Scribbler's Rave & Favorite Five: Tuesday Night at the Movies, #1 The 40-Year-Old Virgin

When you see previews for a movie, it's a crap shoot; some movies are exactly what they appear to be while others are either much better or precipitously worse than expected.  I knew that The 40-Year-Old would be special just from the trailer, but neither did I expect it to be a lifelong fanatic over it nor that it would eventually become my favorite movie ever.  Now I have many friends and fellow movie buffs who totally understand why The 40-Year-Old Virgin tops the list because they spit out their milk several times watching it.  However, I'm sure that there are those of you who have stayed the course with this edition of my "Rave & Favorite Five" and are thinking, "You had Friday, The Last Dragon and Coming to America on this list...you mean to tell me that this is your No. 1 movie of all time?!?!"  To the latter section of the population, I say two things: 1) it's my countdown and 2) have we met?!?!  If you've ever seen this movie and know half of what you claim to know about me, then how can you not think of me when the plot has me written all over it?  Furthermore, no matter what kind of day, week, month or year I've been having, this has always been one of those movies that has never not been funny.  Nevertheless, allow me to fill in the blank if you're still drawing one as I present my five favorite things about The 40-Year-Old Virgin...

Get Down or Sit Down, Part 2: The Great Distraction and the Erasure of "Black"

The need for understanding and recognition is as natural for human beings as eating, sleeping and dropping three hot ones a day.  (BTW...if you're not doing the latter, then step your whole grains and water games up, slim.  I drop PSAs within PSAs.)  However, Black people, who weren't even legally considered 100 percent human for 78 of their first 246 years in this country, have struggled mightily with those basic human needs more than most other races in American society.  Between erasing and replacing our entire heritage, language, religion and culture, it was clear from the outset that we were a disposable people.  Pepper in some of the most heinous acts in world history including but not limited to all of American slavery, the Black Wall Street Massacre of 1921 that killed over 3,000 Black people and the gruesome murder of 14-year-old Emmitt Till and it was even more apparent.  So when you have groups of people who insist on changing the hashtag as well as the narrative from #BlackLivesMatter to "#AllLivesMatter" or "#BlueLivesMatter", Black people are once again faced with the harsh reality of living in a country full of revisionist historians who don't understand why we've been saying variations of "Black Lives Matter" since forever.  Hence, as I soldier on with Part 2 of "Get Down or Sit Down", I will attempt to unveil how these assertions of which lives matter cunningly detract from Black people's issues...