I Ain't Rich...But I Plan To Be

The title of this blog is an ode to my fellow Americans.

We are a nation of potential millionaires.

We take our cues on fashion, homes, cars and values from people who have more money than we do, particulary if those people have combined their fortune with fame. Many of us don't want to just keep up with Mr. and Mrs Jones, we actually want to be their rich friends.

That is an interesting idea because it describes why John McCain's recent claim that Barack Obama is a socialist is working with some people who really should be in favor of some wealth distribution. (Although I'm convinced that part of the problem is that many Republicans substitute the word "Communist" whenver they here the word "Socialist.")

This article provides even more insight into Americans' thoughts on wealth and wealth disparties. What the article helped me understand is that the reason why people are so worried about economic policies like progressive taxing, which would actually make most of their lives better, is due to a weird mixture of fear and ambition.

Honestly, most black folks understand that one of the real reasons Republicans dislike liberal tax policies is because they think Democrats are going to take all their money and give it to the "blacks on welfare." As black people we understand this because we've had to listen to people discuss Affirmative Action and welfare from positions of mind-numbing ignorance most of our lives.

Very few Americans understand why Affirmative Action was created, and they don't know who really benefits from welfare in this country. Nor do people understand how much most people on welfare receive. If people had that information it would make it much more difficult for conservatives to use welfare and Affirmative action to rally their base.

But, and this is going to be hard for some black folks to swallow, this issue is not all about black people or race. The other reason so many white people fear Obama's plan to "spread the wealth", (and lets's be honest, it's mostly white people who are worried about this plan) is because many of them count being wealthy one day as one of their ambitions.

I'm not saying all white people are currently wealthy, that would be stupid. What I'm saying is that because so many white people believe so strongly in the idea of America as a meritocracy where anybody who works hard can succeed and succeed in grand fashion, they tend to be more optimistic about their chances of joining the ranks of the wealthy.

Sure, black people would like to be rich and we devote entire rap careers to singing about that goal. Some of the more business-minded among us even have detailed five and ten-year plans for becoming wealthy. But, for most black people our prospects for achieving great wealth aren't tangible enough that we are worrying about the tax policies the rich face.

But, white folks, with all their hope and rosy optimism, are different. They don't want anyone touching the money they plan on getting in the future. Got that?

They don't see progressive taxing as a way to insure everybody pays a fair share, they see it as an unfair burden on their future rich selves. After all, they believe that if they achieve more it's because they worked harder. And what's their incentive to work hard if they just have to pay higher taxes? It just doesn't seem right.

The only problem is that this view ignores a reality of life in America, which is that succes is not determined solely by how hard you work. If that was the case, billions of housewives would be "balling", and my best friend's grandmother, who worked as a janitor to raise her grandchildren, would own a private island.

Success is based on a lot of different factors and hard work is definitely one of them. But, unfortunately, another main factor is where you start off in life based on what your ancestors achieved.

Many people in past generations had their prospects for success limited artificially, and that means some people's present day "money trees" were germinated in injustice. It doesn't make successful people today bad people and it doesn't mean they haven't worked hard. It just means their success is complicated.

Unfortunately, this is one of the most difficult concepts for Americans, particularly white Americans, to grasp. It runs counter to the mythology that they are fed along with their mother's milk. It directly challenges and maligns their own self image.

Most importantly, this worldview does not benefit them at all. That's why John McCain has been able to get so much traction out of a conversation between a millionaire politician who built a life from very little, and plumber who is planning to earn more than $250,000 in the near future. Americans may not like rich people all that much, but they do want to be like them one day.

Life's complicated like that.





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It's the Swagger, Stupid.

Back when racism was an open sore on the face of America instead of the festering scab it is now, there was one unforgivable crime for black people, particularly black men.

Self confidence.

See, racists didn't like their Negroes with a spine. A black man who liked to make eye contact with white people, who didn't hold his hat in his hands whenever he made a request and who carried himself like a full-fledged member of the human race was seen as an affront to all that was decent. Black women had to face similar humilation, at times their humilation was worse because it also included sexual abuse, but nothing really got racists' blood boiling like a Negro man who "took on airs."

Well, it seems times haven't changed that much.

I could go the standard route and talk about the Uppity Negro phenomenon in detail and what it means to Obama. But, I'm not interested in that. What I want to do is talk about why certain people are so bothered by a black man who seems too smart, too cocky, too wonderful.

It's because they lack swagger.

My mother told me when I was little boy that people will always try to tear you down to make themselves feel better about their own inadequacies. She said that some people just feel small inside, and they need to make everyone else small so the world doesn't tower over them.

Black people in this country have every excuse to grow up lacking self-confidence. At times, it seems like the mission statement of Hollywood and the mainstream media is to reinforce the idea that black people are inferior beings. Many scholars believe that the historical attacks on black people's collective self-image is at the root of many of the ills that plague our communities today.

Yet Obama, and those black men in the past, have managed to ignore the message that they are less than. They've refused to bow to the accepted wisdom, and instead forged their own path that doesn't include being anybody's shine boy. Despite all the pressure on these men to cave, to give in, they've remained strong, proud men who exude confidence and cool.

Don't you see how that would mess with a racist's mind?

After all, how many racists truly believe that they would be able to hold their heads high if they had to endure the same abuse? How many of them, deep in the dank recesses of their souls, believe they would have the core strength to walk tall when everything in the world tells them to bend their backs?

Not very many.

That's why they get so angry at Obama, and why they got so angry at those proud black men in the past. Obama reflects their own weakness, he shines a light on ugly places they would rather hide. He makes them take stock of what they've done with their lives. For many racists, that's not an enjoyable enterprise.

And so they hate his swagger.