Black Tax
Today I realised I can no longer afford being black. Today out of the blue I paid £54.04 because I’m black. Yesterday I spent £40 not including the £24 I gave to a homeless man. Total cost of my skin colour in 2 days £118.04. I’m currently looking at a number of clothes. I haven’t bought them because I have to be constantly vigilant in case “black tax” rears its ugly head. You’re life is not your own.
Why did I spend this money? Let me list it.
I gave a black homeless man the “uncle treatment” I got him hot food, drink, bought him an Oyster card and put £5 on it. Total cost £24. He was given all the due respect of an uncle, he was in control over how much time we spent on getting him food and transportation, despite the fact that it was my time and it was my money. And I’d never met him before in my life. He even had the audacity to ask for my number, so I can be feed him permanently? Aww hell no.
My dad’s old school friend is in the UK, he’s borrowing my car. I tax and insure that car, I paid £40 for a parking fine that he incurred. Its worth noting that he messaged me to tell me he’d borrowed my car AFTER he’d taken it from my mum’s house. Also, incidentally after he’d incurred the fine.
My mum went to collect a family member from Heathrow. She asked me to call an Uber because she was stranded. I paid £54.04 for a taxi ride I wasn’t present for.
Lets not forget the £350 I spent going to Glasgow last month unnecessarily on my mother’s urging to get a new passport.
Total cost of being black in 3 weeks. £468.04
That’s just in the last 3 weeks. Let’s not ask what I’ve spent over my lifetime.
You know the “strong black woman troupe” everyone’s always glamourising? Do you know why all black women are super successful in their careers? Because you need to be able to pull almost £500 from no where whenever your family/culture are up to some dumb shit.
I’m tired of being taxed for my skin colour, heaven knows it’s a black woman thing. Almost none of these things would happen if I was a boy. The only one I can think of is if you are a son and your mum is stranded in Heathrow, a problem of her own making, you’d probably still go get her and/or pay for her taxi home. She did birth you after all.
I know I’m not the only one who suffers this. Why are these women so successful? These women who came from either relative poverty/abject poverty. These women who suffered abuse, deprivation and trauma, sexualisation, racism, misogyny and an oppressive culture which only gives a woman any rights when married?
These women are so successful because the money creates the safety they didn’t have as a child. I know. I’m one of them. It gives me great pleasure knowing my mother’s antics can’t put me into poverty the way it did when I was growing up. All this bearing in mind that I took on £60,000 debt to pay for my parents mistakes. 1/3 of my mortgage is paying for my parents mistakes and it has defined how I have handled my 30’s as I am determined for it not to break me. Yet my mother keeps taking. Givers need boundaries because takers don’t have any. People forget monumental sacrifices quickly, so if you are on the cusp of making one, please may I suggest you don’t do that. No seriously. I don’t regret mine. It allowed my father to spend the last year of his life without crippling debt, it allowed him to self-actualise and enjoy his twilight years. But the price is being paid by me. And I am determined for it to end with me. I am determined for my children not to be crippled with my choice. It motivates everything I do. The courses I take, the lessons I learn, how much I can afford to enjoy myself, the car I drive the life I live. Is all determined by the fact that I paid a hell of a lot of money for my parents mistakes. My major lesson I learnt was that my parents don’t love me the way I love them, so the only person who will give me adequate protection according to my needs is…me. So I’m going to start paying for life insurance for my mother, because she won’t pay for it. Why? Because it protects me and she doesn’t believe I need that protection, despite what I have done for her. So I’m protecting me. Its my “new job’s resolution” to use my pay increase to do this. No good in buying me clothes I don’t wear for when you could protect me and it is something I have expressed a deep desire for. She doesn’t understand and I don’t care. Its not my job to empathise with her “African mentality” of “God will provide” Yeah, God did provide, he provided me. But who is going to provide for me when I gave everything to you? Who is going to help me? Rich husband? That’s not a thing and you know it. So protect myself so my parents can’t kill me is my “Black tax” so my daughters will grow up in a life of safety and security knowing “mummy’s got this. Mummy will provide, mummy loves them, mummy’s love is enough to protect them.”#
I have written this before. I don’t feel loved by my mum’s side of the family. Either side really. There was no reciprocation of affection. The cousin who’s taxi I just paid for? When I got married his mum, my mum’s little sister, got me pillowcases for my wedding gift.
Not a duvet set. Pillowcases.
It gets better. It was tie dyed black and burgundy. Because we’ve all seen people with black pillowcases in their house.
It gets better still. They were “unsewn” pillowcases. So yes my loves. My mother’s little sister got me strips of fabric which I’d need to sew myself to make black and burgundy tie dye pillow cases, without the rest of the set. Yep. That’s clearly worth spending £54.04 to get her son out of Heathrow from a beloved aunt.
Truth is I’m tired of “rising to the occasion” because every time I do, the occasions keep rising. The absolute horror show of my father’s passing. My family tested me in a way that most people would disown them for. Their behaviour was outrageous. The distinct lack of love and care was deeply hurtful and no one saw it as poor behaviour.
Then there’s the show of my mum’s birthday this year when I paid £250 to be in the family group chat. Why? I paid for them all to eat for half a week. That’s the only way they realised I was a blood relative. Yes, I paid for a party that I wasn’t even invited to and no one saw it as rude. I tried numerous times to call my mum and family members so I could… WISH MY OWN MOTHER HAPPY BIRTHDAY AT A PARTY I WAS PAYING FOR and apparently that was an unreasonable request. I got pictures afterwards. My mother had a great time which was the main objective but I will never like my family again. It was a transaction and I did it for my mother. Not them. But I can’t be involved with you… ever.
Then there is the joys of looking ahead at next year. My mum turns 60 and I magically have to find £2,500 ish to go to Freetown for a weekend. I don’t want to go. Not only is it expensive. But too much has happened, no one sees it from my perspective and I can’t heal. I’m tired to my bones of being an afterthought constantly grateful for receiving a crumb of attention from people who should be my family. I’m okay never seeing you. You’ve added no benefit to my life.
The sad aspect is I’d miss my mum’s 60th birthday, especially since dad is gone and I spent £3,500 on his 70th birthday… it looks bad. Not even counting the £2,000 I spent on his 67th birthday (he did have cancer to be fair!) But I can’t do it to myself. 5 months ahead of time I’m already tired. Why would I surround myself in a pit of vipers then get mad when I got bitten? Truth, is I have absolutely 0 rights until I marry and so I’m not going to Sierra Leone as a single woman because that’s dumb. I’d be run through. I can even say I’m spending no more than a weekend and I would still be taken for a good £500. I’d need to give money to my grandmother first off. Then visit my father’s side of the family (who I can actually say I despise) then round it off with anytime I leave the house I’d owe someone. So its cheaper to stay away from my family in a hotel where I have no obligations, no one has access to me and can cost me money without my active consent. I’m much happier that way. Rather than bankrupt myself doing something that would make me bitter why not spend that money shaking my ass on a yacht in Dubai. I earnt the “Black woman magic” super troupe, so why not enjoy it?
If I went I am sure I would enjoy some parts of it. Sierra Leone is a beautiful place by all accounts but I cant go. I can’t enjoy it. Too much pain. Too much healing hasn’t happened. It’s a big girl thing to say, “People hurt me, I felt it very deeply and I can’t go and be around them because they hurt me.” That’s truth. Its stupid to spend £2,500 on an gross act of self harm to “try and like” the country of my ancestors, I’d rather not.
Whilst I write this it is causing me physical pain. My heart hurts. When I think of all the wrongs done to me by mum’s side of the family (and that’s the GOOD side. Wait till I tell you about Dad’s side) I know I can’t get over it and it will take many years for me to get over the “white woman comment” or the fact that my dad had passed 6 months ago, and my grandmother had my only surviving parent in her company, the thought did not cross her mind once to check if I was okay. I was all alone, in the depths of winter, no parents in the UK, one abroad, one dead. And my sole living grandparent was cool not speaking to me until I gave her money and she received it.
I know my grandma is getting no younger, she’s 84 but there is no love there. When she passes I will be sad for my mum not because I have any connection with her. Which is a testament to how she treated me as a granddaughter. The granddaughter who she couldn’t muster up a card for after her grandad died… for 7 years until she came to the UK and then did nought to bond with me. The granddaughter who she got my birthday wrong, it was my 30th birthday and my dad had passed exactly 2 months before… she’d still forgotten about me.
The aunts who did nothing my entire childhood. The aunts that brought me strips of cloth for my wedding or didn’t include me in the family chat for over 3 years. The uncles too.
The culture who doesn’t see me as valuable until I’m married ( I NEED to marry a white man for hypergamy purposes, if I married a black man, I marry back into my culture and the idea makes me physically sick. My children would be damned to “carry last” from the moment I said “I do” it’s a horrendous fate. Like I said in my previous post. The tears I have cried because I’m black would never, never allow me to marry a black man. I’d be betraying every single drop and only ensuring more tears to follow. And believe me. I’ve cried often because I’m black.
· I cried when I had to sleep on the floor in my dead father’s room before my father’s funeral for the sake of tradition. After no less than 3 people let us down.
· I cried when I had to lie about my marital status not even 20ft from my father’s grave after my parents where “too embarrassed” to tell people about a divorce that had happened almost 2 years prior.
· I cried when my parents wanted every detail of my wedding to be about them, and whenever I objected, they came out with such horrific things that I was in tears until 5am on the morning of my cursed marriage.
· I cried when I told my dad of my £60,000 sacrifice and he said “you can afford it”
· I cried when he paid for some distant cousin’s business start up whilst I was sorting out the re-mortgage of my house to pay for this sacrifice, but he wouldn’t even offer to pay for my first exam of my new side hustle.
· I cried when my mum treated me like an abomination when she wanted stuff done for her business, rather than saying she needed my help, she demanded compliance and it was an extremely ugly experience which I wouldn’t wish on my enemies. Whilst I was going through a divorce and financing paying for the above sacrifice.
· I cried when I wanted to go to Disneyland as a child and my parents spent the money on my brothers instead, even though my eldest brother was mid twenties.
· I cried when I was lonely and poor as an adolescent, couldn’t afford nice things, I lived a life of such extreme deprivation, considering I had 2 working parents, that I can name almost every new piece of clothing I received in a 10 year period. A lot of them I still have to this day.#
· I cried when I was a child and I gave up my childhood so my dad could become a Methodist Minister and self actualise. The price was paid by me.
· I cried when they brought a rapist into the house for the sake of a family friend.
· I cried when I was going through a divorce and my parents said I was the problem and not my cheating husband, they gave him a pass and told him “they’d deal with me”
· I cried when I had to pay for driving lessons because my parents wouldn’t pay for me as an adolescent, despite taking thousands from me, because I didn’t deserve nice things… but my brothers did.
· I cried when I’m told I’m not black enough, despite the fact that it was my parents decision to bring me up in the UK and then to move me to a white area, its simply my decision to make the best of it.
· I cried when my family didn’t call me when my dad died, until my mum blasted them.
· I cried when I had to pay to be included in the family chat when it is my birthright
· I cried when I found out my mum paid for the education of her nieces that she has barely met 5 times between them but wouldn’t pay for life insurance to keep me safe.
· I cried when I realised my parents valued other people’s opinions over my safety my who life and that’s why I have lived a life of deprivation and no safety.
· I cried whenever I realised that “being black” means subscribing to a toxic culture where you are seen as an ATM machine and nothing more. A “race to the bottom” attitude when it comes to rights, and a “sacrificial lamb” attitude when it comes to community/family. That I’m not a person, I’m worse than a number…I’m a woman and that means I’m only heard as a matriarch having suffered my whole life. And the suffering that I would undergo may well actually kill me. Domestic violence, financial violation and poverty, rape and heartbreak to name a few.
· I cried when I realised that all this would mean something if I was born white, but because I was born black people think it “western” that I care about the safety of children not yet born and that being introspective is a “White man’s quality”
· I cried when I realised that despite being dark skinned, I don’t get to define what is black. I don’t get to define blackness. Introversion isn’t black. Research isn’t black. Anime isn’t black, history isn’t black, science isn’t black. Crotchet isn’t black. Nothing I do or like is “black” enough so I get the joys of racism from the Western world then shunned from the black community for not being “black enough” then shammed for being a “deserter” when I don’t want anything to do with the black community. When I don’t want my kids to “#growupblack” when I want peace and solitude from them.
These are the tears that I cried, these are the promises I made to myself, that whilst I may hurt, I will never allow my precious children to suffer the way I did. I believe that my purpose in life is to be a wife and a mother. Because that’s all that ends up on your gravestone. Believe me I have checked. I’ve only seen 1 gravestone with “Keith from BT” on it. Otherwise the other countless say, “husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, son, friend” or “Wife, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, daughter, mentor”
I’m not going to get to be “wife and mother” unless I heal, unless I learn. 1 of 2 things happens when you grow up like I have.
You reject those who have hurt you so you can make the pain go away (new strategy)
You go to increasing lengths to please the people who hurt you, trying to prove yourself good enough to be in their “club” (old strategy)
The price I will pay for my new strategy is an isolation from my family and having to learn about the nation I am from until I am ready to visit.
Ultimately, the price you pay for the old strategy can be summed up in 2 words
Black tax.
Grace and Courage
Annetta Mother Smith.