I had my Black Pearl over on our every-other-Friday. It was a routine. We’d drink, we’d talk, we’d end up in the sack. But there were always two elephants in the room, taking up all the goddamn air. One, she was a Black Pearl and I was a white one. Two, we were whatever the hell we were to each other.
I’m a deep thinker, and I’m not one for filters. I have strong opinions, and they’re usually right, so they come out with a certain confidence. I like to poke the bear, just to see if it’s still breathing.
So we’re having a conversation, and I start it. I like to set the trap. It started with “Make America Great Again.” She said something about MAGA being racist. The usual line.
“You know,” I said, “when I think of ‘Make America Great Again,’ I think of the ’70s. A time when a blue-collar guy could still make a living, when the middle class was real.” It was a boring start, but you have to lay the groundwork.
Then she took the bait. “Well, if you’re talking about the 1950s,” she said, “that wasn’t a good time for people of my pearl color.”
And just like that, the door was open. I jumped right in.
“Alright,” I said, leaning forward. “Let’s talk about that. Let’s say it’s 1950. I’m a white pearl. And I see the shit going on. I see the other white pearls acting like assholes, telling black pearls they can’t use the same bathrooms, can’t drink from the same fountains, can’t go to the same schools. And I know I’m going to get lumped in with them, that I’m part of the ambassadorship of the majority, and right now, that ambassadorship is shit. I don’t condone it. I don’t make excuses for them. I stand up and I shame them. I tell them it’s a disgrace to treat black pearls the way they do.”
I looked her right in the eye. “Now, if I, as a white pearl, did that back then, stood up against my own kind at the height of their bad behavior… would that be a noble act? Would you see me as a better person for it?”
“Yes,” she said, without hesitation. “Yes, you should do that. That’s absolutely the right thing to do. You shouldn’t condone their behavior just because they’re the same color as you.”
And that’s when I started to reel her in. The hook was set.
“Okay,” I said, my voice quiet now. “If one plus one equals two, and we agree on that, then why don’t black pearls today do the same damn thing? Why don’t you stand up and say that the ambassadorship of the Black Pearl in 2025 is rotten? Why don’t you shame your own?”
She just stared at me.
“Where’s the criticism for the bad culture, the bad behavior?” I pressed on. “After two hundred years, why do you still speak in that dialect? What’s so cool about it that it sets you apart? What’s so great about the music that degrades women, that spews reverse racism against whites? Why is there no shame, no one calling out the disrespect for the police, the high school dropout rate, the crime? In two hundred years, the black pearls in this country have never had it so good, so many opportunities, so much money poured into the system. And still, the culture celebrates failure. Where is your criticism for that?”
I expected a fight. The usual liberal talking points. But she surprised me.
“You know, James,” she said, her voice steady, “I’m not a Democrat.”
I was shocked.
“I believe the Democrats created the welfare system to keep and suppress the black pearls,” she said. “I believe the abortion clinics are all lined up in our neighborhoods for a reason. And it was the Democrats, it was Bill Clinton, who passed the crime bill that locked up a generation of our men.”
She countered, “But you have to understand, my grandfather remembers those water fountains. That history is real.”
“Fine,” I said. “Then how do you account for the yellow pearls? The pearls from India? They just got here, with nothing. And they’re kicking everybody’s ass, economically. They’re kicking your ass, and they’re kicking my ass.”
“The welfare system,” she said, “was established in the black community to replace fatherhood. If you were married, you couldn’t get the benefits, you couldn’t get the Section 8 housing. The laws the Democrats created were designed to remove the father from the home.”
She wasn’t done. “And the reason we still have that culture from the South, the reason it sounds like we’re not evolving? It’s because we’re catered to. The Democrats enable it because they don’t want us to evolve. They want us dependent.”
It was an incredible statement, coming from a black woman. I’ve talked to a lot of black people, mostly my more intellectual friends, and they say the same damn thing. It’s usually the ones who got an education, the ones who got on a bus and left the ghetto, who see the light. The ones who don’t travel, they’re still suppressed.
She did push back a little. “It’s the algorithms,” she said, “that only show you the bad things.”
“No,” I told her. “It’s the reality. It’s the reason you don’t live in that neighborhood anymore.”
Then she turned it on me. “Can I ask you a question?” she said. “If you saw two black pearls walking down the street at night, would you cross to the other side?”
“That depends,” I told her, honest as I could be. “If I’m in La Jolla, California? No. I’d assume they’re just as intellectual and boring as I am. But if I’m in Compton? Hell yes, I’m crossing the street. If not running in a goddamn zigzag pattern.”
And in the end, after all the talk, we came to a strange kind of understanding. We realized we weren’t on opposite sides of the fence. She was a kind of conservative liberal, and I was a liberal conservative. At the end of the day, we were both just sitting in the middle of the same goddamn fire, pointing out the arsonists.
We couldn’t create a solution. But for a little while, in that quiet room, we could at least agree on what was burning.
