To be clear, I am not interested in any honorary blackening or distributing any sort of cookout invitations to Juli Briskman, the white woman fired from her marketing-company job after a photo of her flipping the bird at a Trump motorcade went viral. Because while Juli might very well be swell, I don’t know her like that.
Plus, we’re getting the cookout thing all wrong. Anyone who’s actually been to one should know that the goal should be to invite less people to them, not more. Because there’s only but so much meat to go around, and niggas like me want to get thirds. (Which is why I believe that the optimal cookout size is between three and seven people.)
But sometimes, black-ass shit happens to people who don’t happen to be black-ass people. Because while what makes you black is static, black-ass shit happening transcends race. It even transcends species. I’ve seen black-ass shit happen to cats, pigeons, shadows and even some ambitious-ass squirrels.
Anyway, while getting fired isn’t especially black, the circumstances surrounding and leading to Juli Briskman’s firing were black as fuck. To wit, she ...
1. ... got fired for a symbolic but ultimately meaningless gesture.
Because of the whole white supremacy thing, sometimes symbolic gestures that might not move any needles but just allow us to feel a little better are all we have. Maybe you can’t break your company’s glass ceiling, but you can totally, definitely take all of the toilet paper from the supply closet. If they don’t want to give you a raise, well, you’re never spending money on Bounty again. “Bounty” is Swahili for “blackness surcharge.”
2. ... got fired for telling the truth.
Giving the finger to a motorcade possessing this president of ours isn’t just an appropriately petty thing to do—it’s right. You’d actually be in the wrong if you had an opportunity to flip the bird or throw a tomato at anything related to Darth Cheeto and you decided against it. It’s your patriotic duty to thumb your nose at this motherfucker whenever you can.
3. ... got fired on her day off.
Yeah, this was pretty damn black. So damn black that while she still ain’t coming to the cookout, I wouldn’t be opposed to inviting her to sit at the properly-seasoned-foods-prepared-with-black-hands table at the company potluck. That gesture deserves some Old Bay.