A few months ago I decided to go out in Washington D.C. with a few friends. There was me, a friend who is a guy and three women that all decided to go out and hang for the night. These friends are people I see often and think nothing too special of. We were just five black youths trying to enjoy the nightlife of D.C. that so many people crave. I personally do not care for clubs, but as I care for my friends I will suffer that blow to celebrate with them. I thought this would be a normal night but one situation in particular caused me to really stop and really think in a way that I haven’t in a while.
Now before I explain anything further I must make one thing known… I did not come from money. I came from struggle. I could recite the Bane speech from The Dark Knight Rises and replace “darkness” with “struggle” and it would be as true to me as Bane’s was to him. I always thought money would be a key to unlock a door to happiness and I was on a mission to try to obtain this key. I chose a major that would be challenging as well as produce a lucrative career and living. I just knew that getting this key would automatically allow me to walk through the door of opportunity into the house of happiness and I would live like the people in fairy tales do. I had these thoughts for years after graduation, but the night I mentioned above caused me to step back and rethink this.
As me, my friend and two of the women we were with awaited for the third woman to arrive at the bar so that we could all meet up we met a random man. This guy was a middle aged white male, shorter than me, stockier build but was a humorous guy with a lot of money. He bought drinks for the women we were with, cracked jokes and watch the game with us and told me and my boy about his job as an attorney I believe and how he just makes so much money. As I sat there listening to his tales of finance I noticed that his conversation was riddled with envy and sadness. Yes you read that correctly, a middle aged white male with a great career and loads of money was envious of two young black professionals. Now why would this ever be the case? Well here’s the thing, he noticed the women we were with and he took a liking to them. Even when the third arrived he was enamored by them. He constantly asked us how we knew these women. He would ask if we were sleeping with them, dating them or anything of a non platonic manner. As we answered he would be amazed that we were just friends with these women. Don’t get me wrong, if they threw it we would catch it, but they were not anything we were actively pursuing. He spoke about how he wishes he would be able to know women that hot and how we don’t know how lucky we were. “Women like that rarely even look at me!” was one of the many exclamatory statements he made throughout the night and this really made me think hard about what i perceived to be true in life.
All my life I knew I would be the minority, always seen as a second class citizen compared to the white man in this country. No matter what credentials I gathered, how hard I worked or how much intelligence I developed, the Jones’ that people would be keeping up with would not be me… I mean I’m a Jiggetts not a Jones. Regardless of what my name holds, this man whose name I do not remember made me realize that the key I always longed for was not money. Money would not bring me happiness. Now I do admit that it’s easier to be happy when you are not financially stressed but this man, who is the epitome of what America portrays as a happy citizen, was jealous of the image America paints as the young goon…the target for police. I, to this day, still think about that night because it still amazes me that a person who seemingly has it made in this country would be jealous of a two young men who constantly have to fight to have this country even deem us valuable. Though I do not like going out, I realize that a lesson can be learned in the oddest of places. And in that bar, across from Cities lounge in Washington D.C., I learned that money isn’t the key to happiness. Hell, ask the white man who had an abundance of it but was drinking his worries away talking to two young black men about how great we have it… Funny huh?
