Kids These Days 84

I am so glad I don't have or want kids. A lot of it is because I know that I could not raise a kid in this insane ass world or keep them away from using the internet and likely trying dumb shit like this Skull Breaker Challenge. I guess if the intent is to ruin someone's life it could be considered a challenge. There have been so many that I don't keep track of and write about and stumbled upon this bullshittery. This is not a challenge or a prank. This is assault. I'm not someone who cries wolf...often. But if I had a kid that participated in this I would leave them at a fire station regardless of how old they were or treat them like a parent in the 80's. Translate that however you want.

This ”challenge” consists of having three people standing side by side. The one in the middle, let's call them the victim, jumps up in the air and has their legs swept from underneath them while in the air. They are told they will all jump up at once because you are likely doing this with friends and believe that your friends wouldn't try and change your brain chemistry. I watched a video showing multiple examples of this and I had to stop it. This is coming from someone who watches MMA, wrestling, and boxing. Seeing people hit the back of their heads makes me super cringe because I have done it so many times. The most memorable was chasing someone around a pool and landing back of my head first. There is no other feeling like that. Thankfully I was not knocked out. That happened running into a door face first playing tag a year prior.

Man Sues Over Sexy Super Bowl

Sometimes there are things I hear or read that make me question my testosterone levels. There is this dude that wants to sue because he is upset about the performance during halftime by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. By the way this dude, Dave Daubenmire, is a Christian activist with a podcast. I saw most of the performance and I didn't even have a wiggle down there. Dave on the other hand is worried about his soul and the penises of those in his home. “Could I go into a courtroom and say, 'Viewing what you put on that screen put me in danger of hellfire'? Are we going to protect our children or not? Would that halftime show, would that have been rated PG? Were there any warnings that your 12-year-old son - whose hormones are just starting to operate - was there any warning that what he was going to see might cause him to get sexually excited?” Will someone please think of the children?!

I know after Janet Jackson blessed us sixteen years ago (yes, it was that damn long ago!) people are always worried about anything sexy happening during the performances. For those of you too young to remember Miss Jackson and Justin Timberlake performed and at the very end of the show he yanked her top and it opened up and there was lady nipple live on TV. Next thing you know the FCC cracks down on anything that would offend anyone. Don't worry about the fact that the NFL has close to 300 concussions per year. That's fine! But them asses shaking? Two asses?! At the same time?! That, my kind sir, is too much. Oh, and he wants to sue for $867 trillion. That is not even a real number. Just a weird dude looking for attention. “I'm looking for a lawyer to file a class action lawsuit against Pepsi, the NFL, my local cable company for pandering pornography, contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” If he considers that performance pornography he needs a good talking to. And did his son suddenly start wilding out after seeing this?

Dante Learns New Black History: Ida Bell Wells

Today I am gonna write about Ida Bell Wells-Barnett. What I will write is just a taste of her life. This lady did more before she died than I will accomplish if you gave me three more runs at the nonsense I have called my life. Source: me. She was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi on July 16th, 1862. Yeesh. I hear 18-anything and shudder. Her father was born a slave to his father who hired him out as a slave throughout town. Her mother was sold away from her own family and was never able to locate them. And don't forget, since her father was a slave Ida was also a slave. She was later “freed” after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. By the time she was 16 she had lost her parents and her brother because of the yellow fever. God, every time I do one of these posts I feel both miserable and happy that people existed and exist these days that did so much good shit even though their lives whomped. She took care of her other brothers and sisters while working as a teacher living with her grandmother. Ida was also one of the founding members of the NAACP which some say is debatable.

In 1884 she filed a lawsuit against a train car company for unfair treatment. She won the case but federally they were like “Nah.” Ida wrote about lynchings in America which did not make people happy. She pointed out how it was aimed towards Blacks when it was feared that they were doing well. So of course they ended up burning her newspaper office down. She brought this up after one of her friends was lynched by a mob. She traveled the world telling about how America was lynching the fuck out of Black people. She also spoke about White women that sat by ignoring the lynchings. They didn't like that. She was fighting for Black rights and the rights of women but each of those groups had issues with her. She created the NACWC (National Association of Colored Women's Club) that dealt with civil rights issues and issues for women. I hope theme music played whenever this lady entered the room. I would imagine Rock Steady by Aretha Franklin.

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Dante Learns New Black History: Cathay Williams

It is time to play catch up because it is already the 4th day of Black History Month and my ass haven't posted in days. Today I heard about this lady named Cathay Williams who was born in September 1844. She was the first Black woman to enlist in the United States Army...as a man! That's right! She used the name William Cathay. Surprise, y'all! She was born in Independence, Missouri to a father that was free and a mother that was a slave. Which means that she was a slave. Isn't it fucked up how that works? While working as a slave in Jefferson City the Union forces would straight up claim Black folk as contraband and and force them to help support the military as nurses and cooks.

Women were not allowed to serve in the military so Cathay used a fake name and served for three years. She passed a medical examination which makes me wonder what these consisted of. Probably made sure you could hold a weapon or lift something kinda heavy. It is said only two people knew she was a lady: a friend and a cousin. Y'all be sleeping on how loyal cousins are! Keep your brothers and sisters. Cousins are the shit. After her enlistment she got smallpox and then joined her unit. She started getting sick more often and after having surgery the doctor discovered that Cathay was a woman. She was then discharged and her life got pretty miserable after that. Why? She was a Black woman living in the 1800's, that's why. In September in 1893 a doctor said that she did not qualify for disability payments despite the fact that she served in the military, had a nerve disease, and diabetes where she had all her toes amputated. There are two other not Black women who were able to get coverage but...yeah. Black. 1800's. Eventually I am gonna cover something that is really cool or funny. I mean, its cool that she was able to do what she did and fight in the military back then. But damn. Also it seems I wrote about her five years ago...

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Dante Learns New Black History: Onesimus

I have written about Famous Black Firsts. Cool Shit Black People Invented. And Random Civil Rights Moments. I have not done any posts about Black History Month in a few years. No particular reason other than being a lazy ass. By the time I finish this I'll come up with some title for it. Until then let me talk a little bit about a guy named Onesimus. I have never heard of this guy and am not sure how to even pronounce his name. One-Si-Mus? O-Knee-Suh-Miss? Either way no one is sure when he was born or where. All's we know is that he was born in the late 1600's. He was first documented as a slave living in the colonies in 1706. Onesimus was given as a gift to a Puritan minister named Cotton Mather. Read that sentence again. A human was given as a gift. This Mather fellow was also a big part of the Salem Witch Trials. I'm not gonna even get into that. Mather saw something special in Onesimus and taught him to read and write though at the time that was associated with religion and business so he learned but it was likely for note taking and work. Sounds fun. Also, he was named after a slave in the bible. That's some bullshit.

In 1721 Boston got a taste of the smallpox. Mather's got the idea to inoculate people based off of what he learned from Onesimus. It is said that before being sold into slavery that Onesimus was once inoculated based off of a long practice of doing so back in Africa by sub-Saharan folks. As Mather put it when reporting what Onesimus told him “People take Juice of Small-Pox; and Cutty-skin, and Putt in a Drop.” Mather and Onesimus thought that this disease was a punishment from God and that this cure was a gift. Mather also wanted more religion in politics. People were skeptical because racism and did not trust African methods and thought they would try to overthrow White people. There was even a thing called The Acts And Resolves that was passed in Boston that had race based punishments. Eventually the medical community got tired of watching people just die because they were being stubborn. Out of 242 patients only 2 died compared to 844 out of 5,899 that were not inoculated. It wasn't until 1796 that someone else made a vaccination for smallpox By 1980 smallpox was no longer a thing. Until one of you people decide to not vaccinate your kid and all that weird old school shit returns. If you don't know what smallpox looks like don't look that shit up.