Jeopardy! Contestants Avoid Black History Like the Plague

There are people who say that Americans are not very astute on the topic of Black History. But there are some who say that those who complain are just persistent whiners and race baiters who will find a problem with any issue in front of them.

But what do you say when the so-called smartest people on the planet avoid Black History Month questions like they are the plague?  This is what happened on the show Jeopardy! during a college panel that they had on the show.  Of course the episode was all-white, which is what you’re usually going to get, but that doesn’t mean that the contestants can’t be enlightened on matters of race.

According to Jezebel.com, there were these categories: “International Cinema Showcase,” “Weather Verbs,” and “Kiwi Fauna.”  The sixth category was “African American History.”

The players did all they could to avoid Black History, leaving the questions over to the side like the five year old who refuses to eat his green beans.  What’s saddest about this episode, which you can view below, is that it explains why you hear so many incidents of college students doing disrespectful things to African Americans, like hanging nooses in their fraternity houses or having parties in blackface.   It happens because even the brightest college students don’t know the first things about black history, mainly because their campuses never force them to learn it.

If black people were lined up on a show and asked to give answers to questions about white history, they’d nail them in a heart beat.  Black cultural competency has been a matter of survival to people of color since we arrived on slave ships.  So, we know more about white people than whites know about themselves.  But when the situation is reversed, the answer is basically, “who gives a sh*t?”

The two students from Oklahoma and Texas A&M might have an excuse, since racism there is so bad that you think you’ve gotten into a time machine. But the third student was from The University of Chicago.   There’s no excuse for that and it doesn’t say good things about their racially-biased curriculum.