I Have Black Friends

Secret Society of All American Heroes (coolest people on earth) founding member from the "dirty south" wrote:

"...so fuck all the haters and take solace knowing that I count you in my: Stuff White People Like #14 - Having Black Friends :)"

Indeed, haters beware. You have been exposed as nothing but the vampires you are: blood-sucking fairy tale spooks (nopun) with ADHD. But now I have my Jesus cross and my garlic, the SSAAH, and some billion-dollar-scientific pharmaceuticals. So Life is Good®, you can now just Be As You Are (noegg). Actually I'm not on any damn pharms because the only medicine I need/use grows in a top secret hydroponic facility and smells like a lady skunk's pussy (SSAAH associate FoOl: add "skunk-in-a-good-way to your list). Jah, brah.

But Dirty South referenced "Black Friends" and that got me to thinking. For all of my years, I've been him; that dude. Seriously, that's me. I'm The Black Guy not to be confused with "a black guy" which is a very different thing. Hi!

It's an interesting existence growing up half-black/half-Jew in an all-white, all-Jew, all-educated environments like Barack Obama, Ben Harper, and myself. Because even though you're as White as Jack, you always look black enough in most people's eyes that you're The Black Guy to people with little experience with black guys. Whether it's "do you know anyone with weed?" to "do you really have a big dick?" The Black Guy is perceived as the coolest, weirdest, most unpredictable go-to dude since Larry Bird (which is why I have so many questions for Love Jesus). And the answers are yes (weed) and yes (dick).

I schnebbled this from Stuff White People Like:

1—The white novice. This black friend is the gateway to helping white people understand gang signs and Vietnamese beauty supply stores. This black friend is probably the only black friend for many white people and when they all hang out (because white people hang out) they bring their “mutual” black friend with them.

It's pretty funny. SWPL had it's moment in the fameshine like Vice and Pitchfork. We all got it and we were in on the cool. Real-blacks, by the way, fucking love SWPL because to real-blacks all that shit is true, including #1, above.

But for us Lennys & Lisas, that specific SWPL Having Black Friends post makes so little sense its a little bit frightening. I know more about Badmarsh & Shri's Signs album than I do gang signs. Gangs are fucking scary, yo. And I've never been to any beauty supply stores. But I get it. I feel so black-inadequate sometimes. Yet everything else in SWPL is my life since forever.

But this line, "This black friend is probably the only black friend for many white people..." rings so true. I've been there. There's a lot of responsibility and much vulnerability. Not vulnerability for The Black Guy, but for white novices. The white novice is the biggest friend and mark of The Black Guy. Trust me. But smart white novices learn much quickly and graduate to white apprentice then friend without regard to color.

The Black Guy (not to be confused with "a black guy" which is a very different thing) is your gateway to helping white people understand that the world is not binary and limitless; that everything exists in ways you never thought they would but always dreamed the could. That there is Hope and Change.

The Black Guy is indispensable to progressive society and you. See?

Don't You Know Know That Suffering Is Through

[here] & [here]