Monday, January 22, 2007

How Historic

Hilary Clinton. Forest Whitaker. Tony Dungy. Eddie Murphy. Lovie Smith. Jennifer Hudson. Barack Hussein Obama. Nancy Pelosi. What do they have in common? In just three weeks, all have made 2007 a history making kinda year.

We went from wishing Black folk would get nominations to African-American candidates taking home three out of four of the major individual awards. Not to mention Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty - both minority creations - taking home the big TV honors. Dreamgirls, the Black "movie of the decade" (as noted by legit critics), won the globe for best musical or comedy movie. It was raining Black folk on Golden Globe night. Now let's see what the Oscar noms look like...

So far, no Black coach has made it to the Superbowl. We all remember Doug Williams' historic season that landed the first Black QB in the Superbowl. He gave us hope in the 80s and hope never looked so good back then. With AIDS, crack, bad fashion and hair trends, and Reagan, times were tough! But Warren Moon, Donovan McNabb, Michael Vick and Dante Culpeper - or any other Black QB - have yet to make it...let alone make it, win, and take home the MVP award. So, we've been aching for the next Black historic moment in football. You know we cling to this stuff like it holds meaning right? And maybe it does. But, it rarely adds up to the growth we expected. Okay, I got sidetracked, but the point is GO Lovie and Tony! We went from no Black coaches, in a Superbowl, to TWO going at each other in 2007. Shoot, Black coaches have a hard enough time landing a job. The league bullies teams into interviewing us. And now we're going head-to-head in the BIG game. How cool is that?! Maybe, just maybe, we can move to a point where these interview quotas aren't needed.

I remember, with great disdain, the moment the 2000 election was stolen…I mean won...by Bush. Oh what a night I had drowning my sorrows as I made plans for the end of days. Well, hopefully, we're actually going to make it to 2008. With Dems in the House and Senate, we just might have a shot. The year jumped off with history making Democratic news. We swore in the first Muslim and took over the House and Senate. But the biggest moment went to Nancy Pelosi our new Speaker of the House. Dressed in her designer duds and flanked with cutesy grandkids, she took the reigns and accomplished all of her 100 hour plans. Now that's mission accomplished!

I look forward to watching politics over the next two years. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out. We could be looking at our first female (Hillary Clinton) or Black (Barack) president! How historic.

Oh, no they didn't go and make history!

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