Five Topics Black Twitter need not debate anymore (please)

For those not dwelling in the Twittersphere, let me just share a few things. Twitter, Black Twitter in particular, is kind of like high school. You have the intellectuals, the militants, the hoodrats, the artists, the popular set, the invisibles and those that kind of fall somewhere in between. On a weekly basis, some of the exact same debates/beefs/comments sprout up and the various factions line up on one side or the other and fire at will. It's like Breakfast Club meets Groundhog Day. 

Sometimes I enter the fray and lob a grenade or two myself. Particularly when MSNBC aired the Black Agenda with no black host to be found. Don't get me started. Here are the list of topics that Black Twitter can retire or kill or bury alive - it's doesn't matter... just make them stop:

1. Obama's blackness - Far as I can tell, not a one of these people has been cuddled up next to Obeezy and therefore have not a clue what it's like to be the 44th President of the United States while being black. This does not stop numerous random pontifications about whether he's doing enough "for the people" or is just a big sell out. The debate over whether he'd be President if he were dark-skinned, had attended an HBCU or married a white woman? Beaten to death and useless.

Every speech, every plane ride, every congressional wiggle sets both liberals and conservatives alike into a frenzy. They have to let you know how much they love hate wish they were are just like mis/understand Obama with increasing volume and rhetoric. It's exhausting to watch. After a certain period of time, you start noticing people just tweeting "co-sign" or "fist bump" or my favorite "hmmm" - it's easier to just let it fade out... until the next time. Look, the man is black. He's the President. He's either doing what he can or he's not. It's as simple as that. 

2. Hair - Who cares if you rock a weave or sport a natural? Apparently, a good number of Black Twitteratti. Generally it will start with an incendiary comment from some man trying to instigate. Something like, "Black women who wear weaves are self-hating fakers!" Someone follows up with, "Natural hair people are nazis!" [These are actual tweets folks!] And we're off... You get the testimony of people who have gone natural and a sidebar conversation into hair care product starts. Then you get the weavologists jumping in with a sidebar into where the best virgin Indian hair is to be scored.

At some point a magazine or webzine focusing on "issues important to black women" enters the fray with a link to "weave horror stories" or "how perms are dangerous to your health" - I wish I was kidding. Before and after pictures spring up. Men align themselves: for, against, or we don't care as long as the cocoa gets stirred. This happens at least once a week. More often during award and reality show season. Nothing gets Black Twitter going like badweavitis (see The Braxtons for reference). Enough already. Please put India.Arie's I Am Not My Hair on repeat and exhale.

3. Tyler Perry - Let us pray... Father God, please let folks of African descent living on this side of the continent come together and recognize that Tyler Perry is neither the second coming of your son, King Jesus nor the earthbound incarnation of Lucifer, Prince of Darkness. In your name we pray, Amen. 

There are few shades of grey on the TP of it all. People either really, really love him or really, really hate him. And ne'er will the two sides agree. It is what it is - no more discussion needed. [We can also place Oprah, Beyonce, Diddy, Nicki Minaj, Steve Harvey and Tyrese in this same category]

4. BET - Pretty universally people agree that it sucks. And sucks a lot. But you have a group that rails over it's suckability and watch anyway, this infuriates the group that would refuse to turn to BET if they were the last station standing after Armageddon. It's just that serious. 

Tweegro A: "God! BET sucks"
Tweegro B: "And yet you still watch."
Tweegro A: "Don't judge me!"
Tweegro B: "Don't be a hypocrite."

And we're off.  [This is the same discussion for "Insert the name of any Reality Show with Wives in the Title here" as well. Yes, we know most of them are not actual wives, the title is for entertainment purposes only] Just once, I'd love to see some solution-based tweeting. If every time one of these arguments broke out, folks donated a dollar per tweet, we could buy BET from Viacom and use its power for good.

5. Dateability/Doability - The same unemployed troll who is living in his Grandma's basement with a blow up doll for a girlfriend starts these stupid trending topics at least once a week. Clever and classy topics like #Thisiswhyyouresingle #WifeyMaterial #OnlyCrunkwJunkintheTrunk #IwoulddoUif ... again - I wish I was joking. Then the women come back with #DudesNotDateableIf #Mymanbetta #DontDateHimGirl ... oh it goes on and on.

If not a trending topic, then someone writes an article about the best women to date, the men that women overlook, the best way for women to make themselves more doable/dateable and the battle begins. Women go in about scrubs trying to come across pimpalicious, men go in about single women who will never get a man. Is it impolite of me to say that in the time it took to sling those Twitter arrows forth and yon, folks could've been done and dated and moved on? 

Honorable Mention goes to the Black Representative Debate - (I'll admit a fondness for this one). This is the swirl around the Cornel Wests, Michael Eric Dysons, Reverend Als et al. The question is asked - are these the best "spokespeople" we've got? And then we discuss who should step up and replace the current talking heads. But since the mainstream media is more than happy to have Al spouting his rhetoric, we just wince our way through.

2nd Honorable Mention to the ever popular interactive game Where's Black Waldo. Yes, this is when Black Twitter convenes in front of our televisions for some sort of major event  (like for instance, the Oscars) and begins to search (usually fruitlessly) for Black People.

"Wait, there's one! Oh she looks good."
"Seriously, they couldn't find a single person of color for this?"
 "Spike Lee got robbed with Malcolm X" <~~~ comes up every year like clockwork
"2011 and this is the best we can do?"

There's my list. I know it's a fruitless wish that these topics go extinct. Some of these discussions are tales as old as time. But a girl can dream, can't she? Or is that up for debate too?

Wanna add to the list? Agree or disagree with mine? The floor is yours...