picked up major steam. So much so that the Minneapolis city council voted to defund and disband the Minneapolis Police department– the very same department responsible for choking the life out of Floyd. It was eventually vetoed by the mayor but it forced the mayor to re-allocate 8 million dollars from the police departments 179 million budget while they negotiate further re-appropriations. The funds are to be steered towards programs that tackle mental illness and violence prevention. Now 8 million dollars may not seem like much and it really isn’t. But it’s 8 million more towards programs that enrich the community and 8 million less for one of the forces of destruction in the community. Moreover its 8 million dollars that they would not have had were it not for their threat to defund and disband. Who is President Obama or anyone else to tell that city council or that mayor that their decision was wrong? An even better example is the Camden model. In 2013 while Obama was still in office the Camden New Jersey Police department was disbanded over systemic abuse. They ended up rehiring most of the officers but they had to go through an extensive interview process that included a psychological evaluation–things that their union would have blocked had not the community voted to disband. And while the end results were not perfect, homicides have gone from 67 in 2012 to 25 in 2019. Excessive force complaints went from 65 in 2012 to 3 in 2019. Camden is a very poor city so overall crime rates are still high. Defunding and/or disbanding a police force in a given community will never equal perfection but what I does perfect is a strategy of removing police union bosses from the bargaining table when it comes to negotiating the health, safety and welfare of black and brown communities that they neither live in nor have love or empathy for. Make no mistake about it, the police unions are the immovable objects in the room as it pertains to police reform. On each and every policy prescription that anyone with a semblance of concern comes up with they block it.

Which brings us back to President Obama. For 8 years President Obama tried nicely to get the cops to stop killing black people. It did not work. They kept on killing us. For 8 years Obama tried to make it possible to enact more punitive measures for officers that murdered innocent unarmed Black people. That also did not work–they kept escaping justice and in many instances got their jobs back. That’s what makes Obama’s most recent comments regarding the call to defund the police so curious and frankly coonish. Here’s Obama on the question of defunding the police:

If you believe, as I do, that we should be able to reform the criminal justice system so that it’s not biased and treats everybody fairly, I guess you can use a snappy slogan, like ‘defund the police.’ But, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done..The key is deciding, do you want to actually get something done, or do you want to feel good among the people you already agree with? And if you want to get something done in a democracy, in a country as big and diverse as ours, then you’ve got to be able to meet people where they are. And play a game of addition and not subtraction.

President Barack Obama

There’s so much wrong with what he said here. First and foremost it’s not about us being treated unfairly. It goes without saying that police treat many of the Black people that they encounter unfairly. But that’s not what’s driving the movement. It’s the fact that they continue to kill us with impunity. With all due respect to the former president there’s a sense of urgency that his flippant response is lacking. And that’s understandable because he will never have to worry about a 3 AM call from authorities letting him know that Sasha or Malia had to be killed because some white boy with a badge mistook their cell phone, purse or Subway sandwich for a gun, feared for his life and shot them down. But for us regular people the situation is much more dire. Another curious thing about his quixotic quip is he juxtaposed defunding the police with his moderate stance of getting things done. Here he’s comparing the growing movement to defund the police (something that is actually working where applied)to what he accomplished vis-à-vis police reform– ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING. And to be clear I don’t condemn Obama for getting next to nothing done in the area of abating police violence against Black people. For the most part I take him at his word when he said that his hands were tied and that’s why the killers of Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Freddie Gray walked with not even a slap on the wrist. What I will not accept from Obama is him trying to tie the hands of others that refuse to have their hands tied or their power to effect change in the area of ending police brutality thwarted. His wayward words did just that. And don’t just take it from us at the Rant–Our favorite president ruffled quite a few feathers with his nonsense:

Now I’m not going to go as far as to say that Obama has been elevated for the express purpose of silencing black dissent but I will say that he was dispatched to do exactly what he did in that interview and that was to muddy a message that was gaining more and more traction around the country. The man that was dubbed the explainer in chief due to his uncanny ability to break down the complex but critically necessary in the most laymen terms could not find the time, words or energy to explain the myriad ways that a defunding of police departments and reinvesting in the communities could take form. The man that expertly explained why undocumented citizens should be allowed to get drivers licenses, why transgender students deserved to use the bathroom of their choice and why every able body in America needed to sign up for Obamacare or face a fine, found it too hard to break down what the term defund the police means. I’m sorry he has to do better than that. we deserve better than that. I take no pleasure in adding a man of Obama’s ilk to this list. If there were an African-American royal family it would be the Obamas. I want to love the Obamas as much as most people love them, but in all honesty I struggle sometimes to simply like them based on the auspicious start to their post presidency. If I could be a bug in the ear of the Obamas I would urge them to be much more like James and Rosalind and a lot less like William and Hillary. Their legacies would be much better off and so would the Black community.

NUMBER 18. JAMES CLYBURN

Representative James Clyburn is the quintessential Black gate keeper. That is the role that he plays for the democratic party. He’s the house majority whip whose main job is to whip black and brown voters into alignment with the corporate democratic establishment. He’s the wool over the eyes of the poor and middle class Black people in his district. His record of misrepresenting the interests of his most loyal constituents rivals only Mitch McConnell. The highly gerrymandered majority Black district that he represents misrepresents has a median income of $35,000 per year. Pretty much the same median income that existed when he first walked into congress almost 30 years ago. Now of course that’s not all his fault but for whatever reason he does not think that Medicare for all, higher wages, and free tuition was something that they deserve because in 2016 and 2020 he opted to be the pillar behind the firewall that secured the nomination for both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, two candidates who stood staunchly against those measures because like Clyburn those industries funded their campaigns. But we have come to expect and frankly accept this sort of non-representation from some of the CBC members who claim to serve in the best interest of Black America. So that’s not what landed him on this list.

After the Democrat’s dismal performance in the 2020 house races where they lost upwards to 10 seats the party needed a scapegoat. Instead of being introspective and looking at their lack of messaging they trotted out their kingmaker butler to serve up their lame excuse for futility on a platter and that’s just what Clyburn did. “Sloganeering” is the term that he used to ascribe the problem that beset their party. He said slogans were the reason why democrats running in red gerrymandered districts lost their re-election bids. In other words it’s because of chants like Black Lives Matter, Medicare for all, the Green New Deal and defund the police that white republicans voted for white republicans.

With American law enforcing from around the country recently storming the capitol to “take their country back” this interview sure did age badly. Unless of course you actually think that all of those yahoos that stormed the Capitol in defense of their republican president would have voted for the middle of the road democrat that lost their seat in congress to a congressional representative with Trumpian proclivities if only they would have never uttered the phrase “defund the police”. Except none of the Democrats that lost their races supported defund the police. They did not support the Green New Deal, Medicare for all and were pretty damn silent on the Black Lives Matter movement all together. Perhaps that’s why they lost. I digress…

Clyburn followed up this Angry Uncle Ruckus interview with an open letter entitled The Fake Fight Between Me and Cori Bush. Cori Bush is the only congressional candidate that ran on defunding the police and being as though she represents a district that includes Ferguson it’s an issue that obviously had resonance with the people of that community. In the short and brief open letter he says:

Like Ms. Bush, I began my political career as a protester. I met my late wife of 58 years during an incarceration that resulted from one of those protests. Although Emily and I almost always agreed on the purposes of our protests and political activism, we didn’t always agree on what approaches were best. We did agree that the slogan “burn, baby, burn” undermined our efforts and eviscerated political support we needed to succeed.  That is my fear of the slogan “defund the police.” I get that it is a rallying cry and shouldn’t be taken literally. But it is being weaponized by sinister forces and is undermining the political efforts of some reliable political allies.  

I prefer “reimagine policing” as a rallying slogan, but I am doing all I can to help Ms. Bush succeed. We are united in the goal of making desperately needed systemic changes to community policing. 

Real cool story old man but that’s a lie. In essence he’s saying that the Black Power movement of the 1960’s was to the civil rights movement what defund the police is to the movements of today which for the most part is the movement to save Black lives and ensure that our lives have value. There’s so much overlap in that movement that it defies logic to erect such a false dichotomy. Defund the police is the next iteration of Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter was as toxic a term 6-8 years ago. Today it’s as ubiquitous as a Nike symbol.

The truth is there’s not a nice enough way to word police reform to get a man like James Clyburn on board because he is as beholden to the police unions as any blue blooded Irishman in congress. I know this for a fact. In 2014 then congressman Alan Grayson proffered an amendment (1033). The amendment had nothing to do with defunding the police. It was simply to halt shipments of military equipment and hardware to local police departments. Only 7 CBC members voted in favor of the amendment. James Clyburn was among The Treasonous 32 CBC members that voted against demilitarizing the police. I’m not here to convince you of the efficacy of the term defund the police I’m simply here to let you know that James “the Butler” Clyburn is lying to you about it playing a role in the Democrats dismal election day performance and more importantly he’s lying about why he is so vehemently against the term. He’s against the term because its the single biggest threat to the strangle hold that police unions have at the head of the table when negotiating the health and safety of his constituents. I’m sure he would rather these union bosses be more humane but he loves his leadership position too much to risk it for us. And for that he’s a coon.

Number 18. O’Shea Jackson

The former childhood actor (ya’ll know this dude never sold crack or gang banged) turned movie director, turned Big 3 creator, turned purveyor of viral bullshit, better known as Ice Cube was another 11th hour add. He leap frogged a lot of lames to make this list in 2020. Aside for his 2017 hit dud Arrest The President, Dede’s cousin has been radio silent about national politics and the whole presidential race that had been in full effect at least since 2018. So it came as a great October surprise when two months before the election he unearthed some contract with Black America that no black person that you or I know previously signed or approved of. So with the obviously forged contract in hand Dough Boy secretly met with Jarad Kushner to remix his father in-laws Platinum Plan for the Blacks–because everyone knows the blacks be liking platinum 🙄 . As one would expect, many of the Black people that Calvin was purporting to speak for had some questions. He did Roland Martin and other programs hosted by Black moderators where it became painstakingly obvious that his Contract with Black America was signed with the same pen used to sell the barbershop to Lester Wallace. In the face of being shown not only how fool hearted it would be to trust any promises made by Trump he was shown how much of the policy prescriptions in his “contract with Black America” was present not only in the policy pushes from Black Lives Matter and other activists that were on the ground shedding blood, sweat and tears in the streets for the last 4-8 years, they were also present in some of the 400 plus bills collecting dust on Mitch McConnell’s desk. When told of this, instead of humbly conceding to the points being made he took a defensive stance uttered some ADOScentric jibber jabber and doubled down on the dumb shit. The interview(s) was a disaster and as he continued doing media tours trying to sell us on his sell-out plan he got worse and worse. When asked how he felt about the Trump campaign using his plan and his name in tweets as an endorsement even though he never formally endorsed him, Calvin simply said “both parties do that”. When asked about Trump’s penchant for giving life and energy to white nationalism he said both parties were racist. He was even asked (by a white guy) about police brutality and Trump’s refusal to utter a single word to deter police from killing Black people with impunity and once again Mr. Fuck The Police was on that all in the same gang bullshit before making it known that he was still yet undecided on who he was voting for. The last sit down with The Queens was perhaps his most telling. I will not bore you with a synopsis of it but I did leave the clip for you to catch in its entirety on your own time (feel free to circle back when you’re done reading).

Luckily for Calvin Palmer Jr. (and us) Shade 45 was not re-elected. Had the interference play that he and other members of the hip-hop community were hired to run worked he would undoubtedly have fallen further down this list among the irredeemable coons. But if he keeps tweeting fuckery such as the following illustration, he will undoubtedly reach the point of no return.

Trump ain’t even paying his own legal team for his millions in legal fees. For CubeAnon to repeat such a falsehood for public consumption means one of two things. It means he was fully complicit in the Trump plan to curtail the black vote, or he got conned by the same conman that Elizbeth and nem got conned by…

Number 17. Terrance Williams

SEND THIS TO EVERY REPUBLICAN

If y’all don’t object to the fake election result then we will object to you being re-elected!

FIGHT FOR TRUMP OR WE WILL NEVER FIGHT FOR YOU AGAIN!!

**RT if you agree

President @realDonaldTrump we got your back! January 6th #StopTheSteal

Originally tweeted by Terrence K. Williams (@w_terrence) on January 3, 2021.

Donald Trump is a certified grifter. That is a well know fact. Over and above the fact that he’s a grifter, his presidency has spawned a whole new level of coonery whereby the most random, mediocre Black faces feast off the crumbs from the table of a master grifter like himself in the most shameless fashion. We saw it first with Diamond & Silk. To these women’s credit they peeped game early and got in on the bonanza. “Comedian” Terrence K Williams is the 2020 version of Diamond & Silk. He, just like that Frick and Frack tandem are unabashedly in it for the money and I can’t fully blame these talentless twits for their low hanging fruit come ups because were it not for the Trump gravy train they’d likely qualify for the welfare programs that they decry. But I will call it what it is—COONING. The fact that a publishing house thought it prudent to market and distribute a book authored by this clown is proof enough. What the fuck is a foster house anyway? Either way, with Dumbo leaving the white house, I hope they still have beds for my dude because the grift is over for his type of coonery. I’m afraid the GOP will have to go back to their traditional stick (or whatever) up the ass Black Republicans that are much more bourgeoisie than bombastic with their political diatribes.

16. Terry Crews

While there are far more influential and frankly anti-black coons out here, Terry makes the grade for two reasons. First and for most for making this trash ass movie:



This movie was easily the worst made in 2020. It’s so bad that you almost want to watch it just so you can safely say that you watched the worst movie of the year. From the opening scene to the closing scene the shit got progressively worse. If Terry Crew’s mentality was summed up in a movie it would be that god awful John Henry. The other reason why he makes this list is due to his selective “wokeness”. It was laudable that he as a man could identify with the #MeToo movement (minus allowing another man to grab his dick) while calling out patriarchy and rape culture. As a Black man that understood the necessity of #MeToo I’m sort of perplexed that he struggles to keep that same level of energy, empathy and understanding for the even more necessary #BlackLivesMatter movement…

Like the coons before him his online activity is proof positive that he belongs on this list.

I’m convinced he wanted to be on this list. Shame on me for falling for it.

15. Herman Cain

Say what you want about the homie Mr. 999 but he was willing to lay down his life for the cause. He figuratively ran through a brick wall full speed to further the aims of people who paid less homage to his memory than folks did Dark Skin Jermaine. It is for that reason we feel compelled to posthumously bestow the 16th spot for the top 20 coons of 2020. How are you gonna give your life for the movement and they move on as if you were mere road kill (🦝)? To his credit his Twitter is still more poppin than the dude that he gave his life for.

14. Isiah Washington

My dude ain’t been the same since he tried to rape that gay dude on the Set of Grey’s Anatomy (or whatever they said he did). In classic coon fashion ole boy is a hop on hop offer. No core convictions, low self awareness and rather delusional in how grandiose he sees himself. From 2017 to 2020 he was a certified Black MAGA. A funny thing happened in-between the clock striking the new year and MAGA terrorists striking the US Capitol…

To his credit he is abandoning a sunken ship. Unfortunately it appears that he’s in too deep to escape the sunken place.

13 & 12. Herschel Walker (and his weirdo ass son)

In their own words…

Like father like son. Not much else to add.

11. Lil Wayne

This little junkie ass son of a grown ass man named Baby has been on the coon train for years now. If this raggedy ass little nigglett would not have received a pardon from Fuck Boy Forty-Five he would have been much closer to the number one spot for his betrayal of the culture. At least we now know why he sold his masters for a measly 100 million dollars. I wonder how much of the money went towards the ransom he had to pay to stay out of the fed pen.

10. Brandon Tatum

Brandon Tatum is actually a Coonvid-16 alumnus. He co-founded the Blexit movement with Candace Owens. The Blexit movement was of course a play on the Brexit term. The idea being that Black people should leave the Democratic Party in 2016 for the GOP as the Brits did the European Union. Even though Donald Trump won the 2016 election, it was not due to Black people in mass exiting the Democratic party for the GOP so therefore Blexit was a fail. But that ain’t why he’s on this list. I actually was not aware of this Coon prior Ahmaud Arbery being executed by some Georgian white supremacists. Before any of the most damning facts came out he rushed to victimize the victim by posting a bunch of speculative things that turned out not to be the case. He criminalized Arbery and tacitly excused his killers. He later went on to do another video about the Elijah McClain where he was even worse. He falsely stated that Elijah McClain initiated the contact with the police and blamed him for his own murder.

Like the Coon Terrance Williams he is all about the grift. After each and every whack ass video he puts out he drops links to merchandise that he sells to his mostly all lives and Blue Lives matter viewership. He’s another one that will be looking for a new hustle once the MAGA era subsides and police accountability becomes a national security imperative.

9. Tim Scott

Tim Cain is your typical garden variety coon. He’s what we call a classic coon (also known as a stick up the ass coon). He’s likely been that one black friend, one black neighbor, one black classmate and co-worker for most his miserable life so being a coon is kind of his natural inclination. As oxymoronic as it sounds unlike many others on this list he’s keeping it real. He really is a racist white man trapped in the body of a lame ass Black man.

8. Ben Carson

This nigga ain’t been the same since they performed that lobotomy on him swapping his once gifted hands for his now grafted mind.

7. Clarence Thomas

If we were compiling the all time greatest coons list no doubt Clarence Thomas would be number one because there has been no Black man (past or present) that has contributed as much towards the maintenance of the white supremacist construct while simultaneously holding back Black progress than Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas is to cooning what Michael Jeffery Jordan is to basketball. And unlike in MJ’s case there is no GOAT debate. Clarence Thomas is GOAT of cooning. But yet and still the best that we could do this year is give him the number 7 spot. To be clear it’s not because he lost a step in his step & fetch routine. It’s simply that 2020 was such a vintage year in cooning that he was outcooned.

6. Jason Whitlock

This lame and lazy ass tub of lard built an entire sports journalism career on coonery. For the last several years his job at Fox Sports was to make white guys shaped like him feel more superior than the greatest black athlete. Especially if said great Black Athletes are outspoken. Nothing gets under this dudes skin more than a Black athlete standing firm. To be an unapologetic Black man in the sports world is to be an anathema to everything that this dude represents. If you asked Whitlock 45 is not the bigot, LeBron James is real bigot . In fact according to Fatlock, Black men are actually starting to wake up to the goodness of the Donald.

I Think we have been carrying on a facade for three-and-a-half years as a Black men that somehow we can’t relate to Donald Trump, that we didn’t celebrate him in hip-hop music for decades, that he wasn’t friends with countless Black athletes, entertainers, celebrities…That facde is starting to end…and I think that’s why you’ve seen the rapper Ice Cube, you’ve seen 50 Cent and Kanye start reaching out and acknowledging the truth that they really don’t have a problem with Donald Trump ~ Jason Whitlock

To be clear, there is some truth to what Coon number 6 is saying. However to the extent that Black men in America relate to the 45th president of these United States is the extent at which these misguided brothers are moved by sentiments of patriarchy, self centeredness and narcissism. His racism is just the cost of doing business and so long as said racism does not affect them or their pockets they are good. And that’s why we call them coons. But they remain a small percentage of Black men overall but Jason Whitlock is indeed one of them.

5. Vernon Jones

Vernon Jones is a congressional representative from Georgia. He was a life long Democrat who switched allegiances to Republican party. He penned an open letter to white people explaining why:

I am no longer a Democrat. I cannot stand for the defunding of the police, higher taxes on working families and job-killing socialist policies that will devastate Americans of all walks of life… Is how he starts the mindless missive.

He goes on to mention his strong support for police at least 4 more times with no mention of police accountability or the fight to protect Black people from being abused by police. Even more than a coon, this dude is a coward. Hopefully the Black people in his district will awake to his coonery and boot him out of office in 2022 because such a Black man in office is dangerous for our community.

4. Candace Owens

Candace Owens is another Coonvid-16 alumnus. As a matter of fact she is the Valedictorian of the 2016 Coonrona class. She more than any of these other new school coons perfected the art of the grift. She was a chief organizer and architect of the young Black Dummies for Trump movement…

In the YBD’s defense, it was not just the propaganda pushed by Owens motivating them flock to the White House in new school Nazi regalia—they were also being paid by this mistress of misinformation. So says Robert Longfellow who furnished receipts in his article aptly titled: Edgeless Candace Owens Pays Black People to Attend Donald Trump’s Latest Stunt.

For all the cooning that she did in 2020 she still ended up getting passed over when it came to the GOP Donald Trump convention and that obviously that made her feel some type of way…

…It seems they might have a new flavor of the month.

3. Kim Klacik

Kim Klacik was to Candace Owens in 2020 what R Kelly was to Aaron Hall in the 1990’s. Kim came in and stole all of ole girls thunder. Her Brazilin weave and Wringling Brothers make-over supplanted Candace’s plain Jane split end look with the Good Ole Boys. Rhetoric wise it was pretty much all the same. She made her national debut by riding off of the public angst that the 45th president directed at the late Representative Elijah Cummings while chair of the House Oversight Committee investigating the Fuckery between he and the Russians. She sent out a tweet lambasting Cummings and Baltimore that was later re-tweeted by the dude that can no longer tweet. It went viral and she instantly gained most favored coon status. So much so that she was able to parlay her disrespectful words about Baltimore and Elijah Cummings to a run for the late representatives vacated seat. Thankfully she lost but not before having a Million Karen March through a three block radius in Baltimore trying to bring more shame to the community and culture while shamelessly cooning for kudos.

2. Kanye West

Kanye was the first major hip-hop artist to co-sign and endorse the overt white supremacist in office. His betrayal of the culture opened up the doors for others to do the same. He is what we call the ultimate culture vulture. This culture gave him more fame and fortune than he could have dreamed of but some how it still was not enough. He used the perch that the culture has given him to re-distribute white supremacist misinformation and propaganda to. For that he should never be forgiven. I don’t care how crazy the dude acts. Fuck him forever!

1. Daniel Cameron

May the spirit of Breonna Taylor forever haunt this sick and sorry son of bitch ass nigga. There is no greater example in 2020 of a Black man betraying the Black community than what this sucker ass dude did to our beloved sister Breonna. If “on sight I’m beating that ass” was a person that person’s name would be Daniel Cameron. Nothing short of a beat down is deserved by this dude and I pray that it one day happens. I also pray that it be recorded for public consumption so that it would deter future coons from committing such dastardly deeds to further ingratiate themselves with their white supremacist handlers.

The role that Cameron played in the miscarriage of justice endured by Breonna Taylor’s family and by extension the Black Community will be with us for posterity. He will be the poster boy for selling out the Black race for years to come. This is an offense against the culture and entire human family that should never be forgotten. He needs to pay for the bitch ass move he pulled. By any means necessary. Periodt!

Honorable Mention

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The Carnival Coon Cruise: Top 100 Coons of 2016 Part One of Two (100-50)

2016 has been quite a coontastic year. i’m talking vintage.  So much so that we had to trade in the coon train  for a vessel much larger to accommodate all of them.  Cooning has become an epidemic in America and it is important that we in the non-cooning negro community collectively rebuke such behavior whenever it occurs. As with anything else there are levels to coonery. These first set of 50 coons are what we call somewhat redeemable coons. Particularly the first 20-30. The closer to the number one spot they get the less redeemable they get.
So with out further ado here are your top 100 coons for 2016 (the first 50)
 Coontestants# 100-91: Mainstream black media members Donna Brazille, Al Sharpton, Karen Finney, Toure, Jonathan Capehart, Eugene Robinson, Harold Ford,  Joy Reid, Don Lemon and Juan Williams

The black members of the mainstream media serve a very purposeful role and that is to correct the myriad false narratives bantered about in the ether and more importantly to  better inform black people so that as a community we’d be able to make the best decisions possible–particularly at the ballot box. All of these members of the mainstream press checked their journalistic integrity and intellectual honesty at the door and for the most part became defacto campaign surrogates for Hillary Clinton. They did not challenge any of the false narratives, half truths or out right myths surrounding her coronation  to the Democratic nomination  which in turn fed her false sense of invincibility in the general election. These ten members of the mainstream media as much as anyone else in media are responsible for the incoming idiot in chief. In 2017 lets not rely on these characters to bring us the news we need. In the very least look at each of them with a more cautious eye while holding them to higher standards as I believe they all could do better.
Coontestants#92-83:  The  Seahawks response to Colin Kapernicks national anthem protest

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Built as the perfect response to the all the illogical acrimony directed at Colin Kapernick for taking a stand these dudes came out with the ultimate all lives matter gesture. We’re not going to ding the entire 55 man roster but I’m certain at least 10 brothers on that squad co-signed this bullshit.

Coontestant #82: Fantasia

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Fantasia’s went all All Lives Matter on us. Even after Anthony Hamilton and the other entertainers on this list rejected the naming and intentions of this flier for the canceled project she and her husband doubled down on why the failed venture was not a failed idea.

Coontestant#81 Mary J Blige

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Mary sang the blues to Madam Secretary.  The only thing more cooney than her singing Negro spirituals  to Hillary would be if she broke out into her famous crispy chicken jingle.

Coontestant#80: Laila Ali

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Laila too went all lives matter on us and was unabashed about it. I suspect that there was heavy wind when that apple fell off the tree.

“Yes, black lives matter. Yes, white lives matter, asian lives matter. All lives matter…And that’s kind of what my focus is. But it’s hard because, you know, you’ve got sponsors and you’ve got this and you’ve got that. And you don’t want to step on anybody’s toes. And you’re trying to be politically correct, but at the same time trying to uplift your people.~ Laila Ali

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Coontestants#79-73 “The Mothers of the Movement”

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I know I’m wrong for calling these women out because they have suffered immeasurable pain and paid the ultimate sacrifice. I’m just going to have to be wrong because their chitterling circuit tour for Hillary during primary voting throughout the south was blatant and obvious cooning. The irony of Miss “Bring those super predators to heel” herself co-opting the BLM movement for the sole purpose of winning an election is too egregious an offense not to make mention of. I don’t have the receipts but I’m willing to bet my last dollar that these women were paid for their endorsement and subsequent hyperbolic statements touting how much of a friend and ally to the black community that Hillary and Bill have been.  Take solace in the fact that these women remain in the redeemable category.

Coontestant#72 Sage Steele

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As if this shirt was not enough to land her at least honorable mention in a non vintage coon year. She’s laid her black card on the line quite a few times to justify her ticket for the Carnival Coon Cruise. Instead of elaborating on her many offenses to black sensibility I will let her pretty little mixed twitter fingers make the case instead. 

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This particular brain fart of hers was in response to Mike Evans taking a knee during the National Anthem due to his displeasure with America electing the first Man Baby to the Oval office.

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Thankfully Black Twitter was on the job and they let her know real quick that she was barking up the wrong tree.

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She needed more than 140 characters to explain away her social media faux pas so she took to Facebook to pen a response but…

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…Black Twitter was not trying to hear it

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…Black Twitter was still not having it. 

Coontestant#71 Jerry Rice

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Even though he walked back the wayward tweet it’s pretty clear that he has some strong coon proclivities. If this was 2014 or 2015 the following tweet would have placed this old washed up D list celebrity in the top 10

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Of course Black Twitter had something to say

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He was forced to walk that comment back almost as far as his hairline. 

Coontestant# 70 Victor Cruz

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As Giant fan it pains me that this dude does not get it. I’m comforted to know that he will be a salary cap casualty in the off season.

Coontestant# 69 Dennis Rodman

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Dennis makes the list for being a Trumpet…

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😦

And to that the Donald sent thanks

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…and for being so damn forgiving and forgetful. It was only 2 years ago that the Twitter Troll Elect called him a drunken fool. 

Coontestant# 68 Fat Joe

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Joey Crack obviously forgot about his humble beginnings. Having more love for an inanimate object than you have for the plight of the community is so not hip-hop.

Coontestant# 67 Tiki Barber

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“I agree with his desire to continue the narrative…There are issues in this country. That, you have to commend him for. But I don’t commend him for sitting and not honoring this country and our flag.” ~ Tiki Barber

Coontestant# 66 Michael Crabtreeinthebucket

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Upon being asked about the ongoing National Anthem protests started by Colin Kapernick and this was Crabtree’s response :

“I just play football, I ain’t no Martin Luther King.”~ Michael Crabtree

Coontestestant #65 Rodney Harrison

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Rodney Harrison gave perhaps the most cringe worthy response to Colin Kapeernicks National Anthem protest

 

“Obviously he has the right to stand up for what he believes, but he has to understand there are consequences and might be backlash for what he said. You know a lot of people are criticizing him — I think his heart is in the right place, I just think he was going about it in the wrong way, If he really wants to make change, sitting his butt down [during the anthem], that’s not going to change, that’s going to get people very upset and he has to understand that. If you think sitting during the national anthem, a lot of people really served before his time, now, trying to give him the freedoms and the liberties that he has … and I tell you this, I’m a black man. And Colin Kaepernick — he’s not black. He can not understand what I face and what other young black men and black people face, or people of color face, on a every single [day] basis. When you walk in a grocery store, and you might have $2,000 or $3,000 in your pocket and you go up in to a Foot Locker and they’re looking at you like you about to steal something. I don’t think he faces those types of things.” ~ Rodney Harrison

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Of course Black Twitter was fast and furious with a response

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Even coontestant #72 Sage Steele took umbrage with the level of coonery that he had on display. You know you ran afoul of the black sensibilities when a fellow coonite calls you out for cooning. #coononcooncrimeforthewin

Coontestant# 64 Charlemagne

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“Would be dope if a young black or Hispanic ‘WOKE’ woman used social media to create a Platform to be a voice like Tomi Lahren did.” ~ Charlamagne The God Gump

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As one would expect such an errant tweet directly into the belly of the beast created a firestorm of clap backs aimed straight for the jugular.

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As evidenced by how resonate the #blacklivesmatter hash tag has been since its inception black women have an extremely powerful presence on twitter and throughout the social media stratosphere. Perhaps if Charalamagne and his Breakfast Club Cohorts  coonhorts would extend invitations to more of these black female movers and shakers their intellectual properties could as well permeate the mainstream media and be monetized as is the case for his bff Tomi Lauren who herself is a halfwit. 

Coontestant# 63 DJ Envy

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As if Charlemagne’s fixation with the bigoted blonde bimbo was not bad enough, his partner in coon went even harder against the grain of black struggle in AmeriKKKa. After Donald Trump in the national debate the night before extolled the virtues and worth of the racist ‘Stop & Frisk’ policies practiced by NYPD DJ Envy co-signed him and its use.

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Did I mention that I love Black Twitter?

Coontestant#62 Stephen A Smith
stephen-a-smithStephen A Smith who cracked the top ten in years past was not even supposed to make the list this year because for the most part in 2016 he practiced reasonably responsible journalism. That was until he lost his mind over the fact that Colin Kapernick did not vote. Here’s a dude (Colin Kapernick) that donated over 1 million dollars in 2016 to causes that help uplift the poor black and brown and this coon is brow beating him because he did not vote for either of the two candidates that have more than proven to not have the best interest of the community in heart mind and agenda.
in his own words:

“As far as I’m concerned Colin Kaepernick is absolutely irrelevant, I don’t want to hear a damn word about anything that he has to say about our nation, the issues that we have, racial injustices, needing change, et cetera, et cetera…He comes across as a flaming hypocrite as far as I’m concerned. I’m not interested in a damn word that he has to say and quite frankly I hope he goes away, He’s lucky to be in the league right now…And Colin Kaepernick after all this noise that you’ve made, even though you didn’t intend to do so by offending our military service men and women. And pointing out about how you wanted to bring attention to racial injustices and beyond that’s in this country. To turn around and not to even take your behind to the polls to vote for a particular candidate–it is shameful. Absolutely shameful, Him of all people, because of the position he took, because of the attention he brought to the issues, the fact that he doesn’t have the decency to go to the polls and activate yourself in this election (as our president said) is a damn shame…I don’t want to hear another word from Colin Kaepernick. It’s a waste of time. [As] a matter of fact, I would personally make a request to the media in this nation: Wherever he is, if he ain’t on that football field trying to throw another damn incomplete pass, do me a favor and make sure of one thing, take the camera away from him. It means nothing. Because for him not to vote, as far as I’m concerned, everything he said meant absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don’t want to hear another damn word from him. Nothing.”  ~Stephen A Smith                                                                                                                                                                           .

Coontestant#61 Venus Williams
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After her sister Serena took to Facebok and penned a heartfelt missive about her concerns about the ongoing injustices  dealt to black people at the hands of police and municipal governments Venus was asked her thoughts. And lets just say her opine was not Black Twitter approved..
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Coontestants 60-58 Elijah Cummings, James Clyburn and John Lewis
These three “distinguished gentlemen” underscore the fecklessness and ineffectual direction that the Congressional Black Caucus has long been going in. Once billed as the conscience of the congress the CBC just like these three bozos are bought and paid entities of America’s corporate overlords. No longer are they in congress to serve the people. They are there to enrich themselves and hold on to their seats. It’s high time they all be replaced by some new blood.

 

Coontestant#57 Lil Bow Wow

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Read from the bottom up to get the full gist of his coonery

Coontestant#56 Dorsey Montgomery

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This natural born coon was unfortunately the only hope that black people and people of good conscious had to get any semblance of justice in the State of SC vs Michael Slager. Needless to say he was a failure. As the jury foreman his job was to corral the jury members and lean on the letter of the laws of the state to find justice. It has become crystal clear that he had neither the wherewithal nor intention of doing such a thing . The talk show circuit tour that he went on post trial was as confusing as it was bemusing.

Coontestant# 55 Young Thug

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After this roach impersonator arrived after the 45 minute cut off to board his flight he offered the two black female ticket agents 15k to accept being terminated as they broke protocol and allowed him on his flight. They rightly refused and he went on a tirade berating the young women calling them Africans, peasants and more. He did all of this while filming it for Instagram. 

Coontestant# 54 Kevin Gates
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On the heels of all the protests surrounding the murders of Alton Sterling and  Philando Castile, this is what Kevin Gates had to say:
“We kill each other. I’m talking about we lay up under each other’s cars, lay behind each other’s houses then whip by, boom boom, kill everybody in the car…but as soon as a white boy kills one of us, everybody go to hoopin’ and hollerin’ and all that old stupid-ass shit …That’s bullshit. When you stand for something, you’ve got t[o] stand for it all the way, not half way.” ~ Kevin Gates
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That was all of course before he was sentenced to six months for a brutal stage kick to the face and chest of one of his young and misguided female fans. Who just so happened to have been black.

Coontestant# 53 Trick Daddy

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Trick daddy set the internet ablaze with a viral video rant about how black women were losing their footing and needed to tighten their shit up less they be passed over for white and Latina women. And boy oh boy the clap back came fast and furious.

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Coontestant#52 Tommy Sotomeyer

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Tommy has been cooning for clicks for quite sometime  and has made honorable mention more than a couple of years. He’s a black man that has built his brand on berating black women on Youtube and other social media spaces.

Back in July he got into a fender bender with a black woman and after the sister questioned why he was recording her he says this:

“That’s the problem with Black women right there, they talk, “This is why nobody likes these Black whores. Look at her. Black whores. Black whores. Get out my face, though, bitch. I’ll whip yo muthafuckin ass…I don’t like Black bitches, anyway. Bye, broke bitch. My car cost more than your house, bitch. My car cost more than your house, bitch. You don’t know who you talking to. Watch when you find yourself online.”~ Tommy Sotomoyer

The video went viral as he intended but the blow back for his cooning for clicks shenanigans was too much for him to handle hence he used his platform for the first time to speak highly of black women where he pulled the “I never had a father” card. Of course we all know that the apology was bullshit but that is a testament to how much of a bully pulpit the Twitter verse can be when properly leveraged. Another win for Black Twitter but I will say this. It really is time to start giving eye jammies to these brothers out here that think it prudent to be so overtly disrespectful to black women as he and a number of the coons that made this list have been.

 

Coontestant# 51 Rza

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The Rza who we now know is anything but a genius had this to say regarding the on going problem of police killing unarmed black people:

 “If I’m a cop and every time I see a young black youth, whether I watch them on TV, movies, or just see them hanging out, and they’re not looking properly dressed, properly refined, you know, carrying himself, conducting himself proper hours of the day — things that a man does, you’re going to have a certain fear and stereotype of them…I tell my sons, I say, ‘if you’re going somewhere, you don’t have to wear a hoodie — we live in New York, so a hoodie and all that is all good. But sometimes, you know, button up your shirt. Clean up. Look like a young man. You’re not a little kid.” ~Rza
What makes his statement so eggregious is the fact that as one of the founding members of the Wu Tang Clan and the so-called genius of the group he made his living off of urban wears and urban vernacuilar. Now that he’s hanging out with Russell Crow and the Hollywood Click he wants to go all rescpctable Negroe on us.
Coontestant#50 Wendy Williams

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Jesse Williams after winning the Humanitarian Award from BET gave a moving and memorable speech about social justice amd social activism. His speech and sentiments trended for miles. Wendy Williams who has absolutely zero depth of thought and even less consciousness had these jewels to share regarding Jesse Williams and his speech trending:

“His speech was very poignant, on one hand. On the other hand, you know, I would be really offended if there was a school that was known as a historically White college. We have historically Black colleges. What if it was the National Organization for White People only? There’s the NAACP.”~ Wendy Williams

 After a noticeably silent gasp of her normally gregarious audience she goes:
“Look everybody’s quiet. You’re leaving me out here to dry by myself?”
 Now a normal dummy, even with coon tendencies would take that silent queue as a hint that they should probably quit while they are ahead and switch up the conversation. But not Wendy Williams. She’s a special kind of stupid. She goes on to say:
“National speeches like this always rub people the wrong way. Just like White people will be offended because Spelman College is a historically Black college for women. You might feel funny about that. I know I’d feel funny like I just told you. If there was a White college or whatever.”

Twitter eat her ass up so bad that that Chevrolet who previously helped underwrite her show dropped her.

 

 The 4 Block Buster deadline Trades That No One Is Talking About

The NBA trade deadline came and left last week  with little to no hoopla, fanfare, or late breaking news of any kind of three team swap changing the predictable balance of power in either conference. It’s been something of a downer for us fans of the game that like just a little bit of drama to go with our hoops. However, in lieu of Kevin Love not becoming a Celtic, Laker or Clipper; despite Carmelo having a no trade clause in his contract and irrespective of the fact that Dwight Howard & James Harden are married at the hip for at least the remainder of the season there still  were some really block busting trades consummated at the 11th hour of last weeks NBA’s trade deadline. The NBA NRA (National Racial Association) quietly announced four huge trades.

The Fine Print

The NBA collective bargaining agreement states that in every trade the two parties being traded must be within 125% of each other salary wise. Since the NRA does not track the salaries of those on the trading block the formula that they  use to remain in compliance with the collective bargaining agreement are the professions (or lack there of) of their trade prospects. So for an example if  I was the sole arbiter of what was and was not a fair trade I would gladly trade Dr. Ben Carson for the Puppy Monkey Baby. Only problem with that is the fact that Dr. Ben Carson is a world renowned neurosurgeon and the Puppy Monkey baby a prop from a Super Bowl commercial. The Puppy Monkey Baby maybe a bit more cogent and capable of carrying on an adult conversation but it’s hardly enough to compete with a guy that has on his resume the separation of Siamese twins  conjoined by the noggin-even if that guy is a certified loon.  So it  goes without saying that such a trade would not be approved by the Association. So much to the chagrin of the Black delegation Dr. Carson will remain a part of the black community for the foreseeable future. The good news for the black delegation however is they did find trading partners for four other blacks that have long been considered  to overstayed their welcome in the community and in need of having their respective black cards revoked. I’m certain that most would agree with the following deals that were most recently agreed upon before the trade deadline.

NRA Trade Number One: Stacy Dash for Gary Owens

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You don’t have to be the GM of the Lakers or  Celtics or be the next coming of Jerry West for this deal to have been your brain child. This particular trade comes straight out of No Brainerville. Two B-C rated actors that are already comfortable in the others skin (figuratively and literally) and seamlessly able to traverse cultures and code switch their way right up into the family. Stacy Dash went from being a video vixen extraordinaire  serving as eye candy to inner city generation X’ers with hip-hop proclivities to Fox News’s resident coonologist and eye candy for angry white ammo-sexual baby boomers. She’s been on the trading block since at least 2012at least 2012. Her decision to resurrect her  faint relevance as one of the resident Fox News Coontributors specifically hired to assuage the  guilt and placate the fragile feelings of the Networks Salty white Tear dripping viewership.  Just did not sit well with the home team. The straw that broke the camels back though was her latest viral diatribe  after being invited on the Fox & Freinds to opine on the #oscarssowhite controversy

STEVE DOOCY: What do you think about this?

STACEY DASH: I think it’s ludicrous.

STEVE DOOCY: Why??

STACEY DASH: We have to make up our minds. Either we want to have segregation or integration. And if we don’t want segregation, then we need to get rid of channels like BET and the BET Awards and the Image Awards where you’re only awarded if you’re black. If it were the other way around, we would be up in arms. It’s a double standard.

STEVE DOOCY (HOST): So you say there shouldn’t be a BET channel?

DASH: No, I don’t think so. No. Just like there shouldn’t be a Black History Month. You know? We’re Americans. Period. That’s it.

DOOCY: Are you saying there shouldn’t be a Black History Month because there isn’t a white history month?

DASH: Exactly. Exactly.

 

She could not be any more clearer about want g out off of Team Blackness with that mindless missive. Not since Latrell Spreewell choked PJ Carlisimo in practice way back in 1997 has a player been so undisguised about wanting to be traded.

For Gary’s part he celebrated being traded to the black community just as you would expect a black person to do. He took to the Gram…

Welcome to the fam G!
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NRA Trade Number Two:Jason Whitlock  for Dave Zirin

 

With such a huge dearth in black journalism and the black perspective being bantered in the ether to compete with and combat mainstream media bias and mind manipulation it’s a shame that we have to put one of the more successful and widely read and regarded black sports writers on the market. But when the opinions you posit present more poison to the problematic nature of post Fairness Doctrine specious and pernicious journalism as opposed to being an elixir to such a societal malady then you really have worn out your welcome and need to cease being a Journalist in Black Face. We are better off with you being on another team because a black face postulating white supremacist thoughts and codifying the inexplicable angst of a large swath of AmeriKKKa is actually worse than it is coming from your typical AM side of the dial angry white talk show host.  . As a sports writer Jason Whitlock has  been largely able to fly under the radar as it pertains to offering an opinion on the germane issues of the day. But on those rare occasions that he’s asked or tasked with taking on issues of equality, intersectionality,  and/or oppression nine times out of ten he’s going to offer a convoluted quip that Ted Nugent would be proud to re-tweet.

Dave Zirin on the other hand has long used his pen as a sword for social  justice and equality. Not just for black people but all oppressed, neglected and disaffected people around the globe. He’s penned several books that delve deep into the heart of the pertinent issues of the day from a high minded and holistic perspective. The John Carlos Story and Game Over are just two of the many books that he’s authored that I recommend as a great reads…


More recently these two contemporary sports writers had the prime opportunity to opine on the same issue tackling intersectionality in a sports related kind of way and their opinions  could not have been any more divergent. By now everyone is aware of Beyonce’s Super Bowl Performance where homage was paid to The Black Panther Party, victims of police brutality and mis-conduct as well as the LGBT community. The overall message was one that was about love and they went to great lengths to say as much.

But…

Pepsi Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show

…that obviously was not universally interpreted and understood and our latest trading partners could not have crystallized any better how differently the message in the music of the Super Bowl Half-Time show has been conveyed.

Jason Whitlock on Beyonce’s performance:

 

Beyonce, why are you bringing this rebellion to a sporting event? This is an event that all of America comes together, 100 million people around America and throw Super Bowl parties, we come together across economic and racial lines and it’s all just one good time and the players … represent all these great things in America. … Probably not appropriate for the Super Bowl. It’s just not that type of event.

If you want to send a message, if you want to pander to social media and Twitter, if you want to extend your brand by involving yourself in controversy, [then] what Beyonce did was absolutely brilliant. You listen to the song’s lyrics, there’s no real rebellion in it. None.

“So I can see how the NFL got fooled by this. They listened to the song, and there’s nothing to it. There’s no tribute to the Black Panther party or any real shots at Hurricane Katrina or anything like that in the actual lyrics of the song. You have to watch the video to get the rebellion. She didn’t release the video until the day before the Super Bowl. So I could see how the NFL got caught off-guard.

When you tie the whole thing together, Beyonce snuck in some subversiveness that has put her in the center of controversy and has enhance her and Jay-Z’s brand. They had been getting beaten up in social media by the Black Lives Matter movement, that ‘You don’t support us,’ ‘You’re not down with this movement,’ blah blah blah . . . Beyonce pulls off this publicity stunt and now she’s all good with the social-media crowd and the people involved with Black Lives Matters.

“It’s all just a game and a fun marketing tool for Beyonce. They’ll make more money out of this and enhance their brand. But they’ve also set off some divisiveness in America, and that’s what’s disappointing to me.” ~ Jason Whitlock

One thing we know for sure the homie Jason Whitlock has no qualms about telling us how he really feels. On the flipside neither does Dave Zirin as he penned a piece entitled In Defense of Beyonces Black Panther Tribute At the Super Bowl for The Nation. In it he goes on to say:

A whole hell of a lot of people on Fox News and in the right-wing sewers of the Internet have lost their damn minds. I am not going to link to the statements, ranging from the historically ignorant to the unabashedly racist, because that’s their game. But I will say that if you are comparing the Black Panthers to the KKK, like one police sergeant did on Facebook, you are only proving that the extent of your historical knowledge is what some asshole said on Twitter. It’s like “comparing Adolf Hitler to Richard Pryor because they both had mustaches.”

Yet despite the right-wing noise, Beyoncé’s performance has created space for a real conversation about the Black Panthers, beyond the caricature. It is a chance to get people to see the recent Stanley Nelson PBS documentaryVanguard of the Revolution or read The Black Panthers Speak or Seize The Time or any number of books. Just to give one example, the most illustrative, politically textured Panther memoir in my humble opinion is My People Are Rising by Seattle Black Panther Party founder Aaron Dixon. When Dixon’s book was released in 2012, I pushed people to read it on social media and among friends and was met with a tepid response. After Beyoncé’s performance, I went back and recommended it again. The reaction was off the chain.

Being in the Bay Area this week has also opened my eyes to another part of what made Beyoncé’s halftime performance matter. There are people here who have dedicated their lives to fighting police brutality—most recently in the form of the killing of Mario Woods—and for the rights of the homeless to not be treated like collateral damage of gentrification. They wanted the Super Bowl to be an opportunity to spotlight these issues for the country. Instead, they were met with a smothering police presence, indifferent media, and an NFL occupation that made swaths of their city resemble the Green Zone in Iraq. ~ Dave Zirin

It’s pretty clear from reading the thoughts of these two sports journalist that hearing more of the latter and less (a whole lot less) of the former would be sort of a good thing.

NRA Trade Number Three:Darnell Earley for Tim Wise

 

Most people don’t know who Darnell Earley is but I’m certain that they know his work.  Darnell Earley is the Emergency City Manager that was put in place by Governor Rick Snyder to run the city of Flint. There’s really not much else to say about this son of a bitch ass coon. He played a major part in poisoning the drinking water of an entire city full of lower middle class, poor black, brown and white people. He was then promoted to head the Detroit Public Schools to put the final nails on that coffin  before his previous dastardly deeds came back to haunt him and he was forced to resign due to the mess that he co-created in Flint. He was essentially a black face hired to push a white supremacist agenda and he did a stellar job at it.

Tim Wise on the other hand has been one of the more formidable and unabashed white voices against racism and prejudice in American society for the last 10 years. He’s nothing short of an ally in the fight against white supremacy so this one again was pretty much a no brainer.

NRA Trade number four:The Congressional Black Caucus for the Congressional Progressive Caucus

The CBC’s recent endorsement of Hillary for the democratic nomination over the much more progressive (and trustworthy) Bernie Sanders was rather disappointing. It however was not enough of a reason to put the CBC who has long been known as the conscience of the Congress on the trading block . The unconscionable and inexplicable reasons that the leadership gave for their endorsement is actually why they have been offered up for the kinder, gentler and much more socially aware  Congressional Progressive Caucus. It’s hard to begrudge Congressmen John Lewis and Congressman James Clyburn for endorsing a person who has helped their PERSONAL ambitions in maintaining their congressional seats by allowing some of the unmitigated and untraceable big money that flows through their coffers to trickle into their own respective campaign war chests. However when they conflate someone being able to help them personally with actually doing the same for the black community, the masses the have supported them for the last 40 years have every right to take umbrage with their reckless word choice on their already questionable endorsement.

Now don’t get me wrong. Someone simply doing what was right in 1963 or whatever year it was that Bernie Sanders marched for equality or was arrested at a sit in does not automatically earn the black vote in 2016. However dismissing his involvement in the Civil Rights movement because you are supporting someone was on the opposite end of the historical and  ongoing fight for justice is rather dubious.Take for instance John Lewis’s response to a reporter asking him about Bernie Sanders well documented dalliance with the Civil Rights movement during his college years:

Well, to be very frank, I’m going to cut you off, but I never saw him, I never met him. I’m a chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for three years, from 1963 to 1966. I was involved in the sit-ins, the freedom rides, the March on Washington, the march from Selma to Montgomery, and directed their voter education project for six years. But I met Hillary Clinton. I met President Clinton.”~ Congressman John Lewis

 

Lets parse that statement real quick. He is implying one of two things both of which are nonsensical.

A: he’s either implying that he knew Hillary and Bill from being supporters of Civil Rights some 50 years ago.

OR

He’s implying that he’s never in his life met Bernie Sanders. Both  statements are patently false. His statement was a conflation of facts. When you have to resort to that kind of double speak to justify endorsing a person then you deserve all the back lash that comes your way (as it did) to force you to eat your errant word play (which he did). Quite naturally he took a lot of criticism from corners of the political and social movement world that are in most cases reticent when it comes to critiquing elders from the civil rights time period. Predictably he was compelled to walk back his aggressive response to the innocuous query:

I was responding to a reporter’s question who asked me to assess Sen. Sanders’ civil rights record. I said that when I was leading and was at the center of pivotal actions within the Civil Rights Movement, I did not meet Sen. Bernie Sanders at any time. The fact that I did not meet him in the movement does not mean I doubted that Sen. Sanders participated in the Civil Rights Movement, neither was I attempting to disparage his activism. Thousands sacrificed in the 1960s whose names we will never know, and I have always given honor to their contribution…If you take a look at a transcript of my statement, you will find I did not say that I met Hillary and Bill Clinton when I was chairman of SNCC in the 1960s. My point was that when I was doing the work of civil rights, led the Voter Education Project and organized voter registration in the South in the 1970s, I did cross paths with Hillary and Bill Clinton in the field. They were working in politics, and Bill Clinton became attorney general of Arkansas in the 1970s as well. That began a relationship with them that has lasted until today~ John Lewis (mea culpa)

The double speak did not end there. Both he and congressman Clyburn both denounced the idea of free college. They said that such a thing sends the wrong message. Here are two men particularly in the case of John Lewis that purport to carry the torch of Dr. Martin Luther King and his fight for economic equality sounding like Paul Ryan when it comes to evening the playing field in a most fundamental way. It was only 8 years ago that Clyburn was denouncing the race baiting of Bill and Hillary in their nomination fight against Obama. Now he can’t stop extolling her virtues. Collegiality over conviction is what that amounts to. It’s certainly not egregious enough of an offense for an individual trade so both John Lewis, James Clyburn and every other member of the CBC (not named Mia Love or Tim Scott) are all on Team Blackness for life but as an organization in congress boasting the teams color and logo it’s time that we trade them in for a more forward leaning body in the House and Senate.  Even before the CBC bet their black card on Hillary Clinton they have been slowly but surely losing their way and subsequently the right to be called the Conscience of the Congress.  Just to illustrate a few of their more incorrigible misdeeds as a caucus the following list serves as exhibit A.

  1. In 2014 Rep Alan Grayson (of the Congressional Progressive Caucus) introduced a Bill to put an end to the Pentagon siphoning their military grade weapons and equipment off to America’s already overzealous police forces. The measure failed and only 7 of 41 members of the CBC voted to for it.
  2. They have in increasing numbers started to capitulate to the Wall Streets demands on regulating their blood sucking hood predators like Pay Day Loan and Rent-to-Own companies
  3. In 2008 the CBC Foundation which had raised over $55 million dollars from 2004-2008 spent more on a lavish banquet for ($700,000) than they did in scholarships that they awarded.

Again. As individuals the CBC members have little to worry about as far as being traded but as a collective the Black Delegation can do much better so…