What do all of the following humans have in common?

Morgan Freeman

Bill Cosby

Ruby Dee

Barak Obama

Michelle Obama

Maya Angelou

Lawrence Fishbourne

Give up?  Okay, I know it’s a tricky one.  Here’s the answer:

They are all American Black people who know how to prounounce the three-letter word that means “to inquire.”

No, I don’t for a minute think that most black folks in America are dyslexic.  I don’t think the majority of black people in America are ignorant.

So why, in the name of sweet tapdancing Jesus, do so few of them prounounce this tiny word correctly?

Since I have trouble believing that so many people cannot work out the phonics of the following three letters

a  s  k

then I have to open myself up the possibility that it’s a deliberate thing.  Is that what it is?  Is it a black thing?  Am I just too damn white to understand it?

Well if so, then it’s true, I cannot.  If it’s “a black thing, ”  meaning some kind of mark of racial pride, what an idiotic choice.  “Hey everyone!  Let’s show how great we are by misprouncing a three letter word!  That’ll show The Man!”  That’s about as dumb as whenever someone accuses Muslims of being violent, and then thousands of deeply offended Muslims respond by burning things down.

Why celebrate ignorance?  That to me seems as socially and spiritually bankrupt as the hip-hop culture, whose every facet is designed to glamorize prison life (that’s the reason for the baggy pants dangling to the floor . . . the first thing that happens in prison is that they take away your belt).

I fervently hope that when Barak Obama becomes our next President, people will not only listen to what he says, but listen to HOW he says it.  Maybe then, FINALLY, I won’t have to cringe every time I hear the word “aks.”