"Before You Snatch My Black Card: The Truth About Cultural Identity"
- Ruby N Lewis
- 12 minutes ago
- 15 min read
"Before You Snatch My Black Card: The Truth About Cultural Identity"
There are certain things you just need to know to keep your Black card — like how to play Spades, who made the potato salad, or what it means when your hotline blings. Some of it’s funny. Some of it’s painful. All of it’s real.
But behind the jokes and viral videos, there's a deeper truth: the "Black card" is more than a punchline. It’s a metaphor for belonging, cultural connection, and a history so rich, yet so constantly challenged, that we had to make up a card just to protect it.
The idea of a "Black card" didn't come from nowhere. It was born from generations of cultural erasure — from having your name, your language, your traditions, and even your sense of self stripped away. In a world that tried to force Black people into the margins, the Black card became a symbol of the inside. Of being in on the jokes that others don’t get. Of having shared memory, shared struggle, and shared resilience. It is, in a way, a protective badge — shielding a people from the constant pressure to assimilate.
You don’t learn what the Black card represents in school. It’s learned at Sunday dinners, on porches in the summertime, in beauty salons, in barbershops, at family reunions, and during heated debates about whether Luther Vandross was better before or after he lost weight. You earn it through lived experience, through knowing how to cook with soul, through being able to name three movies by Spike Lee or John Singleton without Googling. It’s in the instinct to run when you see a group running, even if you don’t know why. It’s in knowing how to wrap your hair at night, the way your mother or auntie taught you. It’s not always spoken — but it is always known.
And yes, sometimes it’s playful. There are online quizzes, skits, and memes poking fun at the idea of losing your Black card for liking pumpkin pie more than sweet potato, or not knowing the lyrics to “Before I Let Go.” But even the humor holds weight. Because beneath every “you might lose your card” joke is an acknowledgment of how rare and valuable it is to have a culture that has survived what ours has. We joke because it’s ours. We laugh because it’s one of the few things no one can take.
And maybe most importantly, the Black card is about recognition. In a country that has never stopped trying to tell us we don’t belong, that our language is wrong, our music is too loud, our hair is unprofessional, our skin is threatening — the Black card says: We see each other. We know each other. We carry the same codes. And those codes matter.
There’s nothing elitist about the Black card. It’s not about exclusion. It’s about protection. When you’ve been systemically excluded from opportunity, from education, from justice, and from history books — you create something that can’t be taken from you. The card is ours. The culture is ours. And it’s okay to guard it. In fact, we must.
Because there’s power in having something that’s just for us. Something that doesn’t need to be explained or translated. Something that connects a Black kid in Brooklyn to one in Birmingham, one in Oakland to one in New Orleans. It's a shared cultural currency — one earned not by blood alone, but by understanding, respect, and lived experience. And just like any currency, it has value. Value that can't be bought, only lived.
The Double Standard of Cultural Expression
My daughter recently asked me if I’d eat something her white friend cooked. And like so many Black folks, my first reaction was: “Black people don’t eat at everybody’s house.” Some things are cultural. Some are about safety, tradition, or experience. And no — that’s not racism. That’s reality.
There’s a history behind that statement. It’s rooted in a lived understanding that Black people have long been excluded from spaces where our humanity wasn’t guaranteed, let alone our safety. So, we learned to be cautious — to question food, to ask who cooked it, and to rely on the tried-and-true methods passed down from Big Mama and ‘Nem. That caution, that “don’t eat at everybody’s house” wisdom, became a survival strategy wrapped in tradition. It was never about hatred or division. It was about experience.
But in a society that constantly judges us through a distorted lens, even our caution — our boundaries — gets labeled as “reverse racism.” We’re told that we’re being “too sensitive” when we honor our own customs or look out for our own. Yet no one asks why Jewish communities have kosher standards, or why Asian communities may be wary of outsiders misusing their traditional foods. That’s called respect. But when Black people set boundaries around our culture, it becomes controversial.
Every cultural group protects its own. Chinese New Year? You rarely see Black folks performing or on the center stage. Día de los Muertos? Beautiful — but it’s not for us. Hanukkah? Sacred and closed. And rightfully so. These are cultural touchstones that carry depth, memory, and spiritual weight. No one questions why outsiders aren’t leading the ceremony. No one demands access to the inner circles of those celebrations.
But when Black people gather to celebrate Juneteenth, talk about soul food, joke about washing up properly before bed, or reclaim spaces through movements like Black Lives Matter or Black Girl Magic — suddenly, we’re accused of being “too exclusive.” We’re expected to constantly share, translate, and explain. Our culture is welcomed when it’s entertaining, but policed when it’s protective.
It’s deeper than just a cookout or a hairstyle. It’s about cultural autonomy. And too often, Black people are not allowed to have any without being shamed or questioned. When we create spaces that are for us, there’s almost always an expectation that we open them up immediately — not out of genuine interest, but out of discomfort with the idea that Black people might want to breathe without being observed, explained, or corrected.
Even our joy gets dissected. If we laugh too loud, we’re “ghetto.” If we celebrate too freely, we’re “rowdy.” If we speak too passionately, we’re “angry.” If we dance in public, it's "inappropriate." But when other groups adopt pieces of our culture — from our music to our slang to our dances — it’s trendy, edgy, and innovative. Until we do it again, and then it's “too much.”
That’s the double standard. We’re not just fighting for space — we’re fighting for the right to own our space without apology. To love our culture without dilution. To protect our traditions without needing to prove their worth to outsiders.
And let’s be honest: nobody critiques cultural separation until Black people start exercising it. When we build something for ourselves, it’s either co-opted, minimized, or interrogated. Black artists make a genre, and it gets renamed. Black slang becomes “internet speak.” Black fashion gets repackaged by billion-dollar brands with no credit to the originators. And when we try to reclaim what was always ours, we’re told we’re being divisive.
But culture — true culture — isn’t something that can be borrowed and returned. It’s not a trend. It’s not a costume. It’s a lineage. It’s blood memory. It’s something you live. And if we don’t protect it, it disappears under the weight of mainstream expectations.
So no — Black people not eating at everybody’s house isn’t a joke. It’s a boundary. And boundaries are a sign of self-respect. Just like the Black card, our cultural expressions deserve to be upheld, not questioned. We’ve earned the right to celebrate ourselves in the ways that speak to our truth — and no one gets to shame us for that.
The Crown Act and the Right to Be Ourselves
We had to pass a law just so we could wear our natural hair without being discriminated against. That’s what the Crown Act is — a legal protection for simply being. Because the world has told us, over and over again, that who we are isn’t good enough unless it’s filtered through Eurocentric standards of beauty and professionalism.
From the moment we’re born, our hair becomes a subject of scrutiny. Little Black girls are sent home from school for wearing their hair in braids, puffs, twists, or locs. Black boys are told their afros or fades are “unruly” or “unprofessional.” Adults are denied jobs or promotions because their natural texture doesn’t conform to corporate expectations. And it’s not just about looks — it’s about the underlying message: You need to change who you are to be accepted here.
The pressure to conform doesn’t stop at hair. It stretches across every aspect of our presentation. Our tone, our clothing, our speech patterns, our body language — all are policed in ways that reinforce whiteness as the default. This is the same society that praises white women for wearing cornrows as “trendy,” yet labels Black women wearing the same styles as “unkept” or “too urban.” The same society that applauds white celebrities for “discovering” twerking or hoop earrings, as if these weren’t born from decades of Black cultural tradition.
The Crown Act is more than just a legal bill. It’s a declaration that Black people should not have to apologize for who we are. That our natural beauty is not a threat. That wearing our heritage — in our curls, coils, kinks, and protective styles — is not unprofessional. It’s ancestral. It’s pride. It’s sacred.
And still, the resistance is loud. Some school boards, workplaces, and courts fight against these protections, arguing that appearance policies are “neutral” even when they disproportionately impact Black individuals. But how can a policy be neutral when it forces people to erase parts of themselves just to participate?
This is why cultural protection — symbolized by the Black card — is not trivial. It is essential. Because even when we follow the rules, we’re punished for being ourselves. We’re told to assimilate into systems never designed with us in mind. Systems that still view Blackness as a deviation from the norm rather than a valid and valuable identity.
And so the Black card becomes more than a nod to cultural knowledge — it becomes a badge of survival. A way of saying, Yes, I exist in these spaces, but I also know where I come from. I know what it means to press my hair for Easter Sunday, to get box braids before school starts, to sit in a kitchen with the scent of Blue Magic and the heat of a pressing comb on the stove. I know the weight of the judgment, and I wear my culture anyway.
This is why young Black girls need to see Miss America wear her natural curls. Why it matters when actors like Lupita Nyong’o walk red carpets with their hair in a puff or cornrows. Why it means something when men like Colin Kaepernick or Jaylen Brown show up in locs, refusing to shrink for white comfort.
Representation matters. Visibility matters. But more than anything, protection matters. Legal protection. Cultural protection. Emotional protection. The Crown Act is one step in a long line of efforts to reclaim what was taken and to affirm what we’ve always known: Black is not a liability. Black is not a mistake. Black is not “unprofessional.”
Black is beautiful. Black is powerful. Black is enough.
That’s why the Black card matters. Not as a game — though it can be fun — but as a symbol of cultural protection. A reminder that we have shared knowledge, pain, power, and pride.
What Does the Black Card Really Represent?
The Black card isn’t just about knowing every lyric to “Back That Thang Up” or having seen The Color Purple a dozen times. It’s about:
Knowing that food is love — and seasoning is sacred.
Recognizing the strength in our hair, our history, and our hustle.
Understanding that community comes with both celebration and correction.
You might lose your “card” for eating pumpkin pie over sweet potato, or for showing up to the cookout empty-handed. But what you’re really losing is touch with the heartbeat of a people who’ve built brilliance from pain, culture from scraps, and joy in the face of oppression.
The Black card, at its core, represents cultural fluency — not just in the humorous or surface-level sense, but in the deep knowing that connects Black people across neighborhoods, generations, and even borders. It’s what allows two strangers from different parts of the country to nod knowingly at the same inside joke, the same tone, the same rhythm in how a sentence is delivered. It’s in the shared instinct to correct your child in public with just a look, to respond “I know that’s right!” when someone speaks truth, or to hold space for grief and laughter in the same breath.
It represents resilience — not because we choose to struggle, but because we were born into systems that forced us to. And still, we rise. Still, we create. Still, we find ways to laugh, dance, love, and shine. That shine is what the Black card honors — a generational brilliance that is rarely credited but always present.
It’s in the language, the cadence, the code-switching, and the cultural markers that live in our bodies even when we don’t speak them aloud. It’s in the second line parades of New Orleans, the electric slide at weddings, the cookouts where Frankie Beverly is practically a spiritual experience. It’s in barbershop debates, aunties who swear by castor oil, uncles with wisdom tucked behind jokes, and cousins who know that “put some water on it” is a real solution to a whole range of issues.
More than anything, the Black card represents memory — memory of what was lost, and memory of what we’ve refused to let go. Every tradition we hold, from wrapping hair at night to reciting “God is good, all the time,” is a form of cultural resistance. A way of keeping ourselves intact when the world tried to tear us apart.
Even the so-called “ways to lose your Black card” reflect this cultural grounding. They are humorous, yes — but they also draw lines around what matters. We joke about not knowing how to play Spades, but behind that joke is the understanding that Spades is where so many of us learned strategy, timing, and trust. We joke about Kool-Aid flavors being colors, but that joke only works if you get the context — the shared childhoods where red meant cherry or fruit punch, and nobody ever needed it to be more specific.
The card represents accountability too. Because our culture is not just celebratory — it’s corrective. When you’re part of the community, you’re also held by the community. You’re expected to do better, know better, and represent the culture with care. And if you slip, you get checked — not always out of judgment, but out of love. That’s why the Black card can be “revoked” — it’s a metaphorical way of saying, “Come back when you remember who we are.”
In essence, the Black card represents a promise: that even when we’re scattered by geography, by politics, by generational gaps, there is something unspoken and unbreakable between us. A rhythm. A language. A knowing. A culture that lives in our mouths, our music, our style, our stories.
So if you lose your Black card, it’s not really about card games or pies. It’s about forgetting the roots. And to forget the roots is to forget the reasons we’ve survived — and the reasons we shine.
To the World Watching Us
If you’ve ever laughed at Black culture without understanding it, or consumed it without crediting it, let me be clear: the Black card is not yours to claim, revoke, or ridicule. It belongs to the descendants of those who were stolen, stripped, and still survived.
Black culture is not a costume to be tried on for a night, nor a trend to be adopted when it’s convenient. It is not yours to mimic without consequence. From our language to our fashion, from our music to our mannerisms, Black culture has been borrowed — no, taken — so many times that it’s become normalized to see pieces of us celebrated, while we ourselves are excluded.
Black people are often told, directly or subtly, that our culture is only valuable when it's filtered through someone else. Our dances go viral when others perform them. Our slang is cool on television but “unprofessional” in interviews. Our features are fetishized, our rhythms imitated, our pain commodified — and through it all, the world seems more interested in accessing the culture than respecting the people who create it.
To the world watching: the Black card is sacred. It isn’t a pass you can earn from having a few Black friends. It’s not granted because you know the words to No Scrubs or Juicy. It cannot be purchased through proximity or awarded through performance. It is an inheritance — and not one lightly held. It carries the weight of ancestors, the trauma of bondage, the strength of community, and the fire of resistance. So if you appreciate Black culture, do so with reverence. Don't mock what you don't understand. Don't participate in what you're not willing to protect.
And if you're Black and struggling with identity, wondering if you “qualify,” remember this: you do. Whether you grew up in the 'hood or the suburbs, with locs or straightened hair, at the Baptist church or with no religion at all — your Blackness is valid. No one has the right to gatekeep your identity. There is no perfect mold. There is no one way to be Black.
But that doesn’t mean the work stops there.
Blackness may be yours by birth, but it thrives through awareness, growth, and connection. It’s not about performing for approval — it’s about honoring the history that lives in your bones. It’s about learning why certain jokes are funny, why certain phrases carry weight, why certain traditions are held so tightly. It’s about listening to elders, reclaiming language, supporting Black businesses, loving your skin, and understanding your roots — even if you have to dig to find them.
Because the truth is, so many of us are still unlearning what we were taught to hate about ourselves. We were told our features were “too much,” our voices were “too loud,” our names were “too difficult.” But the world was just too small to hold all our brilliance.
The Black card is not a test. It’s a bond. It’s a reminder that despite being descended from people who were forced to abandon their names, their languages, their religions, and their homeland, we still found a way to build something beautiful. We still found each other. And we still continue to find new ways to live, thrive, and resist — together.
So to the world watching: admire, but do not appropriate. Respect, but do not rewrite. Witness, but do not water down.
And to those of us living this — claim it. Live it. Protect it.
Because the culture is ours to protect.
Closing
Being Black in America is a journey of reclamation — of our names, our hairstyles, our holidays, our humor, our love for Kool-Aid, our distrust of unwashed legs, and our righteous anger. The Black card is a metaphor, but the culture it defends is real.
It is real in the way we gather. The way we greet each other with a nod, a dap, a "hey cousin" to people we’ve never met. It’s real in the way we code-switch to survive in boardrooms, then exhale fully at the family reunion. It’s in the Sunday morning gospel, the Friday night fish fry, the storytelling at the kitchen table, and the silence we hold when another name is added to the list of those taken too soon.
Reclamation is not just a political act — it’s deeply personal. It’s deciding to wear your natural hair to an interview even if you’re not sure how it will be received. It’s naming your child something with ancestral rhythm, even if you know it’ll be mispronounced in school. It’s loving your full lips, your wide nose, your deep skin, because you finally know those features are divine, not defective.
Reclamation is also joyful. It’s dancing at the cookout without needing an excuse. It’s choosing “red” as your favorite Kool-Aid flavor without explaining that yes, red is a flavor. It’s quoting Coming to America, The Color Purple, or Martin and watching someone across the room finish your sentence. It’s the unspoken harmony that binds us — a rhythm that’s survived oceans, chains, laws, and lies.
The Black card doesn’t exist to judge — it exists to affirm. To say, you’re not alone. That even if you missed a few references or were raised without some traditions, you are still part of something greater. But with that connection comes responsibility — to learn, to respect, to protect. Because Black culture has always been the blueprint. And the world has always been watching.
That’s why reclaiming and protecting Blackness — our full, messy, evolving, powerful Blackness — is more than a right. It’s a duty. We protect it so that our children can walk into classrooms and see themselves in the curriculum. So that our language isn't sanitized out of existence. So that our fashion, our music, our magic, aren’t just sold back to us by companies who’ve never felt what we’ve lived through.
So before you try to snatch the Black card — before you question someone’s "Blackness," or before you imitate our culture without honoring its cost — ask yourself: Do you understand what it’s protecting?
It’s protecting the memory of grandmothers who made a way out of no way. The voice of uncles who warned us about the world but loved us too hard to ever give up. It’s protecting the rhythms of our ancestors, the joy that was never supposed to survive, and the sacred traditions that didn’t get written down but live in our bones anyway.
It’s protecting a people who have been criminalized, pathologized, commodified — but never conquered.
So whether you're inside the culture or standing on the outside looking in: the Black card isn’t about proving your worth. It’s about knowing your worth. It’s about standing in your skin without apology. It’s about honoring the weight of what we carry — and the light that we still shine.
Because being Black is not just a label.
It’s a legacy.
Get Your Official Black Card Merch by going to the Designer's website at: https://officialblackcard.com/.
Comments