14 Things White People Won’t Ever Understand About Black People

Been a while since we’ve had a good list.

I had originally planned on writing a response to a court case that happened last weekend, but then I realized it was time that we had a smile on our face. If only for one day, Black folks need something to smile and laugh about. While I was watching the TV and also hanging out with people who were not Black, I realized that there are certain things about us that white folks ain’t never going to understand. None of it is really all that serious either. Therefore, I came up with a list of 14 things.

Things white people don’t understand about Black people

1. “Got em.”

White people have no equivalent to this game at all. They don’t even really understand its origin in the Black community either. If you were chilling by the water cooler at work and said, “Remember when you used to be like, “Can I get my chop?” Their reaction would be somewhere between a mixture of G. W. Bush and Homer Simpson.

2. Free Lil’ Boosie tee-shirts

Only black people have campaigns to free people, free Mumia, free Assata, free Boosie, and free Lil Wayne. Nobody ever said free Madoff. Nobody made free Lindsay Lohan tee shirts when she went through her issues with the penitentiary system. (Quiet as it’s kept, only Black people can spell “penitentiary” correctly on the first try each time…even with a third-grade education.)

3. Talking about the money you don’t have

I come across this with my coworkers all the time. They don’t have an obsession with talking about money and things they’re going to have in the future like we do. I feel like white folks either have the money or have made a conscious decision not to have money. Therefore, they’ll never be at a baseball game talking about, “When I make it, I’m going to break off the toilet $20 every time as a tip, like “Thanks for putting up with my sh*t.”

4. The Liquor Store

’50 Things You Can Do At The Liquor Store #blackbuzzfeed’. Tell you right now, white people will never understand that the liquor store is the grocery store, bank, financial planning center, movie store, beer & wine store and a place of worship. White people run errands on Saturdays and drive past the liquor store and see a line around the corner. They THINK that’s because Black people are trying to buy Henny. Meanwhile, Black people just found a more efficient way to run errands. “I’m about to cash my check, get this money order for the light bill, cop some bread and Kool-Aid, get ’15, 20, 30, 35, 47’ to pay off this mortgage one day, get that new Kevin Hart because ain’t nobody paying $30 at the movies, and get a track on the way out about my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” That’s a full day’s work in 15 minutes.

5. Why Black people know so much about the legal system

Black people are skilled on the legal system from the city court to the Supreme Court. Not too many people outside of Black people can tell you how much time you won’t do for under an ounce of weed and explain to you Brown vs. Board of Education in the same breath.

6. Obligatory nods

White people always speak when you do that. They were never taught that you should be seen not heard. In fact, being seen ain’t all that important either.

7. Anything Gucci Mane says.

8. Nickels and Dimes

White people only talk about how much money they plan to spend or how many pounds they want. The furthest they’ll go is talking about the weight. Black people ain’t have time for a scale. They gave us some small Ziploc bags and we made it work.

9. Nickels, Dimes and Bullets and their correlation with the penitentiary system

This is one of those things that even if we sat there and explained it, they would never understand it.

10. The fact that you don’t have to burn sh*t or kill anybody, you could just not snitch and rely on karma

That’s real. Black people ain’t never burned a damn thing. They always have the tape. Think back on all those Black movies about Compton, they always stole the tape and kept it in the crib. They knew nobody was going to snitch and they would be okay.

11. Inherent pessimism

Black people are some happy people but we’re inherently pessimistic. We just expect situations to always turn out the wrong way even when we give it our all. Promotions at work or a speeding ticket, we know what it is in this country. Don’t get your hopes up.

12. “Pause”

Their only comparable term would be, “That’s what she said” but that can get a dude fired and a civil case. (See #5)

13. Hats that aren’t your team

Panama brought this up on VSB a while ago but I had to rehash it because they still don’t get it. Colin Kaepernick (QB for the 49ers, for the fellas. Lightskin dude with all the tattoos in the NFL, for the ladies) puts on a Miami Dolphins hat because it went with his outfit and people got upset. We ALL know he plays for the 49ers but we’re wondering why he had that hat. Funny thing about it is your name could be Allan and you’re from NY but your coworker is like, “How come you cheer for the Braves? You don’t like the Yankees?”

14. Unnecessary use of the n-word

White people at this point understand that the n-word is the only word of its kind. We can use (whether we should or not is up for debate) and they shouldn’t use it (whether they do or not is up for debate). They will never understand the flexibility of the word in the ways that we do. While many people think that word is a derogatory word for Black people it’s actually much more powerful. It is a person, statement, story, alibi, reply, and adjective. Here are some examples:

Where is this dude at, we bout to be late. Oh here he come now…

“This n****.” (person)

Let me get a piece of that honey bun?

“N****.” (statement)

What happened last night?

“N****…” (story)

What she look like?

“N****!!!” (detailed explanation)

What’s up with him and that chick?

“He got this chick thinking that he working on a divorce and is living in the basement for the kids, you know, typical n**** shit.” (adjective)

That’s funny, it’s not, but it is. I know some of y’all may think to yourselves, “I’m white and I knew everything on this list.” Or, “my friends are white and they do the same thing.” Yeah, yeah… yeah whatever — no they don’t. I know what Sperry’s are, don’t mean I know what it means to be Black or understand it. This is just a short list of things that no matter how hard we try to explain it to others, they’ll never understand it or we just ain’t in the business of telling our business.

Na’ mean?