Black and Blue History Month Those who run in the collegiate circle are well aware of the off-chance that the usual Saturday night could end up becoming unusually uneventful. This was one of those nights. I lay slumped over an arm chair and enjoyed the tingly sensation of blood rushing to my head, all the while listening to my friends toss around ideas with hopes of breaking the cycle of boredom. Somehow the topic of conversation switched to the 90’s Nicktoon Doug, and a wave of nostalgia hit us all as we each threw in our two cents about the bunch from Bluffington. We rapped about Rodger Klotz with his new-wave haircut and offered possible reasons as to why the people of Bluffington so resembled a Crayola 24 pack. This promptly broached conversation about the ethnicity of Mosquito “Skeeter” Valentine, the sky blue-toned best friend of Doug Funnie, whom Jack and Matt had always assumed was black. Immediately, I sat up straight and tried to assess this new information because as a kid, I never made any connections that would cause me to arrive at the same conclusion as my friends. As a black person, shouldn’t I have picked up on this? Was my Blackdar broken? After an in-depth analysis of character sketches, show summaries and a few additional research methods, I came to this irrevocable conclusion: Skeeter Valentine was indeed a brotha. My first matter of business was to analyze the key black physical characteristics that I had somehow missed as a youth. Starting from scratch, I first took into account his blue hue. I tried to make connections between brown and blue, and when I couldn’t, I just decided that he was probably blue because the artists only used a pastel color palate, but if that’s the case, why is Doug the only peach person in town? I have yet to solve this conundrum. Moving on, I examined his eraser-top haircut. Yes, only a few scraggly hairs are visible, but the elongated shape of his head leads me to believe that he not only sports a high top fade, but probably has a Nike swoosh shaved in the back! Finally, I noted his b-boy gear. Skeeter’s style is reminiscent of a young Flavor Flav as he rocks day-glo yellow pants with matching vest and red knee-pads. Boombox in tote, his appearance epitomizes 90’s fashion for the hip, black male. His hair was lacking a six-pronged Black Power hair pick, but his tennis shoes, probably first generation Air-Jordan’s, give him back some cred. I was really starting to buy into the theory but knew that I needed to fill in some final pieces to complete the puzzle. Naturally, examining a few elements of Skeeter’s swagger was the final step. Skeeter is no braggadocio, but he definitely knew he was gifted in the art of beat-boxing and had a penchant for dancing. One of his claims to fame is that he is Bluffington’s resident Rahzel, his diaphragm constantly cranking out fresh organic beats like an assembly line at the Honkerbuger. Does this one talent make him black? Not necessarily, but I make my case by the clear fact that the boy’s got rhythm, a trait that everyone knows is indigenous to black people! Hey, I’m not saying that white people can’t dance but you all remember in season one, the episode cleverly entitled, “Doug Can’t Dance”, right? If not, Doug kindly asked his blue cohort to help him put an end to his rhythmically-challenged ways so that he didn’t look like a total douche at the school’s costume dance (he still looked like a douche, but I think that it had more to do with the fact that he was dressed as a dinosaur). With findings like these Skeeter was looking blacker and blacker by the minute. After hours of research and fact checking, I knew that I had exhausted all of my resources and had to accept the fact that I had missed some serious clues about Skeeter Valentine. Skeeter undeniably was a day-glo wearing, booty-bouncing, beat-boxing, eraser-topped brotha whose one purpose in that cartoon was to make sure that every unnaturally shaded person in that town “kept it real”. Am I offended by the blatant racial stereotypes perpetuated by the show’s creator, Jim Jenkins? Not really. I think it’s kind of great that Bluffington had one black—err, blue family in town (though the ethnic status of Mr. Dink and The Bluff’s are still yet undetermined). I’m just glad they didn’t name him Jamal. copy by Brittany Middleton