Black......Irish....and proud?!

 

 

Another St. Patrick's Day has come and gone! Yet another Sunday spent bar hopping, downing green beer, shots, eating corned beef and 1000 pix in your phone of the random new best friends that your hangover will surely wipe from your memory. Once the hangover has concluded and you have fully recovered from the weekend (some of you professionals drank from Saturday to Sunday!), it's time to scroll Facebook and Instagram to see how everyone celebrated and find amusement at the shenanigans......and every year without fail, there are posts from the "cyber-militants" debating why Blacks shouldn't be celebrating St. Patrick's Day or why we don't celebrate with the same enthusiasm for Black History Month. Now, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but your really thinking too much on this one, so stop pissing on the Lucky Charms!  
Saint Patrick's Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick, is a cultural and religious holiday celebrated annually on 17 March, the death date of the most commonly-recognised patron saint of Ireland, Saint Patrick (c. AD 385–461).  Saint Patrick's Day was made an official Christian feast day in the early seventeenth century and is observed by the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Eastern Orthodox Church and Lutheran Church. The day commemorates Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, as well as celebrating the heritage and culture of the Irish in general.  Right or wrong, St. Patrick's Day has been stripped and bastardized like most holidays in the U.S., with no real connection to original meaning for the celebration. It's been diluted to nothing more than a reason to wear green, get drunk and, well......even drunker! You know black people can't wait to get an excuse to color coordinate some bright shit!!  I can  even offer the argument that most White people don't even know or care about the real history of St. Patrick's Day, unless they were Irish themselves. Stop any person on the street and ask them what the meaning of the holiday and prepare to sit for awhile as you wait for the answer. If one can contend that Blacks shouldn't participate, then how about you turn down that plate at Thanksgiving?.....or let's see how you feel when you don't get anything for Christmas?......better yet, take off that Steve Harvey suit you bought for Easter?!   We aren't out there doing the River Dance (well, maybe I did a little bit), going to the parade and waving an Irish flag, playing bagpipes and tapping to the music with our shillelagh (Irish word for walking stick.....yeah, I know some shit.).  People are going purely to have a good time and get some cheap drinks.  I mean really, St. Patty's Day is a not social movement or agenda people,....let's scale it back a few notches.  

The racial component that Irish people don't like Black people is one of my fav'rits, and probably one of the weakest arguments.  Don't be confused, I'm not naive. I'm quite sure there are quite a few Irish that don't like Black people.  But to make such a blanketed statement about a people, is just as egregious as those that make generalizations about us.  I'm sure you have some White people that look at Blacks bar hopping for St. Patrick's Day, like "why are they here?!".....just like how we go to hip hop shows or other cultural events and scratch our heads trying to figure out where all these white people came from.  Don't think for a second that Blacks have lost their connection or have been brainwashed. What you will find in the those of us that partake in this holiday are some of the most educated, enlightened, forward thinking and worldly of our respective communities. We are socially in touch and aware, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy a nice Guinness Stout for $2! It is possible to be enthusiastic about your own culture, while still enjoying the tradition of another. I don't feel like I have to forsake one, to appreciate my own.  It's impossible to compare the celebration of Black History Month with St. Patrick's Day. It's apples and oranges really.  Last I checked, there aren't many drinking games named after Fredrick Douglass!  I'm not denying that don't have problems, and that we need to have pride in our heritage as well, but unity doesn't have to mean isolation.  Better yet, let's reach back to Africa and find our drinking holiday!! Almost every culture has a day to get drunk.......Latins have Cinco de Mayo & the Irish have St. Patrick's Day. I'm sure somewhere in Africa someone is getting bombed out drunk on a Wednesday right now......let's discover that tradition and apply it!

 All in all, there are a number of holidays, traditions and rituals that we all partake in that have nothing to do with our own cultures. Being the melting pot that we are, our traditions have cross homogenized for generations, with no end in sight.  Other cultures have been influenced just as much by our culture as we have by theirs, and we don't even know it.  You would be surprised by the number of words that you use, that originated from Irish culture that you use in everyday vernacular and idioms........and until further notice I will continue to enjoy three of my fav'rit words ST. PATRICK'S DAY!! Let's get pissed!