Archives for the month of: February, 2015
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So how’s the Brat doing in school? Glad you asked!

February 5, 2015 //
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Pretty good! Or at least she better be.

Because she’s forever at hockey games.

FOREVER.
SO I’M JUST ASSUMING THAT ALL OF HER HOMEWORK IS DONE.

She feels about hockey the way I feel about USC Football.
Yesterday she got home in the middle of the night
‘cause the BU v Harvard game (BEANPOT game) went into double OT.
(BU won 4-3. Go Terriers! Good dogs!)
And of course I get pics.

‘Spanky

‘Cause that’s my girl. (I’m kiddin’…EVERYONE KNOWS she’s daddy’s girl)

And there’s this one time THIS happened:

family texts
Well would you look at that. A unicorn!

Or actually, yannow. A black bear?
Well. Technically, that there is Malcolm Hayes, of the University of Maine Black Bears.
I’m sure there’s a completely inappropriate joke in there, but I’m just gonna let it be.
This time.

I know. Black people don’t like to be cold. We are a tropical people.
Or at least I am. I start falling apart around 60 degrees.
BUT. Turns out black folks been playin’ hockey as long as hockey has been around.
In Halifax, Nova Scotia, there was a black hockey league. The league, which started as an informal game among African settlers in Nova Scotia, grew into a makeshift colored league.
It wasn’t an officially sanctioned league of any kind but group of devoted black hockey enthusiasts providing entertaining games to around 1,500 mostly white folk.

One of the earliest blacks in the sport of hockey was Hipple “Hippo” Galloway. Better known as a barnstorming baseball player, Galloway was a star player on his hometown on the Central Ontario Hockey Association, as well as the local baseball team.

Galloway left his hometown in 1899 after an American import on the baseball team objected to his inclusion on the team.

In the late 1940’s, the was Herb Carnegie, star of the Quebec Senior Hockey League. Those who saw Carnegie play describe him as one of the fastest and most skilled players ever.
Carnegie should have been the first in the NHL had it not been for the “alleged prejudice” of the day.
Unlike football, baseball or basketball, the NHL never had an official policy banning blacks from playing.
But there were suspicions of an unofficial policy, especially when Toronto Maple Leaf owner Conn Smythe is said to have said, “I’ll give any man $10,000 who can make Herb Carnegie white.”

All of the side eye. ALL OF IT!

TO BE FAIR, I guess, Carnegie would get a shot at the NHL later in his career. The New York Rangers gave him a training camp tryout, and offered him a contract but they wanted him to apprentice a year in the minor leagues. Carnegie said FUUUCKTHAT and returned home to his young family in Quebec where he earned more money than he would have in the NHL. So there.

It was not until January 18, 1958 when Willie O’Ree took to the ice for the Boston Bruins (I just can’t get away from Boston, y’all) in a game against the Montreal Canadians that a black man would debut in the NHL. By doing so O’Ree ensured himself a place in hockey history as the “Jackie Robinson of hockey.” Or maybe “Willie O’Ree, First Black Hockey Player” I dunno.

ANYWAYS. To date there’s been 52 black folks who have played in the NHL.
Including Gerald Coleman- First graduate of NHL’s diversity program.

Look at us, y’all.
We outchea. Freezing our asses off.

Categories BHFOTD, Moments with The Brat

SUGAR*

February 3, 2015 //
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YOU GUYS. I am tired.
Because I decided to NOT workout yesterday morning, I decided to do a workout after work.
A few things:
1. I am a morning person.
2. I hate leaving the house after I’ve already taken off my work pants.
a. That’s a metaphor. I almost always wear dresses.
3. I HATE WORKING OUT IN THE EVENING.

ANYWAYS.
Because going to the gym is an exercise in aggravation after 5PM
And I can’t burn any calories staring angrily at people hogging machines or sighing loudly at people blocking the way chit chatting,
I decided on Zumba! Because I do hate working out at night, but this is DANCING!
And if there’s anything that people like to stereotype black people liking more’n music, it’s DANCING.

I haven’t been to a Zumba class in FOREVER.
But rest assured when I DO go, and they are randomly playing Nicki Minaj,
Of all the black people in this class, the instructor comes RIGHT UP TO ME and I end up in some sort of weird dance battle.
Because NO SENOR (sorry, no tilde), you are not getting ready to drop it lower than me.
Also be absolutely positive that my body is gonna make me pay for that later.
(oy! My hip!)

What? Onika in a Zumba class? YES.
Zumba is a mixture of hip hop, with some salsa, soca and such thrown in.
There is nothing more fun that going from La Vida es un Carnival to the Ying Yang twins.
And really the beats are easily interchanged. Probably because some of them have African roots.
Because even though people like to pretend that latinos only look like J.Lo and Shakira
Black People are EVERYWHERE.

celia

This pretty Afro-Latina is Ursula Hilaria Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso of Havana.

That a LOT of names. Let’s just call her Celia Cruz for short.
She first gained recognition in the 1950s, as a singer with the orchestra Sonora Matancera. She relocated to the United States after the ascent of Fidel Castro in 1961.
The social culture in New York — where she lived — was beginning to change, as a massive infusion of Latino youth entered the city.
Cruz plunged into the New York music scene, filled with musicians from across the Caribbean and Latin America.
She began a musical relationship with Tito Puente began in 1966 and lasted until 1973. Together, they recorded memorable numbers such as “Aquarius,” which brought Cruz closer to the new musical landscape that was developing in New York City during the 1960s and 70s. This new sound came to be called salsa —music born of Cuban and other Afro-Latin mixed musical traditions. By 1971, it was an important genre with a record label, Fania, devoted solely to it.

Cruz put salsa music on the map at a time when most Latinos didn’t have their own special kind of music that they could relate to their culture.
Whites had stolen and claimed rock music; blacks had soul music.
Now, thanks to Celia Cruz, Latinos had salsa music.
She not only pioneered the genre of salsa, but was one of the most popular salsa artists of the 20th century.
She is known all over the world as “The Queen of Salsa”

*AZUCAR! : When Cruz shouts, “Azucar!” it’s an allusion to the African slaves that worked on the sugar plantation in Cuba and the violent history of slavery on the island.

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Are you ready for some (more) Football?

February 3, 2015 //
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Welcome, welcome WELCOME to this year’s Black History Facts of the Day.
Another year, another February, another time for me to tell y’all about stuff black people do, did, and sometimes had done to them. Are you excited kids?

TOO BAD. You signed up for this, so you’re stuck.
Anyways, how y’all been? Good? Y’all been enjoying/resigning yourself to random BHFOTDs that I post just to keep y’all on your toes?

So did uh…anybody watch the game yesterday?
I did. And lemme just say: I am a New England Patriot hater. And USUALLY, I want all the bad things in life to happen to Tom Brady, and nobody but him.

But TODAY, I’m currently wishing that Pete Carroll gets ALL the bad things because WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU CALL THAT PLAY, PETER?
YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE A DAMN PROFESSIONAL AND THAT WAS THE STUPIDEST THING YOU EVER DID
EVER. That includes that USC Bullshit that you pulled, sir. FUCK YOU* AND THE TEENY TINY HORSE YOU RODE IN ON.

*AHEM* I’m back. As you can see I have FEELINGS about Pete Carroll. AND ALL OF THEM ARE ANGRY.

Moving Along!
It’s the day after the Super Bowl, I guess it would be a good time to talk about BLACK PEOPLE IN FOOTBALL.
And because I’m tired, because football + whiskey + 2 hour ride (I’m not a great passenger, I’ll admit it) I’ll keep this quick.

Y’all know I LOVE to start of Black History with firsts, so here you go!

DID YOU KNOW that Seattle Seahawk Russell Carrington Wilson (born in 1988 and is NOT related to Wilson, the ball makers. I bet HIS balls are fully inflated. His FOOTBALLS. You know what? Nevermind) led the Seahawks to its FIRST EVER Super Bowl victory in 2013.

AND:

Russell Wilson was born the year that Johnny Grier became the FIRST EVER African-American referee in the history of the NFL with the start of the 1988 NFL season.
Grier has officiated in one Super Bowl, Super Bowl XXII in 1988, which was his last game as a field judge (which apparently is different than a ref)

ALSO:

THE SAME YEAR in which Doug Williams became the first African-American quarterback to win the Super Bowl (Washington Racial Slurs** (42) vs. Denver Broncos (10)).

….And the green grass grows all around all around and the green grass grows all around.

So that’s it for today kids.

The NFL has been around since 1920 and black people have been playing in it since the beginning (more or less. Because racists gonna try to keep black players from playing because of racists coaches and also because the Great Depression led to an increase in racism and segregation until finally some (black) people pointed out the NFL didn’t have any black players and that they needed to abide by the 1896 Supreme Court decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, by not leasing the stadium to a segregated team…*cough* race? )
And it took 68 years to have ONE Black referee. And then ANOTHER 20 YEARS before Mike Carey was the FIRST African American designated as referee of Super Bowl XLII between the New England Patriots (17) vs New York Giants (14).

WOO. PROGRESS. (*side eye*)

*Wouldn’t be a Black History fact without song, right?
**Y’all. I need somebody to make me a t-shirt that says Washington Racial Slurs. I’d wear THEFUCK outta that shirt. FOR REALS.

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