The Importance of Having A White Dude Signing Your Checks Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Let me preface all of this by saying that nothing is more important than getting to the stage of going into business for self and signing your own checks (but I ain't on that... yet); however, I did have a little freelance/consulting thing going on for a minute and that gave me a lot of the experience of someone who runs their own full blown business.

Working for the establishment, while not giving you the greatest comfort in job security, does give you an ultra-secure feeling on payday. You are guaranteed to be paid for the work you did during the pay period. I learned from freelancing and consulting (I mainly worked with Black-ran nonprofits and the occasional White dude-ran operation) that on Fridays, White people got your money; Black people got excuses.

As Black people (raised on healthy amounts of Black pride and self-hatred; both taught by White schoolteachers), we learn at an early age not to do business with other Black people. We're taught that our own are always late, lazy, and lackadaisical; that doing any type of business with a White man is generally a more pleasant experience. So of course, with me rejecting most things that society has thrown my way in an elaborate game of Social Values Hot Potato, I brushed my shoulders off with that notion (odd as it seems, I didn't feel anymore like a pimp than I did before doing so; Jay Z is a liar in this regard).

That was until I became an adult and started doing business with my people.

This isn't an ode to White Jesus or anything, but more like a calling out of how we have to do better. I can't tell you how many times (actually I could; my Shit List record keeping is quite thorough like that) I've shown up to collect my dollars from a Black organization, only to be told that they ain't got it. Or worse, have one of these jigs straight try to avoid me; as if I would somehow forget I'm owed money. And the excuses I'm oftentimes given, generally speaking , have nothing to do with me.

This one guy I used to work for would straight up avoid his office on payday (good thing I know how to pawn seven year old office computers). Why do niggas think ain't nobody got bills to pay but them? And have they ever considered that the people they promised money to on payday are part of the bills they need to pay?

But now I work for the miseducation system where I'm sure there's some old White dude who, in between drawing up Willie Lynch-type educational policies and writing down the names of all the students he thinks would make excellent degree-seeking candidates for the Public School to County Jail Scholarship Program (free room AND board), finds the time to sign my damn checks.

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.

[Editor's Note: The only thing worse than working for my people, is working at an establishment whose accounting department is ran solely by White women who don't wear glasses; don't ask why, it just is.]