An Open Letter to My People

Sometimes you people can be so ungrateful.

Seriously, sometimes y'all make a black prophet feel like he ain't nothing. Just two years ago I gave you all the greatest tome in the history of black literature, and then I followed that up with a sequel of damn near equal brillance.

I thought we had forged a Covenant, that could not be broken by credit card debt or boring ass television shows.

I showed all of you exactly how to rise above your mediocre lives and embrace the fullness of being credits to your race. This was only one of 28 books that I've pawned off, I mean provided to you all for you edification.

But, do my people, my children, appreciate my efforts? Do you praise me and gladly line up to provide your names, incomes and spending habits for my annual pimping, er, uplifting of the black community?

No, no you don't because greatness is rarely recognized during its zenith. Instead, you all have turned your backs on a real member of DuBois' famed Talented Tenth, have run off to support the first mulatto who bats his eyes at you. Despite the years I put in working for upstanding black companies like BET, and the partnerships I've forged with community benefactors like Wal-Mart, you raisin-heads swallow this smooth-talking socialite's tripe about hope and change like it's Cold Duck.

Obama has your noses so wide open I could land a 747 on your faces. His every comment has y'all swooning. You've forgotten the years I spent at podiums and book signings making the world a better place in favor of some politician who claims he can bring about real change if you give him real power.

And this isn't just about how y'all have attacked me when I've spoken the unvarnished truth about this elitist imposter on Tom Joyner's Morning Show. No, I can handle the tripe you idiots spew, particularly all you bitter, lonely sistas speculating about my hidden love for white women.

For the last time, it's not white women keeping me single, but black women who haven't embraced the lessons of women like my mother. Maybe if you could cook and didn't have so much attitude you would have a man of your own.

Truthfully, I'm not even mad about that anymore. What really pisses me off is that you ingrates have started questioning white folks who have done so much for you like Hillary and Bill. How dare y'all try to think for yourselves and parse the words of your betters? What qualifies people like you to determine true intent of white folks?

It's just shameful.

So, I'm done. It's over.

Go ahead and embrace your new, favorite Negro, but don't forget this is the same domino who wouldn't even speak honestly about race until he had to defend his pastor!

AND I DON'T CARE IF HIS SPEECH WAS WONDERFUL. I could have done better.

It's all good. In fact, all of you can let this smooth talker fool you into believing that things will get better in this country, and you won't need me and my cronies to speak for you. Keep sipping that Kool-Aid. I don't need you. I have more pressing business to attend to.

Now, where did I put the program for my roundtable discussion with Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson on Black America?