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Do you remember a few months ago when people were unfriending folks left and right because they found out their friends were Donald Trump supporters or über-conservative or even sometimes closet racists? Yeah, that never happened to me. In fact, I’ve only had to side-eye a few people because of their pseudo-support for Bill Cosby, but never to the point of unfriending people for their racist views.
In fact, I’m not sure anybody on my Facebook timeline has even expressed really racist views. Because I think that my timeline is too black. I’m not sure how many white people I follow on Facebook, but it surely is a very-minimum amount, which isn’t on purpose, but alas, such is my life.
There are no active racial debates. The only contentious debates that seem to happen on my timeline are relationship-centric because somebody writes some article and then, usually, some dude says that women need to be the ones doing x, y or z, and then all hell breaks loose and almost always, Brick kills a guy.
You know what does show up on my timeline? Every day? Another police shooting. Another interesting or funny meme. Some random fight from WorldStar. Discussions about the greatest hip-hop albums of all time. Notices about really black events happening that will largely include lots of black people doing or saying black things. Some article with the term “black” in the headline about what black folks aren’t doing, what white folks are doing or what black folks should be doing. Some story that explains blackness or why we shouldn’t have to explain blackness.
My timeline is Dead Mike from CB4.
Folks talking s–t about Serena Williams? It’s there. All things Yoncé? It’s there. Kanye West love and hate, LeBron love and hate?
How much we will all miss Obama? Swooning over the first family? Love for Sasha and Malia? Check. Check. And Check. X swagger on a hundred, thousand, trillion.
It’s also full of articles from news sources that I’m pretty sure are legit but feature stories that never show up on CNN or other traditional news media. I’m not saying that you people don’t read legit news; I’m just saying that my black-ass timeline includes a large number of news sites that I’ve never heard of before that clearly are doing the reporting on news that America isn’t talking about.
Also, my timeline is full of criticism of conservatives, though every so often a comment will show up questioning if we black people are a monolith and why we can’t have our own opinions about any number of topics, especially those political. Hillary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders? My timeline is a Skittles-like explosion of articles and opinions on who we should choose and why. Though my timeline is extremely Sanders-centric.
Now, to be fair, I don’t find this to be a problem … so much. It’s the same issue I have with my Twitter, which is decidedly black as f–k. I know it is not representative of conversations that are happening outside of the blackosphere. Effectively, my timeline is one big-ass barbershop, and this isn’t a bad thing.
But sometimes I am curious about what is happening on the timelines of other people who have to unfriend people. What the hell are white and other nonblack people up in arms about? Case in point, on Sunday, President Obama made landfall in Cuba, as the first sitting president to do so in almost 90 years. This was a monumental event no matter where you fall on the Cuban political spectrum. I know for a fact, and because I read lots of articles all day long outside of Facebook, that a vast many people felt negatively about Obama’s trip. I understand why the opinions are split on Cuba, especially in Miami.
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