Billionaires, Stay Out Of My Neighborhood and My Wallet
And I certainly wouldn’t want a Billionaire marrying my daughter.
Happy (We No Longer Have Our) Independence Day.
Let’s first remember that the category of race in America is a social construct. It doesn’t exist if America’s original white supremacists a.k.a. the colonialists don’t use it to enforce this land’s specific brand of racism. Ex-NBA player Jalen Rose says the person who invented the thing is often not as important as the person who popularized the thing. While The United States of America certainly did not invent racial categorization and racism, our country certainly popularized it. The colonists and the founders of this country used race and racism to reinforce their ideas of how class and social status should rule our society in the wake of no longer having a British monarchy. Without a monarchy how do you make those Irish indentured servants who are living on the edge feel like things could be worse? You point at the enslaved Africans and say, “Welp! At least you’re not them.”
Before any of you reading this get too excited about me declaring race to be “fake,” calm down, Thomas Sowell Jr.. Even though we can admit that race was invented out of whole cloth, it doesn't mean that the invention doesn’t come with real-world consequences. The realest of those real-world consequences is racism. Racism is a measurable force throughout American society. You can see how racism against Black people has filled prisons with Black folks, prematurely shortened Black people's lives, and destroyed Black people’s neighborhoods. Racism against Indigenous folks means they are the unjustified targets of police. Racism is so embedded into American capitalism that the houses that Black folks own don't accrue value across generations the same way that houses owned by white families do. That means Black people as a whole don’t have access to building generational wealth. One of America’s most awful scars is the Japanese interment camps of World War II. There’s also the anti-Chinese laws of the old west era and the ways in which I.C.E. is rounding up random Latinos, Latinas, and Latinx folks right now as I type this.
Yeah, that’s a lot. America is a lot.
But lumping us all into one group CAN help create political alliances. These alliances are necessary under a system of white supremacy. The enslaved Africans saw themselves as very different on the boat trip over here. They came from different tribes in Africa, spoke different languages and dialects, and had different customs. Welp, as soon as they disembarked from the boats and assessed the situation, they quickly turned to each other and said, “What up, my nigga?”
Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Korean Americans team up in 1968 and become Asian Americans. Eventually Asian Americans add in Indian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans and they all become Asian American Pacific Islander a.k.a. AAPI. Nationalities become racial categories that aren’t even really based on skin tone anymore. It becomes more about a globally-shared heritage, a heritage that generally travels in a similar direction culturally and physically towards the United States. They all head east when they are coming to America.
So if we can accept that skin tone is surprisingly not the prevalent factor in racial categorization, then allow me to propose a new racial category. It certainly combines a group of people who align more culturally with each other than with people not in this new category. It absolutely combines people who travel the same way… and more importantly in the same style.
Billionaires.
As long as we are using race to classify people, I think Billionaires should be classified as their own race of people. It is very clear from the photos of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez’s wedding that many of the people who attended feel closer to their money than to their own skin color or even their other identifiers.
In case you haven’t read the news recently –which would be understandable because there is literally too much news– Jeff Bezos is no longer the anti-Trump billionaire he once proclaimed himself to be. Let’s be clear. Jeff was never as anti-Trump as he wanted us to think that he was. because here’s the big thing about becoming a billionaire. You often (always?) have to exploit the workforce that does the real heavy lifting to make you a billionaire. If you are exploiting people for your own financial gain that means that you are already aligned with Trump. Jeff has a company, Amazon, that both underpays people AND is known for union-busting. Jeff’s company, by definition, was created to destroy small businesses and mom-and-pop shops It is very Trumpian in its goals. And last year Jeff decided that the newspaper he owns, The Washington Post, should only have opinions in the opinion section that match up with Jeff’s opinions. Even worse, those opinions should mostly just concern making the free market more free. Real billionaire bullcocky. So much for The Post’s old slogan “Democracy dies in the dark.” This is more like, “Let’s take democracy to the dark and kill it before anybody knows what happened.”
It is clear from the guest list at the Bezos-Sánchez wedding that no matter their race, billionaires and the ultra-wealthy (from here on known as “the half-billionaires”) have more in common with each other than they do with us. There’s probably an argument that you could give A-list celebrities their own racial category too, but we all know that “A-list” fades over time. Being an A-list celebrity is like being a white person with a suntan. You have to work hard to keep it up or it goes away. There was a time in the ‘80s where you couldn’t have imagined throwing an A-List wedding without inviting Michael Keaton. We all still love Michael Keaton, but none of us looked at the parade of stars at that wedding and wondered, “WHERE’S MICHAEL KEATON???”
We have to admit at this point that, no matter their race, billionaires are their own class of people. Billionaires see past skin color, upbringing, and even how you earned you money. They just (count to) see if you have enough zeros before the decimal point associated with your name. They live in their own neighborhoods. They prefer to only hang out with their kind. They have their own food. They take care of each other before taking care of others. And much like America’s non-white races, Billionaires often want to change laws so that they can get better treatment. It brings that infamous inauguration photo into perspective.
I ask you not to look at the men in the picture as individuals –a Jewish forty year old college dropout being hit hard by a midlife crisis, a New Mexico born-and-raised child of a teen mom and a Baptist, Danish-American unicyclist father (Yup!), a man born in India who has degrees from multiple elite American universities, and a wealthy Apartheid-baby-turned-adult-Nazi. Look at them as a clump of billionaires. Then you can see that it is clear that it is their billionaire status that keeps them aligned, not publicly stated political affiliations, not country of origin, and not anything to do with their DNA.
When I see the Billionaires row at Trump’s inauguration, I don’t see a bunch of individuals with individual needs and wants. I see a bunch of billionaires in lockstep with the president in order to get what they want. Frankly, to my eye these guys look more like this.
Obviously, not only white men and Sundar Pichai are Billionaires. Women can be Billionaires. Black people can be Billionaires. And as we saw in the photos of the Bezos-Sánchez wedding, even Black women can be Billionaires.
Many people have been stunned (saddened even) to see Oprah Winfrey at a wedding that celebrates Jeff Bezos. Of course, while I (and many others) see Jeff Bezos as the dude who is kicking the chair out from under American democracy while his Billionaire friends circle around, pointing and laughing, Oprah Winfrey probably sees Jeff more as the guy who was kind enough to send her best friend to space for the length of a smoke break.
Let me clear. While Oprah is a Billionaire, she isn’t full Billionaire. Oprah has done a lot for her Black side–like giving the late Maya Angelou the biggest platform possible to shine her light and wisdom. Oprah wrapped her celebrity (and wealth) around then-Senator Barack Obama as he ran for president. Oprah has mentored many Black women, including highly acclaimed filmmaker and producer Ava DuVernay. One could say that Oprah is basically mixed race at this point. She’s mixed with Billionaire and Black. I wouldn’t dare to guess what the percentages are. We would need Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Oprah’s accountant to figure that out. Of course Oprah also gave us Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. I’m guessing that is her Billionaire side flaring up, not her Black side..
Among the other Billionaires at the Bezos-Sánchez wedding were a botox of Kardashians, a couture of fashion designers, darkskinned (old money) Billionaire Bill Gates, lightskinned (new money) A. I. Billionaire (and possible A. I. creation) Sam Altman, and a trump of Billionaires (a couple of Kushners and an Ivanka). Also there were half-Billionaires Tom Brady and Leonardo DiCaprio.
And of course, just because your race is Billionaire, it didn’t mean that you had to go to Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez’s wedding. Mackenzie Scott wasn’t there. Maybe it is because Jeff is her ex. Or maybe it is because even though she was a Billionaire she’s one of the good ones. She’s not like the rest. She has donated over 19 billion dollars to more than 2000 non-profits. Mackenzie is truly a credit to her race! Like the media said about Prince after he died, Mackenzie transcends her race! A few Billionaires seem to want to be race traitors. Melinda Gates and J.B. Pritzker are two that come to mind. But we have to be careful giving Billionaires compliments. Billionaires often say one thing in public and then do things differently in private. They know how to code-switch in order to fit in with the rest of us.
I believe that thinking of these people as a race of Billionaires will cause their actions and lifestyles make more sense to us non-Billionaires. We will stop expecting Black billionaires to be BLACK Billionaires. We will expect them to be Black BILLIONAIRES. It's like how people read this book and finally stopped asking, "Why do Black people all sit together at the lunch table?"
Years ago, I was invited to a super rich guy’s island. (Not that one.) He was definitely on the invite list for the Bezos-Sánchez wedding, unless they were mad at each other for some sort of Ibiza reason. My wife and I had a five-year-old and a one-year-old. I said we would need a room big enough for our kids. We were told that children were not allowed on the trip to the island. We said thanks, but no thanks. I never forgot that. It was so striking to me that a Billionaire (a person who definitely understands that people have kids) would ban people from bringing kids to his island for an extended vacation. What the fuck were we supposed to do with our kids? I imagine he thought we would just have our staff take care of them while we were thousands of miles away. That was my first indicator that Billionaires aren’t like the rest of us. They not like us.
You know what they say about Billionaires?
Those people don’t pay their taxes.
Those people don’t associate with people who aren’t like them.
Those people hate the idea of a social safety net because it is antithetical to their need for the working class to always be struggling, because their struggle makes it easier for the Billionaires to exploit the working class’s labor.
Also Billionaires’ food smells funny. Like foam and gelee.
Also if you see a Billionaire, cross the street. They will snatch your life savings and medicaid right out of your wallet.
The other benefit of seeing Billionaires as a race unto themselves is that it helps us understand how and why non-BIllionaires act around them. Billionaires–not unlike Black people– have become so popular as a race that non-Billionaires–not unlike non-Black people–often try to act like Billionaires. Sort of “Fake it ‘til you make it. (Of course in the case of wannabe Billionaires the “it” is a billion dollars.) This has given way to a class of non-Billionaires wearing Billionaire Blackface. You see them on social media. You see them on reality television. But worst of all you see them in the senate, the congress, and scattered throughout the federal government.
Some have gone even further. The full Rachel Dolezal. Getting their faces reconstructed to look like Billionaires, specifically Ivanka Trump. It is called Mar-a-lago face. I wish I was kidding.
The long and short of it is that we need to identify who the Billionaires are and who the wannabe-Billionaires are. It’s just like when Steve Martin did that one movie with Queen Latifah. It is not good for our society to allow this to proliferate and take over.
This week our government voted to pass a bill that was written specifically for the Billionaires and specifically not for the rest of us. Now, I’m not against sometimes prioritizing and focusing on an individual race of people legislatively, but I am against it when it is the Billionaires. I truly believe that if America finally did the right thing for Black people that the rising tide of Black people would lift all the other boats. (Maybe using the “boat analogy” is in poor taste.) As far as the racial caste system in this country goes, Black people are always at or near the bottom. But Billionaires are nowhere near the bottom. Billionaires are at the tippy top of all the systems in this country. A bill that prioritizes Billionaires only helps Billionaires become trillionaires. (Yes, that’s a thing we'll likely see in our lifetimes. In fact they are racing with each other to get there.) Giving Billionaires a helping hand is a little like deciding America wants to help people over seven feet tall, and it decides that it wants to help them by getting them high heels. “Helping Billionaires” is utter lunacy.
As a tall person, myself (6’4”), I’m not gonna advocate for our country to put things on higher shelves. That’s what America’s Billionaires, as a race of people, want to do. And worse, they want us to cheer them on as they do it. They want to grind us into the ground and then walk on us as they celebrate marriages that will have more pages in the prenup than they will have years together.
For the record, I wasn’t invited to the Bezos-Sánchez wedding. I wouldn’t have gone if I had been invited. I don’t hang out with those kinds of people.
Who’s with me?
You’re With Me
“Who’s With Me?” Stand-Up Tour in SC & NC
I’m coming to Charleston on July 11th and Durham on July 12th. It’s going to be funny. It’s going to be cathartic. It might even get petty because that’s my new year’s resolution, and as you can see from this post it’s going well so far.
Fishbone’s NEW Album Stockholm Syndrome
My other favorite band, Fishbone, released a new album last week, appropriately entitled Stockholm Syndrome. You can stream it of course or YOU CAN GO TO BAND CAMP AND GIVE THEM MONEY for your digital copy. Let’s normalize paying artists for music again. I just paid $12 for Stockholm Syndrome. It felt great.
I’m with you always. You are a decent, kind man with the power to delight as well as to enlighten others!
And I love your new group noun, a Botox!
"A botox of Kardashians and a trump of Billionaires." LMAO!
But seriously...have you ever wondered what would have happened if Oprah had expressed her Woman side instead of her Black side & endorsed Hillary? I have. Would we be where we are today?
And WTF happened to Jeff Bezos? Even in the early days when Amazon started making piles of money (after its IPO) he was a regular guy. He still drove his old Volvo. Oh wait...then he divorced Mackenzie...hmm.