The King of All Blacks

How even the most innocuous discussion of Black culture triggers some white men

A rehearsal photo from my stint as "Uncle Ben," Willy Loman's long-lost brother who makes a fortune in Africa in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Photo credit: The Author

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Thing One & Thing Two

I did a couple of unusual things recently. One was a new experience, something I’d thought of trying for years. The second was something I’d done more times than I care to admit.

About three months ago, a friend suggested I audition for a part in a theatrical production of Arthur Miller’s 1947 play, Death of a Salesman. The play is widely considered a literary masterpiece, so I was intrigued by the idea. To be clear, I had no previous acting experience. I do, however, possess just enough hubris to believe I can master almost any situation if given the opportunity.

So, with the genetic certainty that allows us men to convince ourselves we can dunk a basketball regardless of our athletic ability, or locate any destination without asking for directions, I accepted the challenge.

Fortunately for my ego, and my family's sanity, I got the part. And thus, as is the nature of all one-hit wonders, I am using this and other forums to milk my fifteen minutes of notoriety for all its worth, hence the numerous photos of yours truly scattered throughout this post.

That other thing isn’t something I’m proud of: I got into an argument on social media. I normally overlook online instigators and trolls, but in this case, I wasn't in the mood. In my defense, it usually takes an intense round of pickleball to generate the dopamine spike I got from my few minutes of digital jousting. Plus, the back-and-forth was the inspiration for the title of this post.

How it started…

This year, in our household Super Tuesday voting was a family affair. Having turned eighteen a few months back, our youngest was casting his first vote. Since he and his sister were out for Spring Break, when the big day came, our foursome headed out early to take part in the franchise.

Our polling place is at a small rural church on the mainland, so the lack of non-white voters wasn’t a surprise. As I worked on my ballot, I overheard two poll workers engaged in a conversation that caught my attention. They weren't talking about the election, but rather the necessity of keeping cash at home.

“What if the electrical grid goes down and you need gas or groceries? You won't be able to get money from the ATM,” said one woman to the other. Given her urgency, you'd have thought the zombie apocalypse was about to go down. The pair moved out of earshot, so I proceeded with my futile attempt to turn my ruby-red county blue.

The reason the two ladies caught my attention was because I’d just written a piece on the cultural and historical significance of Georgia DA Fani Willis's claim of keeping large sums of cash at home. This is a well-known practice in Black culture. Because of this, I argued, Willis may well have been truthful—at least in that part of her testimony.

The brief explanation of the history is as follows: The Freedmen’s Bank was a financial institution created after the Civil War by Congress to hold monetary deposits for newly emancipated Americans. The bank’s collapse in spectacular fashion was the catalyst for African American’s distrust of the banking system. This is understandable, given that the bank’s depositors lost all their savings in the aftermath of its demise.

In the years that followed, Jim Crow laws blocked access to the financial sector, so Black Americans had little choice but to keep their cash under lock and key. Decades would pass before Black Americans gained complete access to the banking system.

But the die was cast.

When I described this practice as “a Black thing,” the point wasn’t that only Black people squirrel away cash in their homes, but that our motivations for doing so have a unique basis in America’s history of racism. My grandparents, both of whom were born around the turn of the 20th century (my grandmother was born in 1898, the same year as the Wilmington Massacre), rarely used banks. As late as the 1960s, they paid their bills either in cash or with money orders.

Why Fani Willis Pays with Cash

That said, there is ample evidence that shows the phenomenon of hiding cash in the home crosses racial and cultural boundaries. In the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, there were media reports of people burying money in their backyards. I’m sure the Great Depression elicited similar behavioral patterns.

On Substack and Medium, the two platforms where I publish my newsletter, many of the comments drove home my point. Most were from Black readers who recounted comparable stories, and more than a few were from white readers:

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This brings me to my internet spat and explains the curious title of this post. Those of us who write about anti-Black racism know that a certain amount of incoming fire comes with the territory. To use my favorite quote from The Godfather Part II, “This is the business we've chosen.”

Of all the negative reactions to my writing, 99.99% of the racist comments come from white men. Aside from their inability to resist the urge to explain Black culture to me, these people rarely argue the facts. Bigotry and racism are such an essential component of their identity, that they don’t even notice the backwardness of their point of view. 

I regularly encounter white men who believe that, because they operate businesses in Black neighborhoods, or rub elbows with a few of us in the workplace, they have sufficient credentials to opine on all issues relating to Black culture. These individuals have convinced themselves that they do not engage in racism, despite routinely doing just that.

Even more audacious, they believe they have experienced a form of cultural osmosis, resulting in as much knowledge, if not more, of the complexities of the Black experience than the average Black person. Somehow, the recognition that their certainty of belief is itself a form of lowkey racism evades them.

Online, this “racism of certainty” often presents itself disguised as allyship. This response to my Fani Willis post is a good example:

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Comments like these are instructive in understanding how bigotry and racism cloaked in faux allegiance functions. Matt (if that is indeed his name) begins, not by challenging the facts, but by stating that his wife is Black.

He intends to convey the dual message that a) he is in an interracial marriage and therefore cannot be a racist, and b) despite my 65-year head start at being Black, his marital status puts his understanding of Black culture on par with mine.

Here's the problem. Although Matt says neither his wife nor anyone else in his family uses cash, (cash usage being beside the point), he contradicts himself before the end of his first sentence, by saying except the poor ones. The implication is that only poor Black people use cash, therefore, since Fani Willis is not poor, she must be lying.

He then presents himself as an ally to her cause, by expressing empathy for Ms. Willis. He says he wants “the best for her,” and laments that she’s been “unfairly castigated,” before driving the knife home, by saying “the cash thing is total BS,” which was his reason for commenting in the first place.

Of course, Matt’s contrarian view ignores the historical context outlined in my essay, not to mention the dozens of other commenters with similar experiences. When I suggest to him that he may not be the best person to weigh in on Black cultural norms, Matt’s cloak of allyship disappears, and he replies with this racist jewel:

When presented with a set of facts counter to his anecdotal experience as a white person adjacent to a few Black people he believes he knows, rather than process this information, Matt resorts to thinly veiled name-calling. To put a finer point on it, Matt may as well have referred to me as an uppity Negro. 

Wakanda forever? 🙅🏾‍♂️

On the bright side, while the “King of All Blacks” jab was intended as an insult, because of my theater role as a wealthy African American expat living in Africa, the comment generated several days of laughter and jokes in my home. So much so, I created a “KOAB” poll so we all can have some fun with it. (If you've made it this far, your participation in the poll is mandatory.)

How can I find humor in racism? It's simple. Aside from hiding cash in our homes, Black folks have made lemonade from America’s racist lemons for generations. It’s what we do.

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