Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
I don’t know exactly when it happened, but Keke Palmer became one of African America’s favorite people. Maybe it was when during a fun lie detector segment for Vanity Fair she, like many of us, couldn’t recognize Dick Cheney in a photograph and gave us one of the greatest soundbites of all time. Or maybe it was when we all realized how human she was when dealing with a family situation that went public. The possibilities are endless because it feels like Keke Palmer has been in my life forever, despite me being a smooth 14 years older than her. In fact, I was today years old when I discovered that, as of this writing, she is only 31 — and I’ve never felt older.
Recently, the beloved entertainer went on “Club Shay Shay” to talk about her life, career and other things under the sun, presumably in promotion of her just-released book, “Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative.” During a conversation about dating (which was essentially Keke flexing on, roughly, everybody) she mentioned that she became a millionaire at age 12 and that got me to thinking: What in the world was she doing at 12 that made her a millionaire? The second question is obviously: What was I doing at 12 that didn’t make me a millionaire? The answer definitely included riding my bike off of my garage to see if I could land without breaking my bike or any bones.
Nope. At 12, I was introducing my parents to new and innovative ways to be disappointed.
Anywho, my curiosity about how she managed to become a millionaire at 12 (which would have been in 2005) had me looking up her IMDB credits and yep, that coincided with her breakthrough role as Akeelah Anderson in the film, “Akeelah and The Bee,” a movie I still love to this day. I watch it whenever it’s on and even decided to dedicate an episode of the podcast “Dear Culture” to the film. I genuinely credit Keke Palmer with the fact that I know the word “prestidigitation” (though I have no idea what that means), but most importantly, that I know the word “pulchritude,” which is from the Latin for “pulcher,” which means beautiful.
I cannot say this strongly enough: If not for this movie, I would never know that word and if Keke Palmer made a million bucks so that I might know that word, then she was underpaid. The amount of times I have thrown the word “pulchritude” at people should be illegal. I don’t even use the word “beautiful” anymore; I only refer to my wife as “pulchritudinous.” Because she is. And I have one person and one person only to thank for that: Akeelah Anderson. And Akeelah Anderson is Keke Palmer.
Thank you, Keke Palmer, for helping expand my horizons and my vocabulary. And for making sure that I will always and forever know how to spell “pulchritude.”
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).