white people when it comes to black people.
‘How bloody dare this uppity negro have the sheer audacity to feel like a victim just because I missold her a sub-prime mortgage, plunged her into financial ruin9 and then deported her to Jamaica “in error”?’10
No matter what life (i.e. white people) may have thrown at you and, no doubt, what it will throw at you, you better not feel sorry for yourself. You better not feel like a victim. Don’t worry. Be merry. Or else.
Sadly, to avoid becoming a victim, you have to be ready to make victims of others, kind of like a prison bully in the shower. And making victims of others is where things get even trickier.
Black people have no problem making victims of each other. It is the basis of the multi-billion-dollar gangsta rap industry as well as the private prisons industry (two industries which may or may not have a reciprocal relationship).
Black-on-black one-upmanship is as simple as eating hot chocolate cake in the middle of a break-up or evoking ‘black-on-black crime’ on Fox News. When black people are required to perform the same squalid manoeuvres in white spaces against white people? We’re quick to back down.
There are many reasons for this, but here is a critical one: there is a value associated with white people that just isn’t associated with black people. Whites rule everything around you. No one wants to bite the hand that has the potential to choke you. And that represents a clear psychological disadvantage for the black professional – one that must be levelled in order for the black professional to truly reach their potential.
Levelling the Psychological Playing Field
A great modern way a black professional can level the psychological playing field when in head-to-head opposition with white professionals is to listen to hip-hop. Not any old hip-hop. Certainly, no fluffy teddy bear Mos Def and Talib Kweli or Best of Will Smith shit. Nope, you need the most violent, degrading and shocking hip-hop you can find. Hip-hop that sounds like Willie Lynch conceived it, Joseph Goebbels wrote it, George Bush Snr produced and Apartheid-Nazi-Rhodesia-Breitbart Records distributed it.
It’s quite easy to find it too: turn on the radio.
The black professional just needs to make one simple change to these rap records: when your favourite rapper evokes imagery of inflicting some degree of unbelievable savagery which will inevitably be against black people (other than the rare occasion a rapper gets into it with Eminem), replace that imagery in your mind with a white person. Repeat this as often as possible. A few entry-level suggestions:
• For those passive aggressive ‘hints’ (perhaps about your timekeeping), Stormzy’s ‘Shut up’ should do the trick.
• For appraisals, throw on ‘Hold Me Back’ by Rick Ross.
• For ‘quick chats’ when you suspect it’s bad news: ask for five minutes to pop into the loo and throw on ‘Bad News’ by G Unit.
• When you’re scheduled for a redundancy-risk discussion you may want to throw on ‘Pray’ by MC Hammer.
• If you’re feeling a little too lazy to change the lyrics, then pop on ‘100 Years’ by Plies.
Alternative Method of Levelling the Psychological Playing Field
If you find altering hip-hop lyrics to be a little demanding, there is another equally effective method of levelling the playing field: it’s called switching on the news (or social media) and witnessing the latest white-on-black outrageousness. And let what white people are capable of sink into your soul.
In conclusion, you have to decide: compassion or progression? Victimhood or victory? Rags or riches? Success or sympathy? You or them?
187 Quick Dos and Don’ts: 18–34
18. Do arm yourself with one of these names for when you’re asked who you foremost admire: Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill and Thomas Jefferson (but under no circumstances reveal that the latter is your great-great-great-great-great grandfather). If you must veer into the ethnic, straight choice: Mandela, MLK or Jesus Hussain Christ.
19. Don’t ever return a bust of Winston Churchill (in the event that you somehow manage to find one on your desk) or describe Churchill as anything less than an absolute hero. Even if he tortured your grandfather.
20. Don’t mistake the office party for a house party or a BBQ. Dance, but not too well. A Barack-on-Ellen-style frail-white-grandmother shuffle should suffice, a Michelle-on-Ellen-style ‘Tip Drill’-video-worthy throw-down will ruin you.
21. Do order salad when at a business meal. Even if you – like most black people – hate the taste. It makes it seem as if you value your health and your life, therefore smashing multiple major black stereotypes with one tasteless leafy plate.
22. Don’t order two main courses (perhaps one as a starter and one as a main) because it would be ‘cost-effective’ when at a business meal.
23. Do master the names of at least three different types of fantastically expensive (and therefore) ‘sophisticated’ cheeses.
24. Do order cheese for dessert when at a business meal.
25. Don’t delude yourself: you know good and well that ‘cheesecake’ does not qualify as a type of cheese.
26. Do keep the fact that your parents were Panthers or Freedom Riders or were in the Mau Mau or Brixton Uprisings firmly to yourself. Despite feeling incredibly proud of them.
27. Do mention that your cousin’s girlfriend’s babysitter’s hairdresser’s cousin on her mother’s side fought in the Gulf War, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya or any other pointless, counter-productive and probably illegal war that white people approved of.
28. Do seize any opportunity to pay white people the supreme ultimate compliment: ‘You’ve lost weight.’ Even if they have done the opposite.
29. Don’t wear ‘loud’ jewellery – ‘loud’ in this context meaning black. You’ll be maliciously mistaken for a rapper, a gangsta or a benefits ‘cheat’ (otherwise known as a direct reparation seeker). No more than one ring on your fingers, preferably on your wedding finger, no multiple finger rings, small earrings (but only if you’re a woman), no company logo medallions, no Tupac-style nose rings and certainly no 80s crack peddler-style chains. Don’t let Afropunk or Hidden Colors get you fucked up: no bone in your nose either.
30. Do wear a ring on your wedding finger when going for interviews and while you’re still on probation (i.e. job probation – not jail). Even if you’re hopelessly single – in fact, especially if you’re hopelessly single. It signifies commitment, maturity, stability and desperation.
31. Don’t sign off a professional email or phone call with the words ‘God bless’. In fact, don’t ever evoke God in a professional setting. Except in the context of ‘God save the Queen’ or ‘In God we trust’ or ‘God damn, we stand to make a lot of money if we do such and such.’ But never in the context of ‘God rain down fire and keep these crackers off my back’ and, forbid the dreaded thought, ‘God is great’ – especially not in Arabic.
32. Do happily split the bill equally when you go out for group drinks or dinner, professional or otherwise. The few peppercorns you’ll save by ticking off the items you consumed on the receipt will lose you a fortune in missed opportunities as a result of looking cheap and socially inept.
33. Don’t be shocked when white people use other white people as a means of creating a picture of ‘diversity’ within your firm that just doesn’t exist. For example, a straight white Englishman in New York may be held up as a poster child for the firm’s commitment to ethnic diversity.
34. Do place