Profunksticated

Just returned from some personal business in the Upper Midwest. I chatted up some very pleasant, clean-cut young white guys in a quick-lube place about mostly football, baseball and some hoops. (These Midwesterners are serious about their team spectator athletics.) One of them told me of his plans to find new job opportunities in upstate New York, and the other commented about my knowledge of sports.

I thanked him and said I wished I could get paid for said sports knowledge. I also said I was just as adept at discussing politics and the life and death shit that happens in the world, but sports is safer. Then I paid the guy $35 for the oil and lube.

As I drove away, I had a revelation: If I ever run my own large company, I’d hire as my sales staff a bunch of white folk from the Upper Midwest, e.g., Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc. Why? C’mon, isn’t it obvious? These guys are pleasant, unlike the obnoxious white ethnics that populate the East Coast or the Stars and Bars-waving racists from the old Confederacy. Most of my clients are probably gonna be white-run entities anyway, so why not send their skinfolk calling?

You might be thinking, "Hey, Profunk, you should be hiring black people." Yeah, you’re right, I’ll have my skinfolk in the administrative and back office jobs. But let me remind you — this army of salespeople would be white folk, caucausian kids from what I regard as the one of the least racist regions of the United States, bringing in the revenue – the dollars, the Benjamins, the guap, the cheese – to ME, an American-born black man. End of discussion. Peace.

Why Profunksticated as a handle? Thank George Clinton, Bill’s 10th cousin four times removed. The name is derived from a cut of the 1975 album Mothership Connection called "Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication."  One of my boys tagged me with this nickname as his way of saying I used too many big words in my speech.

I guess I talked too much like a white guy. Oh well. More about me:

• Black male born in late 1950s, now in my late 40s. Child of school integration.
• Married, three kids. Live on East Coast. Bachelor’s Degree from Big State School in the South that didn’t allow blacks until the early 1960s.
• Didn’t come from a family of black activists — my churchgoing kin are too heavenly minded to be thinking about earthly things.
• Former user of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines and crack. Now part of a 12-step program.
• Former serial adulterer. The only way to stop was to confess to The Spouse three years ago, did so on the advice of a minister friend. Most of my fucks were crimes of opportunity (you know, on out of town trips and the like, although I called myself having feelings for a couple of these women). The Spouse was pissed hurt, devastated, you name it, for a good two years. But she’s a good woman, amazingly forgiving me instead of shanking me in the neck with an icepick.
• The above two points were result of a delayed adolescent rebellion that lasted well into my 30s.
• Wanted to be a goody two-shoes Negro as a kid, but found the bad ones got the attention (and the pussy.)
• My desire to be a good little boy didn’t stop that be-yatch of a first grade teacher from making me sit on a wastebasket as if taking a shit for the crime of doodling on construction paper she handed out.
• Little racial consciousness growing up, other than my angry father grumbling about "the white folks." Hey at least he was there. Didn’t know what the KKK was until I heard Red Foxx crack a joke about it  on an episode of Sanford and Son.
• Heavily influenced by white media. Watched a lot of TV, including Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. animation. Read a lot of Beverly Cleary growing up.
• Somehow hoodwinked my way into media, specifically newspapers, but got honest with myself and figured out I got into journalism more as an ego boost than as a public service.
• Among things I hate: Hypocrisy, racism, selfishness (including my own) and the attitudes of corporate upper managers (they are some obstructive whiny-ass motherfuckers if I ever saw any).
• I love God, although He pisses me off at times. Don’t worry, I’ve told Him. We’re still cool.

As we say in the program, keep coming back. Later.