…I’ve been hearing that term for several years, yet I still need clarification about what it is, who issues it, and what losing it means.
To lose your Black card, I assume, is akin to being tarred and feathered or being labeled an ‘Uncle Tom’ or ‘Aunt Jemimah’.
I’m only guessing because my ‘card’ has never been threatened since I’m among fellow warriors wearing armor forged in the furnace of civil rights, the Black Empowerment Movement, and cultural advocacy.
My marching shoes are bronzed from too many miles of marching, and my head is covered with a Kufi representing my DNA discovered Motherland tribe, the Mende of Sierra Leone—by way of Nigeria and Kemet.
As such, I don’t know what ‘punishment’ is appropriate for Neckbones who jeopardize their ‘Blackness’ by their disregard and disrespect for Black institutions, criminal activity, and cultural impotence.
The punishment may include losing pigment, which implies Michael Jackson betrayed our trust when he had his skin lightened. Maybe Barack Obama possesses a caramel card since his mother is white and he was raised in that world.
Does being ‘bi-racial’ (ethnicity is more appropriate) mean you have only partial rhythm, love county music, and feel comfortable participating in Polka line dancing?
Of course, I’m merely speculating since there’s nothing in print about the criteria—a Brothahood/Sistahood Bible–or an annual melanin test.
One confusing reference about losing your ‘Black card’ is announced during the daily promo for the ‘DT and Telly’ early morning talk show on the Truth, 101.7.
In that oft-repeated commercial, DT (Denise Thomas) suggests her co-host, Telly (Hughes), is at risk of losing his (‘Black Card’) based on his response or reaction to her questions.
The promotion suggests if your philosophy or grasp of a topic is outside the box or does not adhere to the Black cultural status quo, you can lose your pigmentation, authenticity, or cultural membership.
The commercial got me thinking that in the world of ‘Neckbonology,’ you can lose your Black Card by ‘acting white.’
That ridiculous affront represents the disingenuous proposition that if you speak ‘proper’ English, improve yourself academically and professionally, and act with civility, you are not ‘Black.’
Based on that ‘Willie Lynch’ slave syndrome, which is advanced by community crabs (bottom barrel feeders), there are also degrees of Blackness based on geography, attire, and social status.
If you wear a business suit instead of designer jeans situated six to 10 inches below where the jeans normally rest around the waste, you are not ‘Black enough.’ Similarly, if you don’t smoke weed, you go to church, and have membership in a reading club, you’re more chocolate than Black. Moving on up, or over, like the Jeffersons makes you suspect and a traitor to the cause of Black dysfunctionality.
I assume that means the closer you live to dilapidated houses, near a drug dealer, and across the street from an unemployed ‘urban terrorist’ who somehow can afford to put $5,000 rims on his $800 used ‘hoopty’ (car), the Blacker you are.
I guess that toxic assumption means the higher the weeds on your dirty lawn, the Blacker you are. And each KFC chicken bone found on your dirt lawn is a merit point.
Sarcasm is my middle name, but I am not being entirely facetious when I note many equate ‘Blackness’ with dysfunctionality. For them—‘Neckbones’ with minds chained to slavery— being Black means poor grammar, vulgarity, and an absence of morals, mores, and values.
If I could engineer a Black Card guidebook, it would take on a different color (pun intended), based on the age-old motto that not all skin folk are kin folk, and many of us continue to wear slave chains around our brains, if not our wrists and ankles.
I don’t think you should lose your black card because of ignorance or being victimized by educational apartheid. You can, however, lose ‘brownie’ points if you don’t push your children to excel, reach their potential, or seek help if you can’t provide adequate guidance.
That process would be enhanced if you stopped using double negatives, adding an extra ‘ed/did’ at the end of words like “I liked-did it,” and refrained from using profanity around your kids.
I would raise the interest rate on your Black Card if you (as a Black woman) refer to yourself as a ‘bitch’ (b-word) or ‘nigger’/‘nigga’ (n-word).
The Black Card Bureau will be notified if you don’t see the harm in throwing your drive-through garbage out your car window, driving through funeral possessions, or disregarding stop signs and lights.
Urban terrorists and reckless drivers need not apply for a card.
Your card should be suspended indefinitely if you don’t attend parent-teacher conferences for your high school child who reads at a fourth-grade level, you don’t monitor your child(ren’s) homework, nor motivate them for success in life.
You likewise lose your card if you don’t vote in a local, state, and national election, traumatize your children by calling them out of their names (‘dumb heffer,’ ‘little nigra’ (n-word), or fail to discipline them.
Likewise, you are responsible if your child starts school without knowing how to count, recite the alphabet, or identify primary colors. You, thus, should have your card suspended until you take parenting classes.
Your Black Card would be cast into the lake or sewer if you smoke weed In front of, or with, your offspring, accept stolen (or expensive) gifts from them, or close your eyes when they leave your house with a gun in their lay-lowing pants.
The same categorization applies to those who take pride in their ignorance, sisters who only see their lives through the prisms of single motherhood, or ‘sperm donors’ who think being a father is showing up at a birthday party with a $300 pair of tennis shoes for a six-month-old.
Of course, another side of the ‘depigmentation’ paradigm must be more transparent.
Most Black ‘gatekeepers’ would declare Texas state Representative Wesley Hunt, a Black Republican who is campaigning for Donald Trump, a sellout and thus has lost his ‘Black Card.’
That’s a sticky proposition in that merely being Republican in a two-party system in which neither party prioritizes Black empowerment is disingenuous at best.
It also sparks the question of whether President Joe Biden can determine who can possess a Black Card, as he did with talk show host ‘Charlemaine Da God’ before the 2020 election?
If you recall, Biden asserted Black folks who didn’t vote for him are not truly Black, and their Black Card will be repossessed by the IRS or FBI.
Through my Black Nationalist lens, we will never achieve our goals if we continue blindly following either party and dismiss the reality that we must break the political chains and start our own political party. Nor will we reach the mountaintop if we continue down this path of cultural dysfunction and social chaos.
In other words, even the good brothers and sisters are not entirely ‘Black.’
The bottom line is most of us could use some cultural Opzelura—the pigmentation cream being advertised on late-night television–because we all fall short in one area or another with our ‘Blackness’.
Hotep
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