Actually, I don’t. I mean, I LIKE IT. But I don’t LOVE it.
No. We’re not talking about football. ‘Cause I do sorta love football.
I’m talking about basketball. KINDA.

The All-Star weekend was this weekend!
And I missed MOST of it. But I didn’t miss this:
Kevin Hart getting’ schooled by 13 year old Mo’ne Davis at the Celebrity Basketball game.
DAAAAMN son.

It was in New York. And, I don’t know if you know this, but it was DAMN COLD in New York.
I mean…I don’t think it was Boston cold, but JEEZ.
Boston is currently so cold it’s making the news.
But we are NOT talking about Boston having the snowiest month in history.
We’re talking about New York news. HISTORY if you wanna get technical.
BLACK HISTORY if you wanna be exact. And I do. OBVIOUSLY.

Did you know that TODAY in 1951, New York City Council Passes Bill Prohibiting Racial Discrimination in Public Housing Developments? The bill was directed mainly at the Stuyvesant Town housing project, which was a public-private partnership project owned by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and the City of New York.

(Imagine that: An insurance with a history of discrimination dating back to when it was called National Union Life & Limb and was insuring Civil War soldiers AND The City of New York that EVEN TODAY IN 2015 unfairly targets African Americans under the “Stop-and-Frisk” policy* were being discriminating against black folks. Who’da thunk it?).

Managers of the housing development prohibited African American tenants and dispossessed residents who had been active in the campaign to end racial discrimination. Lawsuits were filed on the basis that the project was public- or semi-public, and violated anti-discrimination laws for New York City public housing, which were rarely enforced.

One month later, the Brown-Issacs Bill became law in New York City, making racial discrimination in public housing developments a misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine and prison term for the owner of any housing development constructed with public assistance to discriminate on account of race, color, or nationality.

And everybody lived happily ever after.

OR. Maybe 50+ years later on a different coast, in 2003, the Housing Rights Center of Los Angeles filed a housing discrimination case against Donald Sterling on behalf of 18 tenants. The lawsuit featured several racist statements allegedly made by Sterling to employees. While the final terms for the plaintiffs were confidential, the settlement obtained by the plaintiffs against Sterling was one of the largest of its kind and the public benefit terms were significant and wide-ranging.

AND THEN, In 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice then sued Sterling for housing discrimination for using race as a factor in filling some of his apartment buildings. In November 2009, ESPN reported that Sterling agreed to pay a fine of $2.7 million to settle claims brought by the Justice Department that Sterling engaged in discriminatory rental practices against Hispanics, blacks, and families with children.

But I was sorta talking about basketball, wasn’t I?
WELL. My BLACK History FOTD was about New York. And how it’s (still) racist.
But I’m feeling generous, because it’s President’s Day and I’m mad I have to work and y’all don’t
AND I know how some white folks get all riled up because THEY DON’T HAVE A WHITE HISTORY MONTH.
AND since now we have both white AND (one) black Presidents
I’ll also leave you with this White History fact.

In 2014, Donald Sterling became the first white owner of a basketball team who was stripped of his ownership and banned from the NBA fo’ life.
For being a racist who got caught being racist.

Just like that I brought it full circle. Like a basketball.

*Since nobody has developed a sarcasm font, I’m just gonna designate COMIC SANS. Because you can’t be taken seriously AND also use comic sans. You can do one or the other. But not both.

Nisha (MY SISSIE!), George, (Char)Maine, Cricket. Hey Now!
This would be TSU Homecoming 2012.

I started goin’ to my sissie’s Tennesee State homecomings back when she was a student.
And kept goin’ back because DAMN. That’s how you get live, y’all.
I enjoyed it so much that I insisted our cousin who went to ‘SC go because, sorry USC, THAT is not a homecoming.

TO BE FAIR, I suppose. At USC you go for the football.
And at HBCUs, it’s all about the Band.
I mean, yeah..all Colleges/Universities have bands, but HBCU GOT BANDS THAT MAKE YOU DANCE
(I promise that’s not Oscar winner, Juicy J guys. It’s safe to click)

ANYWAYS. Since we’re talking about HBCU bands, and we are, let’s talk about sommore black history. ‘Cause it’s still February.
In the US, black marching bands formed as part of the military with the earliest musicians being fifers, drummers, trumpeters and pipers in Colonial-era militias.
Historians believe that nearly 5,000 Blacks were integrated in the pre-revolutionary war military as musicians, because most units banned black, mulattos, or native Americans in the military from bearing arms.
(AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….*deep breath* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *cough*…. I wonder why?)

By the end of the Civil War, there were 185,000 black men inducted into the army as “United States Colored Troops”. Many would stay on after the war to form the first black units, while others went on to play in civilian bands.
Marching Bands had become integrated into the American Society by the late 19th century, including the first permanent black Minstrel troupes with one led by W.C. Handy.
These black Minstrel groups helped disseminate African-American styles of music and dance across the country.

Between 1880-1910 there were about 10,000 bands in the US, with many of them being Marching Bands. This was also the case in the African-American Community, especially in New Orleans, where black bands helped to raise money for numerous causes. Additionally, there was a rise in rural, self-taught bands that were strongly rooted in gospel and secular music- they basically replaced the voice using their instruments. Much of the music of these bands was characterized by offbeat phasing, polyrhythms, melodies and countermelody, syncopation and call-and-response patterns; all of which are hallmarks of other forms of African-American vernacular music. By the turn of the century, these bands were firmly established in New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz and the blues.

During World War I, many black military units again had military bands. Upon their return to the US in 1919, many of these musicians went on to join the faculty of the budding music departments of black college and universities.
These bands were initially formed at these historically black colleges to help raise money. Traditionally, many of these marching bands were linked to the ROTC and supported by the athletic department. The first marching band to deviate the military drill type formations was the University of Illinois band, who formed letters, words and intricate patterns on the field while playing in 1905. Their band director, Albert Austin Harding is considered a pioneer of the modern marching band.

Likewise at HBCUs numerous faculty set up the foundation for the modern black marching bands, including Major Nathaniel Clark Smith, the first officially titled Band Director at an HBCU. AND. W.C Handy, who joined the faculty at Alabama A&M leading to the adoption of the minstrel band style into HBCU bands. By the 1960’s, HBCU marching bands had developed a distinctive performance style and tradition which will have folks who didn’t even GO to an HBCU harassing you to find out when is your next homecoming so they can be down there boogying with the band. And also drinking. Because it’s time to GET GEEKED Y’ALL, IT’S HOMECOMING WEEK, which means the Alpha Day party right after you leave the Battle of the Bands, WHICH ALSO MEANS DAY DRINKING. And football. I’m pretty sure there’s also a football game or something too.

A couple months before my 20th birthday, I went on a Hawaiian vacation and came back married.
See. What had happened was, I was engaged to be married, right?
And then we started talking logistics.
Like, how many people are we gonna invite?
Where do you wanna get married?
(I’ve always wanted an outdoor wedding! And I got one! Waimea Beach Park. 10/10 would recommend)
HOW MUCH IS THIS GONNA COST?

ANYWAYS. Nesto has just gotten back from Korea (I think?) and was finally back in Hawaii.
I had never been to Hawaii and so I decided it would a great idea for me and Adam (age 2) to visit before he moved to another duty station.
And then we decided that since the gang’s all here, Let’s Get Married!
Basically I spent year twenty BBQing at Kailua Beach or at the E-Club with one other Marine Wife and 10 other Marines.
Yeah. Me at age 20 is sorta like me at age 42. Just stateside. And substitute partying at Kailua Beach/E-Club for sleeping on my couch.

Some people, though were out there doin’ shit and making history.

Take Vanessa Williams, for instance.
When SHE was 20, Miss Vanessa Lynn Williams because the First African American crowned Miss America.
Williams’ reign as Miss America was not without its challenges and controversies.
For the first time in pageant history, a reigning Miss America was the target of death threats and hate mail.
I can’t imagine WHY. I mean, she was as qualified as all of the other contestants, right? Hmmm…WHAT WAS DIFFERENT?

Ten months into her reign as Miss America, she received an anonymous phone call stating that nude photos of her taken before her pageant days had surfaced. Williams believed the photographs were private and had been destroyed; she claims she never signed a release permitting the photos to be used. After days of media frenzy and sponsors threatening to pull out of the upcoming 1985 pageant, Williams, feeling pressured by Miss America Pageant officials to resign, did so on July 23, 1984. The title subsequently went to the first runner-up, Suzette Charles, also an African American.

(There was a back-up black person on deck! I know. I’m so petty. Don’t care!)

Although she resigned from fulfilling the duties of a current Miss America, Williams was allowed to keep the bejeweled crown and scholarship money and is officially recognized by the Miss America Organization as “Miss America 1984”; Charles is recognized as “Miss America 1984-b”

She went on to do SO! MUCH! MORE! with her life. She went on to have a music career, and an acting career on stage and film/TV.
And to think this all maybe never woulda happened if someone hadn’t been trying to ruin her life over a youthful indiscretion.

Spank turns 20 this year! I can’t wait to see what her 20th year is gonna be like. I mean, aside from year 3 at BU (WTF? How is that even possible?!).
I feel like if 18 and 19 are any indication, 20 is gonna be equally memorable. I’m excited! I love watching her live her life! I’m glad I managed to get her this far, and she’s mostly taking it from here. I mean the best we can do is raise them right and not have some trigger happy racist asshole gun them down while they are minding their own business because to THEM you don’t belong and then have to justify even in death why your life matters and you deserved a chance to live it even if you ARE wearing a hoodie* hope that they get a chance to live their lives and make you proud.

*Also in people who WOULD have been 20 years old: Today is birth date of Trayvon Martin. Murdered 21 days after his birthday because post-racial America is not really past race at all.