The Black Tax

As I watch political show after political show try to blame everything in the world on Barack Obama, I keep asking myself “Where have I seen this before?”  The answer is obvious, pretty much every job I’ve ever had where I’ve had the distinction of being the only Black guy.  It’s corporate America’s favorite contingency plan, blame the Black guy. 

I call it the Black tax.  Every Black person that has ever had a job knows that you have to work harder than everybody else or they will call you lazy.  You have to be nice to dimwits or they will call you mean.  You will have to put up with slights from everyone in the company with a high school diploma because no matter how smart you are, some people just aren’t ready to think a Negro is smarter than them.

You go through all of that and guess what, you still get paid less than any clean cut white dude in the building just because HR liked the cut of his jib.

When America elected Barack, I was so hopeful that somehow we were going to let the brother do his job… That didn’t last long.  Fast forward to today and all I hear is republican after republican come on TV and blame Barack for one thing then another knowing full well that he had little to nothing to do with any sort of scandal.

There’s Benghazi.  Four Americans die in Libya and they say that it’s Obama’s fault because he didn’t do enough to save them and tried to cover up what really happened.  First of all, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead but how the hell did these people not know that Libya was fucking dangerous?  Seriously, had none of these niggas seen Back to the Future.  You are an American in Libya, protect ya damned neck.  As for the “cover up”, that would have to be the worst damned cover up in US history.  If all you have to do is tell a lie on Meet the Press to constitute a cover up, we’re going to have send John McCain to Guantanamo.

But, back to the point, Benghazi was a CIA and State department issue, not the executive office of the President.  Who gets blamed?  The Black guy.

Next, the Associated Press decided they are going risk national security and the Attorney General decides that he is gonna have to look in to that shit.  I’ll give Eric Holder some credit.  He filed the most gangster subpoena he could so the AP wouldn’t have time to hide their dirt before they got record jacked.  Now, Eric Holder is Black dude that has seen the blame the Black guy game before (fast and furious) and this time, he wasn’t having any parts of any scandal.  Holder went on TV as soon as the first finger was pointed and said, “I did it and I’ll do it again, bitch!”  (I’m paraphrasing).  I guess republicans got the message not to fuck with a Black man with a ‘70s porn mustache.  Instead, they managed to tie this to Barack, saying that it is his administrations “culture of intimidation”.  Of course they have absolutely no evidence of this but evidence and politics rarely roll in the same circles.  Besides, just like everything else in politics, they assume that if they repeat the same lie enough times, they’ll eventually convince enough people.

Lastly, my favorite non-scandal is the IRS targeting conservative groups for “scrutiny”.  Quick question, does that mean the IRS isn’t really scrutinizing folks on the regular?  If so, let it be known that my favorite liquor store is a non-profit and I will be writing off all that rum and all those black and milds I smoked while I was drunk.  Thanks guys.

The reason that this isn’t a scandal is because these motherfuckers only talk about not paying their taxes and filed paperwork with the IRS so they could do just that… and were actually offended when IRS looked harder at them.  I’m sorry for being rational but making sure people pay their taxes is kind of what the IRS does, if you don’t want them on your back, perhaps you should be a little more coy in your attempts to avoid paying.  If I filed paperwork with the ATF that would allow me to stockpile bazookas and tequila, I would think that they might look into that shit.

Now, Barack has nothing to do with the IRS but as soon as the story broke, here they went again.  The shit happened in Cincinnati and the story wasn’t about the office that it happened in, republicans were more concerned with what the president did after he found out, even though congress had launched the investigation into the matter 2 years before the story broke.

There is a saying that “shit slides down hill”, but if you’ve been Black and in an office setting you know that isn’t always true.  Shit is a Negro seeking missle.  I honestly thought Barack would be savvy enough to dodge it but no.  Ever since the right wing media launched into “The economy isn’t growing fast enough” type shit, I knew the brother was in trouble. 

I’ll give Barack some credit, he hasn’t been pressed in to a nigga moment yet.  That Black tax can wear people out.  Every Black person has a “Fuck you, cracker!”, somewhere deep inside of them but Barack’s seems to be pretty deeply buried. 

On one hand it’s inspirational.  Barack’s resilience makes me think I can get through my workday without making OJ Simpson and Latrell Sprewell references (Free OJ!).  On the other hand, does this mean that none of us are free from the blame the Negro game.  I mean, if Barack can’t avoid this bull shit what hope do us working class folks have?