VH1's Black to the Future

Because there is no facet of the universe that VH1 won't cover, and employ every D-list (and lower) celebrity in doing so ...

There was an episode of the ol' "Chappelle Show" where Dave Chappelle was showing sketches that didn't make the cut (except by making this show, they did ... that should have been a foreshadowing of things to come), and one of these sketches was Dave's revisionist look at "Def Comedy Jam," except it was supposed to be a "Def Comedy Poetry Jam," (even though there's already been one of those for real). One of the poets is Dave himself, dressed in African gard and standing before some bongos, and he carefully explains that "White people .... *bonka-bonka-bonka* ... do this ... and black people ... *BONK BONK BONK* ... do that ..."

That sketch embodies the entirety of every episode that I watched of "Black to the Future." I watched 1.5 of them before I got sick of things like, "Yeah, when the Million Man March came to town, all the white people was grabbin' they kids, running away screamin' 'They comin', they comin'!'" Or how you don't see no white people drinking forties (bullshit!). Maybe someday we can stop mining the bottom of the racial barrels for laughs ... but not anytime soon, if VH1 can help it.

Next up: VH1's Injunuity - A look back at influential Native Americans in popular culture. Tonto, Tatanka, John Redcorn ... and that's all I got.