Oh 2016…you totally sucked.
From January 1 up until Dec. 31, we’ve experienced perhaps the crappiest year ever. 2016 saw the election of Donald Trump as President, we said goodbye to far too many celebrities, we saw spikes in racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and sexism. Women’s rights and Civil Rights are slowly being chipped away, everything that has been known as truth can now be blatantly denied, and the fight for Black Lives to actually matter still continues.
But there were still a few highlights…
This year, despite the spikes in racism, was the year of Women of Color. This year, we OWNED the worlds of sports, music, and politics. It was also a great year in general for women, because for the first time in history, a woman was nominated as the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States. And although she didn’t win, Hillary Clinton made some major moves in terms of the fight for equality and put some HUGE cracks in the glass ceiling.
We also can’t forget how women DOMINATED sports. I mean, who wasn’t rooting for the U.S. women’s Gymnastics team at the Olympics? And we can’t forget that Serena Williams proved once again why she’s the GOAT in tennis. And we cannot forget that a Black Woman was crowned Miss USA and? She had what’s considered as a “ghetto/urban” sounding name! Perhaps the biggest moment of pride was during the election when we had a ton of WOC nominated to congress…also, Janet Jackson and Audra McDonald both got pregnant and gave birth this year. This is important because both women are older than what’s considered as being of the ‘child bearing age’; Janet Jackson is 50, Audra McDonald is in her late 40’s.
Music was also a good year for us as well…well, it was if you’re me. This year saw the return of long awaited albums by both singer JoJo, whose last studio album was released in 2006 as well as Frank Ocean. Also, this was a good year for Black music in terms of social consciousness with releases by J.Cole and Solange. Oh, and we can’t forget about Beyonce and Lemonade or the release of Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book.
Also, Black women had a great year in television as well. Issa Ray is KILLING it in her HBO series ‘Insecure’, Shonda Rhimes is STILL dominating TGIT, Viola Davis and Denzel Washington starred in Fences, and Taraji P Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Jenelle Monet have been dominating as they promote their new film Hidden Figures. Also, Leslie Jones starred in the remake of Ghost Busters.
But for each high, we faced terrible lows…
First, let’s discuss the fact that 2016 decided to take a heap of famous people and leave us with Donald Trump…
This year alone we lost:
Prince
David Bowie
George Michael
Phife Dawg
Carrie Fisher
Muhammad Ali
Harper Lee
Debbie Reynolds
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
Gene Wilder
Alan Thicke
Alan Rickman
Gary Shandling
Zaza Gabor
Former First Lady Nancy Reagan
Florence Henderson
Alexis Arquette
Patty Duke
Janet Reno
Christina Grimmie
Doris Roberts
Gary Marshall
Angela “Big Ang” Raiola
Tommy Ford
Joanie “Chyna” Laurer
Arnold Palmer
Rene Angelil
Joey Feek
Gwen Ifill
Joseph Mascolo
Kimbo Slice
Afeni Shakur
Miss Cleo
Shawty Lo
Bill Nunn
NFL Player Will Smith
Natalie Cole
Again, we lost all of these great people and so many more, but yet people like Donald Trump and David Duke continue to live…smh.
This year was a year in which we saw lots of social movements, both good and bad. The biggest fights continue to be for the equality of Black and Brown people in this country as well as the fight for women. This year alone has to be perhaps the worst year in terms of sexual assault. We now live in a society where you can sexually assault a woman and either get a slap on the wrist (Brock Turner) or you can brag about it and become president (Donald Trump) This year alone we saw the shooting of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, we saw the shooting deaths of Philando Castile, Keith Lamont Scott, Alton Sterling, and Terrance Crutcher just to name a few. Also, Freddie Gray got NO justice, and neither did Walter Scott…but at least Dylan Roof was convicted of shooting the Charleston 9, right? We also saw the shooting in Dallas, which 5 police officers were killed. We cannot forget the shootings on UCLA’s campus as well as Ohio State University; we cannot forget the tragedies that happened overseas in Belgium and Alleppo.
Yet we saw racism rear its ugly head in the form of White Supremacy, the Alt-Right, White Nationalists, the 2016 Presidential Election, Tomi Lahren’s Facebook videos, Pierce Morgan and Donald Trump’s moronic tweets and so many other idiots…but yet Colin Kapernick couldn’t kneel in the corner during the national anthem without being shamed. I’ll ask the same question Trevor Noah asked Tomi Lahren earlier this month; “so how is a Black person supposed to express their feelings in this country?”
Basically, 2016 was a year of really good things, but got overshadowed by a bunch of bullcrap.
I’m ready for 2016 to leave. Oh, and on your way out, please leave Betty White and take Donald Trump instead…
