(ThyBlackMan.com) Many within the black community have heard about the “Black Card” when it was being threatened by what they don’t know or haven’t experienced. Just to clarify having a black card within community speaks to the many experiences you’ve had, things you do, even things you eat and say that are associated with having a black experience in America. It’s important to remember that black people are not a monolith, but there are still things that bring most of us together.
It can be acquired from growing up in certain types of black neighborhoods, like family functions, the literature we read, music we love, or the different kinds of injustice we face that we can fight against together. Many of these things bind us together as a people despite our differences, however there are some black card areas that should not be considered a hardline as there are many reasons some of us wouldn’t engage.
Look, I know it may be hard to believe but all black people don’t love card, nor board, games. Spades and dominoes should not, as much as many of us love them, be apart of the black card discussion. Though many may find this funny, some of our people are as serious about 
spades as they are about money. These games are not apart of everyone’s black experience, nor does it have to be for them to feel comfortable in their blackness. To be quite honest, I was brought up around such games, but I also watched the games become volatile quickly, so I stayed away. I knew nothing of the concept of how to play spades until I got married, and even still I want no parts of it. This should not be a reason for me to have to defend myself to my own people. We spend too much time arguing and judging each other over things that mean nothing to our progress as a people. This is something we should reconsider.
While we are fussing about card games, we should seek to read books by certain black authors that would allow us to come together and discuss the state of our people. While one shouldn’t care about spades, we probable should care about “The Souls of Black Folks”, and other books in that vein. The black cards shouldn’t be used to mistreat and further divide us as a people. It should be a way by which we bridge gaps in the black experience among ourselves. We have to be able to gather around the resilience of what it means to be black in America…that is the ultimate black card. While we are giving white people honorary black cards for doing the basics of being a decent human being, that’s another story for another day, we fight those that are actually of us. I can’t reiterate how unfortunate that we can disavow each other culturally behind a game.
As a people we take too many shots from the majority group in this country, and others. We have to fight for our identity, and the right to tell our story our way. It seems there is also another group that is able to benefit from our culture but when we aim to live in our authenticity there seems to be an issue. Given all of them negative pushback why would we want to add to the craziness with the “black card” issue. We are a people of so much diversity and originality within ourselves. There are enough black cards to go around for Black People.
Staff Writer; Christian Starr
May connect with this sister over at Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/christian.pierre.9809 and also Twitter; http://twitter.com/MrzZeta.
