It's been a hectic week y'all. My computer died on me while I was writing a 12-page paper, and you guessed it: I didn't back it up on a disk. So I slaved away past four in the morning, went to Dupre's computer lab so as to not disturb my roommate's sleep, mind you, I still had reading and work in my other classes—you figure the last thing I need in my life is a racial confrontation, right? Right. Well, let's say life threw me a curve ball, cause that's what I got anyway. If you're thinking about a black entourage staring down a cackling group of white students, you couldn't be more wrong. I wasn't even the main person involved.

I was watching TV.

The setting was the pool room where me and my boy were shooting some pool (I know I was busy, but I needed a break). After growing tired of being massacred game after game, my boy decided he wanted to watch BET's Comic View. As much as BET makes me mad and disappointed because of the negative and stereotypical messages they send to my little cousins and all the other black youth living in America, I have learned to accept and detach myself from the sambos they put in front of the cameras. As the theme music came on, I saw something that I haven't seen in a while: the shame that has scarred black people since our emancipation. The lone other African-American person in the room asked my friend to turn the TV off. My friend, who is black but not a black American, was somewhat annoyed that the TV had been on most of the time and only now had someone asked that it be turned off. He asked, "Why can't we watch it?" She replied that she was trying to study, even though she had been able to study with the TV on prior to Comic View coming on. As my friend was about to further pursue the subject, I interjected and told him "Just rack the balls up." She later thanked me.

Naw, she didn't want to study. She just didn't want to face the prospect of being in a room full of white people laughing at the image of black buffoons, something that is still an American pastime (see minstrel shows, In Living Color and yes, Chris Tucker). This incident reminded me of just how much racist images can hurt, especially when we do have close relationships with white people. It's hard enough to digest the images when I'm with black people, but even harder when I see whites laughing at the spectacle of modern day minstrelsy, which is shrouded in a historical context of white superiority. So a message to all: please understand the cultural implications of what you may be watching. And to all the non-black-American students: please realize that when you consume racist images of us (like the ode to white femininity "Save the Last Dance"), you not only play into America's cultural degradation of African-Americans but you actually participate in the assault on my character and the character of all other black people in this country.

Now let me finish this goddamn paper.