Where, O Where Have the DEI Hires Gone?

“Well, Scoops, Black History Month is just about over.  I used to have mixed feelings about it, but it grew on me.”

Fat Mack & The Boyz, by Derek Drake, OrlandoAdvocate.com

“Grew on you?”Uncle G is one of the smartest people I know— even if he was a cop before he retired. I just wish he’d stop calling me ‘Scoops.’

“Mixed feelings?” I pressed.   “Why?”

“Because our history is so ingrained in the history of this country,” he said, folding his newspaper and placing it on the table. “We ended up here— by force, min you— as early as 1619.”

“I knew that,” I responded.   

Shirley popped over to top off our coffees.  I used the opportunity to flirt.  She flirted back.  We’ve been engaged forever.  I’m saving up to be able to put down a fifty percent down payment on the house we decide on.  She told me that I have eight more months to make that happen, so I might only be able to put 30% down, but that’ll cut into a mortgage payment for sure.   

“The first man to die in the Revolutionary War was a black man named Crispus Attucks,” she said.  Uncle G smiled as Shirley poured cream into his coffee.  “He was killed during the Boston Massacre in 1770.”

“I knew that, too,” I told her.  It’s inexcusable to not know your history— even though slaveowners made it their business to strip enslaved black people of their histories, culture, and language.   It’s inexcusable because today, with all the internet search engines available, anyone can find out in minutes what would have taken days or even weeks to research decades ago. 

“Think about it,” Uncle G leaned in a little closer. “After slavery, black folk had absolutely nothing.  They were hated and despised— routinely intimidated and lynched.  We fought back but we were vastly outnumbered.  White folk just kept pouring into the country from European countries.   

“To justify slavery, they said we were lazy, and sub-intelligent.  But those same ex-slaves pulled themselves up by bootstraps they didn’t even own and managed to create Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Jackson Ward in Richmond, Virginia; Sweet Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia; The Fourth Ward in Houston, Texas; Bronzeville in Chicago, Illinois— and many more all over the country.  I’m talking about strongholds of African American business and culture.  Restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, insurance companies— white men could not stand to see their claims about us exposed as lies by our ingenuity and demonstrated intelligence despite a lack of formal education.”

“That’s why they kept burning us out,” Eddie said loudly.  “It hurt to see us do sh*t the poor white folk couldn’t do.”

“Do stuff and HAVE stuff,” Mack chided.

I laughed.  “Yeah, imagine how they felt when they began realizing that black men were the actual inventors of things they automatically attributed to whites.’

“Yeah,” Uncle G said.  

“Like Elijah McCoy,” I volunteered.

Uncle G looked like he had just had an epiphany.   He abruptly stood up and addressed the whole diner.  “Hey, sorry to interrupt your lunch, but let me test you guys’ black history knowledge.  Name something invented by a black man or woman that people in the country most likely don’t know was patented by us.”

People stopped eating and looked around, puzzled at first.  

“Way too many, Uncle G,” someone said loudly. “We’ll be here til dinner time.”

Then a guy sitting behind us raised his hand.  Uncle G said, ‘no hand-raising.  Just shout it out.’”

Oh, it was on.

“The traffic light,” the guy behind us said.  “Garrett Morgan.”

“The gas mask.”

“The ironing board.”

“The Laserphaco Probe revolutionized cataract surgery.”

“The helicopter.”

“Wait. What?”  Rick had come in just before the naming began.  He appeared confused.  “That can’t be true,” he said.  The helicopter?”  

“That’s right, Youngblood,” Uncle G shot back.  “You can’t wrap your head around a black man being responsible for that, can you?”

The woman who mentioned the helicopter, Tanya, nodded at Rick.  “Paul E. Williams invented the components of the ‘first useful helicopter.’  He patented ‘the first useful helicopter,’ called the Lockheed Model 186 (XH-51), on Nov. 26, 1962.”  She smiled.  “Yeah, I know a thing or two.“

Uncle G high-fived her.  “If you d looked over at Uncle G with a ‘you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me’ look on his face.

“Ice cream?  Really?” he asked.  

“Okay, actually what he invented was the modern method of manufacturing ice cream, using ‘rock salt.’  He revolutionized the ice cream making process. At 17 years of age, he became a cook at the White House and held that position for five years.”

“I got one. The roller coaster.  Granville T. Woods— otherwise known as ‘the black Edison.” 

“Hmmph,” Uncle G. grunted.  “Maybe Edison should have been known as the white Granville T.”

Shirley walked by with a tray of food for another table.  I threw her a smooch.  She stopped and kissed me on the cheek.  “Hey, if you don’t know,” she whispered in my ear, “you better ask somebody.”  Then she high-fived Uncle G again.

“The pencil sharpener.”  The naming continued.

”Ice cream.” 

Tanya looked over at Rick, and he shook his head violently. “Uh uh.  Nope.  No way.   Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.  Y’all just straight-up lying now.”

“Not really,” Tanya said.  “They don’t teach us that a black man worked with Edison.  His name was Lewis Latimer, and he was born in 1848.  That’s important because the slaves hadn’t been freed, yet.  Latimer improved Edison’s original design by developing a longer-lasting carbon filament that made electric lighting more efficient and affordable. And check this out:  his genius was so well known and recognized that Alexander Graham Bell recruited him to work on the telephone, and Latimer helped to draft the patent for that invention, too.”

“The multiplex telegraph.”

“The shoe-lasting machine.”

“The air conditioning unit— not air conditioning, now, so put your hand down, Rick— but the air conditioning unit.”

“Okay, okay,” Uncle G ended the call-outs. “Anybody know the story of the Tuskegee Airmen?”

Fast Eddie waved.  “You mean ‘the DEI hires’ white bombardier pilots chose over the white fighter pilots to protect them on their bombing runs?”

“Wait. What?” Rick asked.

“Yeah.  There were Black pilots the Air Force didn’t want to teach to fly at first, but then set up an all-black training unit.  They were taught to fly fighter jets.  The fighter jets would fly alongside the bigger bombardier planes on their mission to drop bombs against the enemy.  The fighter pilots’ job was to protect the bigger, slower bomb-carrying planes from enemy fighter jets trying to shoot them down. A lot of bombardiers got shot down.  But check this— not one plane escorted by the black pilots was ever shot down, ‘cause they took care of business.  They were known as the Red Tails.  So it wasn’t long before all the white pilots flying the bombardiers started asking for the Red Tails to protect them.  They flew over 15,000 missions.  Never lost a plane.  Where in the world are the black pilots when you need one?”

Uncle Willie beat me to it: “Trump fired ’em.”