Yeah, I Said It

by Wanda Sykes

  There is no equality. White man kills a white man, it all depends. White man kills a white woman, it all depends. White man kills a black woman, it all depends. White man kills a black man, he’ll get a speeding ticket.

  There should be a big crime board, like a menu. Everything is prix fixe. You killed somebody, you get life. Robbery, every ten grand you stole, gets you a year. It goes way up for armed robbery. Everybody gets the same punishment across the board. “Oh, you assaulted her, too? You get the combo time.”

  And it’s been proven that the death penalty is not a deterrent. If you’re a murderer, you’re not thinking about how much time you’re going to get. Those people waiting for their execution date aren’t feeling any remorse. They’re not thinking about all those people they killed and molested, they’re just regretting that time in their life when they thought it was a good idea to move to Florida. They’re thinking of all those crimes they didn’t commit. People they should’ve killed along the way.

  Murderer 1: Man, I knew I should have killed that motherfucker at McDonald’s who always put cheese on my Big Mac. Now I’m gonna die a fat man.

  Murderer 2: I should’ve stole that algebra test in tenth grade. Now I’m gonna die without a high school education. Damn, what type of job am I supposed to get without a high school education?

  Murderer 3: Why did I stop smoking?

  Green River Killer

  If you are a convicted killer trying to escape the death penalty, you might wanna try withholding information. This murderer got life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing forty-eight women from 1982 to 1998. The police couldn’t find most of the bodies so the district attorney cut a deal with him. He tells them where the bodies are in exchange for life in prison. The DA felt that this deal was good for the families of the victims so they could have closure. I don’t think they should have made this deal. I feel for the families, honestly. However, I’m worried for future victims. You are rewarding this guy for being a good body hider. This is an incentive for future serial killers. Now they are going to get all creative in hiding the body to avoid the death penalty. “Under the bed?” “In a box of Cracker Jack?” “The woods?” “Fuck it, I’ll just eat the damn thing.…Naw, I’m too sloppy. I’ll have DNA all on my shirt.”

  Crime

  I don’t believe that blacks commit more crimes than white people. I know the jails may not reflect that, because there are more brothers in jail than white guys. However, jails are not a true representation of who commits crimes. Jails just represent who got caught.

  I truly believe that white people commit just as many crimes, maybe even more than any other race, but they get away with it. True story, I was in the grocery store with my attractive white girlfriend. I had just picked her up from LAX. We stop at the grocery store, she grabs a bottle of water off the shelf, opens it, and drinks up. She was thirsty after her first-class flight from New York. I pick up a few things, get in line, pay for my items. She looks in her hand at the half-empty bottle (I’m a pessimist) of Gelson’s Water and says, “Oh, I forgot about this. Did he charge you?” I say, “No.” She thinks about it for a mere second, then says, “It’s too much of a hassle explaining. It’s only, what? Ninety-nine cents.” And she walks out of the store. She passed several employees and a security guard. Not one of them looked at her thieving ass. Now I’m sweating, waiting for them to grab me. I haven’t done a thing. I’m totally innocent, but I’m scared to death that they are going to charge me with influencing a good white woman to steal.

  Now my friend “Sticky Fingers” was able to walk out with that water because nobody was looking for her to steal. She could have walked out of there with a side of beef, and I bet the bag boy would have helped her to the car.

  When I go into a store, I don’t even chew gum ’cause I’m scared they’re gonna think I took it.

  Manager: What’s in your mouth?

  Me: Bubble Yum.

  Manager: We sell Bubble Yum. Officer!

  Sometimes the store may not even sell what I have.

  Me: Wait, I don’t want to take my book in there.

  Friend: It’s the Gap.

  Black people face discrimination across the board. Even black criminals are at a disadvantage because of racial profiling. Hell yeah, black people get caught more, because everybody is looking for us to fuck up. While you’re pulling us over, following us, checking our twenty-dollar bills, white folks are getting away scot-free.

  We all are guilty of profiling. If you see a white man running, you think, He must be late for a meeting or something. Hey, out of his way. When you see a black man running, you think, Who’s he running from? What did he do? I’m calling the cops. Hey, somebody stop his black ass. This racial profiling has to stop. Quit following us, or you white criminals help us out. Team up with a black criminal. Let him be the decoy, while you’re robbing them blind. I bet Dr. King would be proud.

  White criminals commit the biggest crimes, too. A brother might rob a bank. A white man will rob a pension fund. The brother is going to get ten to fifteen years because he had a gun. The white guy will get a congressional hearing because he had a job and a nice suit.

  A white executive can steal millions of dollars and never see the inside of a prison cell. A black man could never steal that much money. There are just not that many liquor stores in the country. I’m sure there are plenty of black criminals out there who would love to commit some white-collar crimes, but those jobs aren’t available to them. That’s why we need affirmative action. I would love to pick up a newspaper and on the front page read about a black CEO ripping off millions from his company, putting them in bankruptcy. I bet he’d be the first man to get the electric chair in a three-piece suit. They’ll make him hold his briefcase and all. “According to your Palm Pilot (PDA), you have an electrocution scheduled in about fifteen minutes.”

  Guns

  I was thinking about buying a gun. Then I saw Michael Moore’s film/documentary Bowling for Columbine. Good Lord, there are too many fucking guns in this country. After seeing this documentary, I was like, “I’m definitely getting a gun.” Apparently I’m the only one who’s not packing. I need to protect myself from all of these gun-toting Americans.

  I went shopping for a gun. The one I wanted was five hundred dollars. I started to buy it and then I thought about it. If I spend five hundred dollars for a gun, I’m shooting somebody. I’m not gonna let a five-hundred-dollar gun collect dust. I wouldn’t buy a five-hundred-dollar coat and not wear it. Somebody is getting shot, flesh wound or something, then I checked my Johnnie Fund and gave it back to the salesman. “Not yet, not yet. Do you have layaway?”

  Here’s the deal, bottom line—the NRA believes that you have the constitutional right to own a gun. When I say you, I’m not talking about your black ass. I’m talking to white Christian men. Also white women. White women need to be able to fend off the crazy white-women-loving black men.

  They think of it as us versus them. They believe that they are the law-abiding American citizens and the rest of us are criminals out to get them. They are waiting for the revolution. Because real redneck white boys know that they got an ass-whipping coming to them.

  Now this is where we all should be patriots and embrace our rights as Americans. Yep, we should all join the NRA. If you want gun control, get Crips and Bloods, the Nation of Islam, the JDL, the Mexicans, Arab Americans, any minority group, and let’s all go join the NRA. If all of us were card-carrying members who legally owned handguns it would scare the shit out of those boys. At the next meeting they would be like, “Look, Mohammed has a gun, José has a gun, Dante has a gun, Saul has a gun, Chang has a gun, and the Queer Eye guys have guns. We need some goddamn gun control around here. This is ridiculous.”

  So please join me, join the NRA. We would become a nation of whistles and noisemakers. You would get robbed by a dude armed with a flashlight. “He put it right in my eyes. I fell to the ground. I couldn’t see a thing. I just gav
e him my wallet; then he high-beamed me and ran off.”

  Seriously, I don’t need a gun. I’m easily annoyed. I would shoot people in my house that I invited over. In fact, I long for the day when we get rid of guns. But that’s not going to happen. Not as long as we have poverty. They tried to get rid of guns, wait—they tried to get guns out of poor people’s hands. Rich white boys are going to hold on to their guns. When Charlton Heston said “from my cold dead hands,” he meant that shit. Although by the looks of him, he’s starting to cool off.

  The Toys for Guns program: You bring us a gun, we’ll give you a toy. Ain’t nobody using their gun to rob Toys “R” Us. How about a Jobs for Guns program? You bring us a gun, we’ll give you a job. “Wow, Jamal, you have a Mac-10, an Uzi, semiautomatic shotgun, and a nine millimeter. Shit, that makes you CEO.” “Henry, a forty-five, that’s it? Grab a mop.”

  Part Four

  Back to Africa

  I’m not politically correct. I still say black. I say it because with African American, there’s no bonus. It doesn’t make your life any easier. You don’t see black people standing around, saying, “Oh yeah, African American. Man, I’ll tell ya, this beats the hell outta being black. We should’ve made the switch years ago. Oh, this is nice.”

  You don’t see any of us going into Bank of America, “Excuse me, I’m here to pick up my loan.”

  “Uh, Ms. Sykes, you were rejected for that loan last week.”

  “Oh, that was last week. I was black then. See, I’m African American now. I’ll just go in the vault and take what I need. I’ll sign on my way out.”

  African American ain’t helping nobody. You think Rodney King’s black ass is sitting somewhere, saying, “Damn, if I just would have waited two years before I acted a fool, they wouldn’t have been beating my black ass. I would have been African American.” I understand that whole African American thing, though. Some black people want to get back in touch with their African roots, that’s all. Then you have some black people who just don’t give a damn. You tell them, “Hey, I just got back from the motherland.” They’re like, “Where’d you go, Detroit? Did you see the Temptations?” They don’t care. I understand that attitude, too. I really do.

  Think about it. Africa. I know we were taken from there. But not once did they try to come over here and take us back. I never read about any failed rescue missions. When Americans are taken hostage we go get them, right? We send planes, troops, bombs, Jesse Jackson. We go get them. Not once have I ever been out shopping and some brother just rolled up on me: “Pssst, pssst. Hey, sister, I’ve been looking for you for many years. Come, the boat is this way. We are going home!” Never happens.

  At this time I don’t have a desire to go visit Africa; hopefully it’ll hit me to do it one of these days. I don’t think I could handle that African heat. I would spend my whole time there under an elephant’s ass trying to find some shade. Also when you go to Africa, you have to get a bunch of shots. And when you get back to the U.S., you gotta get more shots. That right there tells me to keep my black ass out of Africa.

  Black Panther Woods

  I remember when Tiger Woods was black. You don’t know what he is now. Tiger was black when the sportswriters were covering him when he was an amateur. They were like, “Hey, this black kid coming out of Stanford is going to be the hottest thing in golf.” As soon as he turned pro and won his first tournament, I read, “Biracial golfer wins first tournament.” Oh, okay. He’s fifty-fifty. He’s fifty percent black and fifty percent Asian. All right, cool. Then after he won the Masters I’m flipping through Sports Illustrated and I read, “Tiger Woods is a quarter black.” I’m like, “Damn, now he’s down to twenty-five percent. What the hell is going on?” They’re treating him like he’s milk. You know, whole milk, half-and-half, two percent, one percent, skim. For every professional win he loses some blackness. Only thing keeping him black is every now and then his father shows up. “Hey, that’s my boy. Don’t try to steal him now.” They’re taking him away. One more major title and we’ll read, “Tiger Woods has just been named the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.” Everybody wants you when you’re a winner. But you know as soon as Tiger gets in trouble, what will we read? “Black golfer arrested. Black Panther Woods found guilty.” The only place he’ll be playing is on the public courses with O.J.

  Eminem

  He won an Oscar. Everybody likes his ass. He’s a smart guy. He knows that no matter how accepted he is not to use the “N word” in his lyrics. White kids love his shit because his songs are the only ones they can rap along with word for word without getting the crap beaten out of them.

  Black people like him because he’s from Detroit. And if you’ve lived in Detroit as long as Eminem and escaped without gators and a fucked-up hairdo, you’re cool, man. I think all his misogynistic and homophobic lyrics are just a front to make him appear to be something he is really not. I mean, how homophobic can you be if you look like a cute lesbian?

  What the *#%?

  I made a mistake one night and took a break while writing this book. I watched The Apprentice with Donald Trump because I like watching white people get fired on national television. Also I was waiting to see if the black people were going to snap when they got fired. I wanted to see one of them jump across that boardroom table and slap Donald’s comb-over down his shoulder.

  But lucky for viewers, we had Omarosa instead. I loved that show but the finale was disappointing. You mean to tell me Kwame can’t get a job? Kwame, with an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, is unemployable? What kind of message does that send? You know there was some black dude sitting at home watching TV saying, “Kwame can’t get a job? I’m not getting shit with my G.E.D. Aw fuck this, I’m gonna go rob somebody.”

  Anyway, after The Apprentice, I turned to Super Millionaire. I’d been writing all day, I deserved a little Regis. A white guy, probably in his thirties, was on the hot seat. The five-thousand-dollar question was, “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech; what were the last three words?” His choices were:

  A) God bless America

  B) Liberty for all

  C) We shall overcome

  D) Free at last

  I know you’re thinking: That’s easy. Well, you’re thinking that if you’re black. This white man was stumped. He had to use a lifeline for a five-thousand-dollar question. For those of you not familiar with Super Millionaire, the questions don’t get difficult until you get in the fifty-thousand-dollar range. Even Regis looked at this man, like, “Come on, you dumb hick, it’s February. You’re making us look bad.”

  The guy, by the way, he was from Newark, Delaware, chose to “phone a friend.” Regis asked him who would he like to call. This guy went blank; he didn’t say it aloud, but you could hear him thinking, Shit, I don’t have any black friends. It was ridiculous. Then he said that he would like to call his aunt. I guess he was thinking his aunt is old, she was around back during that time. Maybe she had a dog that attacked Dr. King, maybe bit him in the ass or something.

  It gets better. The aunt gets on the phone; he reads her the question. I’m waiting for her to chastise him for calling her, wasting a lifeline on such an easy question. Wrong again, Auntie doesn’t have a clue. Now Regis is physically getting annoyed; he’s squirming in his chair, like, “Well, you can use your fifty-fifty and we will remove two of the incorrect answers.” That’s what Rege said, but I know he was thinking: Get this dumb-ass motherfucker out of here. He’s embarrassing the white people.

  He uses his fifty-fifty lifeline. Now he’s left with:

  B) Liberty for all, and

  D) Free at last

  He’s scratching his head. You can hear Dr. King from his grave, going, “Free at last, cracker! Free at last!” The white boy must have heard him, too, because he got it right.

  Do you see how fucked up things are? Do you see why there is so much discrimination? Do you understand why black people are so frustrated? I know this happened on something trivi
al like a game show, but to me it is a fine example of what we’ve been saying all along. White people don’t know shit about us and they are not going to go out of their way to learn. I would argue that anyone not knowing the answer to such a simple question should be considered ignorant of American history. But that’s the problem—since Dr. King was a black man, some white folks feel like that’s black history. They don’t have to learn about that shit, none of their concern.

  Well, that’s bullshit! It’s also bullshit that we have Black History Month. Don’t segregate us from American history, belittle our ancestors’ contributions. White folks act like black history is a hobby or a special interest, like it’s Greek mythology. This country was built on the backs of black people. We have just as much or even more of a right to this country than anybody. We are a part of American history, so know our shit. Learn the words to “One Nation Under a Groove.”

  No Energy

  If you’re white and wanna be my friend, please have some other black friends. I don’t have the time or energy to be breaking mutherfuckers in. I just don’t. You know who you are, too, asking all types of bullshit questions, like I’m a damn alien from another planet. If I hear any of the following questions or statements from any of my white friends, we’re through: