10 Things "The Boondocks" Have Taught Us About Life

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Peace. If there is anything we could take from those highly enjoyable but scathing episodes featuring the blind spreader of hate Colonel H. Stinkmeaner (Cedric Yarbrough), we have all spotted that moment of irrational confrontation between black folks. And the best way to avoid those moments is to get along. Even Huey Freeman (Regina King) needed a couple visits from the Ghostdeini to get it. Since we’re still seemingly never on the verge on that harmonious reality, the best some of us can do is getting caught and escalating others’ petty conflicts. That is until we log on to a website like WorldstarHipHop. Yeah, we have a long way to go on this one.

Back in Season 1 of The Boondocks, Jazmine (Gabby Soleil) started a cute little stand to sell lemonade to residents of Woodcrest during a blistering summer, only to find herself in an eternal treadmill of work and low pay when she is bought out by Corporate composite Mr. Wuncler (Edward Asner) himself (who also owns virtually all real estate and business in the fictional town), all the while cynically encouraging poor Jazmine to pull up her bootstraps. Sound familiar? And in the direction new government policy is going, things will only get worse. On a lighter note: the new Js are dropping soon (whispers The Man).

Thugnificent’s (Carl Jones) rags to riches and back to rags story is one of the funniest arcs of the show; from having a Jacuzzi in his living room to selling crack at one point and failing to do that. But its underscoring of the ignorant spending habits of rappers were very real. ESPN made a “30 for 30” documentary titled Broke, chronicling athletes who spent foolish heaps of cash on insane houses and cars, but are now, well, broke. Even to a smaller, more normal scale many of us struggle to not splurge half our check on one Supreme hat.

How can we forget when Riley ‘Young Reezy’ Freeman thought he was a superstar ’cause he had unstoppable handles then discovered the uselessness of these skills in an actual youth league, when he realized he couldn’t shoot? No one can afford to skip the fundamentals. A warning to the future NBA busts out there.

There was an episode in which Riley Freeman’s teacher, Mr. Joe Petto (get it?) decided to use the n-word to discipline him, claiming his reasoning for using the word was that the eight-year-old student used it all the time. Fast forward a few years Richie Incognito used that same weak excuse to defend his actions against Jonathan Martin in the Miami Dolphins bullying case. This kind of thing won’t be ending anytime soon. The only way to avoid those kind of awkward moments at parties is to throw on some wholesome acts like Vandross on. Hey, the Luther had hits.

Yeah, we do, as a population, black and white, love R. Kelly. We all know the infamous R. Kelly episode that targets our love of the man’s music over the serving of justice based on that infamous video footage of uh, unscrupulous showers. Huey was right, we haven’t looked back since. The Pied Piper is still selling hundreds of thousands of records, gave us hours of joy with his “Trapped in the Closet” series. In fact, the new chapters should be returning to television this year, and it’s going to be awesome. I suppose we have the power to forgive and forget. Yeah, that’s it.

It’s better to stay a good friend, even if the other person seems determined to make that an impossibility. Granddad’s (John Witherspoon) ego throttling at the hands of his best friend Moe ‘Mo Gunz’ Jackson (Mike Epps)—also known as ‘Mo Bitches’—was as awful as it was hilarious; Moe’s dying wish was to leave Granddad a jar of nuts, yelling ‘Deez nuts!’ from a taped recording. But in the end, Granddad understood their friendship was worth preserving instead of complete alienation. Many of us have a ‘Mo Bitches’ in our friend group that get on our nerves, but it’s better to stick it out. Anybody funny enough to pull that kind of joke on you from beyond the grave is worth keeping as a friend.

If you’ve seen the infamous “The Real” episode in which Martin Luther King Jr. returns from a four-decade coma only to find society in complete disarray and rejects his community’s offers to name a street after him (he points to every Malcolm X Boulevard etc. earning rough reputations, a true phenomenon). We experienced a similar situation—without the reincarnation—when people suggested there be a street named after the Notorious B.I.G. It’s an idea we support, but with a grain of salt that if the initiative succeeded, it might go the other way of other streets named after other black icons.

The Boondocks episodes criticizing BET rank among the funniest but scathing in the collection, and for good reason. It took some pointing out to us and the fictional hip-hop smash “Booty Butt Cheeks” playing on loop in the background, but we could all agree BET didn’t have a single program of substance on the entire network. The station has made some improvements, but BET won’t become the new AMC any time soon.

The last time Tom Dubois (Cedric Yarbrough) took women advice from A Pimp Named Slickback, he took a beat down from Usher (and his bodyguards). Even Riley admitted that wasn’t a good look. (We agree.) Don’t take any kind of pep talk from a pimp, unless it’s where to find a good oversized zoot suit in the 21st century, in which case you should take out your notepad and jot down every address they spit out. Oh, and if they sound like they’re talking fast, you’re just listening slow.