Everyone Loves an Old Black Man!

Updated: Nov 27, 2024

Ya know, I’m not going to sit here and complain.  Yes, America is one of those countries that throws its aged down the garbage disposal and geezers could possibly be the most discriminated group in the country.

What many of us don’t realize is that among the Crusty American demographic, Old Black Men is the most beloved of all.  I need younger Black men to stop eating family size bags of Cool Ranch Doritos, go on daily walks and trade in them cans of Michelob burr for bottles of water because ya’ll need to live long enough to see how differently you’re treated once society removes the YBM (Young Black Male) stamp from your driver’s license.  While America continues to mistreat and ignore its Black women, it feels a bit chummy with Old Black Men.

Why is that?

Old Black Men calm YBM down.  Shooting young Black men and putting them in the Throwing YBMs in the pokey has done nothing but exacerbate the ill will we have towards white people which, in turn, increases whites’ fear and animosity towards them.  One of the solutions to YBM crime and idleness is to pair him with a wise Old Black Man.  (Make sure he’s not a pimp or neighborhood wine-o.  That might not be as helpful.).  Some of the naughtiest Black boys around attend school in NYC where I worked for several years.  In order to curtail absenteeism and drop-out rates, the NYC Department of Education created incentive programs aimed at increasing the number of Black males in the classroom, instead of having them always work in the front offices as an angry ol’ Dean.  Though they attempt to lure Black males into teaching by offering them attractive financial stimulus packages, those numbers continue to sag.  As an alternative, some principals beg a male janitor or cafeteria dude to counsel them hard-headed Black and Dominican boys because these are the only Black male adults who will go anywhere near a public school.  Can’t blame ‘em.

But if you are able to get an old Black Man to mentor a young whippersnapper, you will see stellar results and the white people who run education know this.   They need us at those schools because Black boys listen attentively when that old Black School Dean rolls up his pant leg to display an ankle as swollen and wrinkled as an elephant’s.  After seeing the deformity, the kid gets the message about consuming Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and drinking Arizona Ice Teas every day for breakfast.  Or when the old man tells him to stay in school lest he might be forced to join the military, a terrible choice for the YBM.  And to emphasize his point, the Dean may pop out that fake eyeball that replaced the one he lost in the war.  Them boys sit up and pay full attention as that marble rolls off the table and out the door.  The old Black Man may even pull out the big guns and employ the scariest scare tactic of all when he tells him, “Look a-here, bwah.  If you don’t get your shit together, you’ll end up working at a ghetto-ass school trying to talk some sense into nappy-headed niggasauruses like you.”  Scores of Black boys are scared into the arms of Harvard with that last one... 

Whites think Old Black Men are magical warlocks. 

Spike Lee gets on my damned nerves most of the time, but he hit the nail on the head when he “grumbl[ed] about (how Hollywood creates the) ‘magical Negroes’...amid a spate of films that include [Renee Zellweger’s ‘Same Kind of Different As Me’, Eddie Murphy’s ‘Mr. Church’], ‘The Family Man,’ ‘The Green Mile,’ and ‘The Legend of Bagger Vance,’ all of which feature black characters with mystical powers that were employed entirely for the benefit of white leads.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/magical-negro-meme-makes-comeback-two-new-movies-n641296).  

I currently work at an all-white school in Arizona and as the Wise Old Negro on staff, I wish I had charged a dime for every time some white co-workers came to my room asking for “my thoughts” or “my advice” on how to get through to the two Black boys on campus or on how to best celebrate MLK Day.  (Just for fun, I told them to have their kids do reports on Candace Owens or South Carolina Senator Tim Snott.).

Old Black Men exude a sense of contentment that puts white folks at ease.  We done walked over the hot coals of racism and, at this age, our feet hurt too much to give anything resembling a fuck. We are well aware that some things have gotten better for Black people, but other things have gotten worse, so why wear a screwface about it? White people confuse this resignation for kindness and once we are of a certain age, they finally feel like they can approach us without getting yelled at or shot.

Whereas Old Black Women can at times appear angry and distant (they put up with way more shit than we do, including having to put up with us), Old Black Men give up on trying to fight the power and enjoy having young ‘uns of all races gather around at our feet while we tell long winded stories about dem good ol’ days.  White people love nothing more than sitting in on a session of Storytelling with Black Grandpa so they can later use their attendance as a defense when an angry Black woman accuses them of being a racist sommamabitch.  

Conclusion

When it comes down to it, an Old Black Man is a bridge-builder and a diplomat, really.  White people especially love us when we wear those Brownline style frames that soften our facial features and make us look all well-informed and reasonable, as if we’d graduated alongside Clair Huxtable at Hillman College.  If you got Putin, Zelenskyy, Netanyahu and whoever’s in charge of Palestine in a room, an Old Black Man in glasses could broker peace across Europe and in the Middle East if given the opportunity.  Most people cannot resist our skills of convocation (e.g., “Let me holla at ya’ll for a minute.”), our demands for calm and composure (e.g., “Ya’ll need to quit.  You play too much!”) and our words of reconciliation (e.g., “Ya’ll need to get up off all this beefin' ‘cause ya’ too old for this here bullshit.”). 

So I impress upon you, White America.  Stop fucking around.   Place your faith in Old Black Men and the next stop on this train will be world peace!