The Black Card: Leveling Up to “Black Enough”

I finished watching The Wire recently and it feels like I just got done with a marathon. I have talked a bit about how I was the shame of my friends for not having known of it when it was big back in the early 2000’s — what I didn’t talk about, however, is that whenever I stated that I wasn’t aware of the show, my Black friends would joke about my Black Card being revoked or having it be up for renewal, which led me to to a weird realization: have you ever noticed how there there is no breakdown for what defines the Black Card?

I’m talking about how it works, what truly makes up the mechanics of the card itself… there is no pie chart whatsoever. The Black Card is referred to in passing among us as this totem that each Black person acquires at birth. Unless you’re biracial, in which case some would (incorrectly) say that you have to earn it. Listen, this isn’t a wolf ticket I’m buying or selling because that’s just segregation amongst each other. A lighter complexion doesn’t mean you need to get put on a waiting list, because that one-drop rule was made just for the occasion of keeping passing folk out. Trust that discrimination will find your ass REGARDLESS. Being biracial doesn’t stop you from claiming that Black Card as your birthright. Fact is, that’s mostly what we know of the Black Card, isn’t it? That it’s our birthright, right? And in order to maintain it the rules state that one must keep it real, one hunned, and Black. Now the question comes in “keeping it real”…