Black Tax

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In 2021, when we were all crazy new to TikTok and wondering whether our president will open the country up for sherehe or not, a man in Trans Nzoia was brandishing his files in a bid to sue his son.

Hold it there. A couple of decades back, the newly employed Zulu and Xhosa men and women in South Africa coined a term that they lent to us; the rest of Africa. This term found significance in most upcoming economies and societies, and still, even now is relevant and deeply rooted in our customs. We can say that it has become part and parcel our proud Ubuntu.

I am so glad that I first heard the term “black tax” from a Xhosa young man. `Khuomide (sound `kh pronounced in click) and I was talking about the forms of corruption during the MNIV Debate Championships in Dar es Salaam back in 2018. I was bragging about how our corruption was the best and he was unrelentingly dismissing that the Kenyan “chai” and “kitu kidogo” was nothing compared to their “BBE” and “djo-djo.”

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“Is it true your ANC government urges voters to vote for change while also whispering to their ears to vote for ANC?” I started laughing at him.

“Baba, you leave ANC alone. Lemme tell you the real deal. The real deal is black tax. You know, the tax that you are obliged to pay to your family and relatives once you get employed?”

`Khuomide would proceed to describe the origin of black tax. A practice that emanated from the socio-cultural and economic rifts between the blacks and the whites during the apartheid regime. That the only reason they called it ‘black’ was because it was only black people who carried out this practice.

After a lengthy discussion about the same, I was willing to dive into `Khuomide’s personal space. “Do you feel like it will affect you in the future or anyone you know?”

“Affect me? Baba, it is no longer an obligation. It has become like a requirement. My elder brother right now works as an engineer in a mining company. All of my cousins who are through with school live with him and he’s providing for their basic needs and employment. He knows this and it is what he is meant to do. And when my time comes, I will do the same.”

It is no longer an obligation. It has become like a requirement. See, those two sentences there carry a colossal amount of controversy and doubt that we as young African men and women ought to feel opinionated about.

The `Khuomide equivalent of Kenya or his brother knows that one of the major reasons they need to work hard in life is to better the lives of their close family members. They go through every major stage of life having to remember quotes their parents told the like, “Don’t forget where you come from” and “Daughter/son, we have given you all. Please succeed so that you can better our lives.”

There is no better motivation that a young person can ever have so that they can succeed in life than to change the circumstances in which they grew up in. What I find fault in, however, is that this drive gives us a sense of responsibility that turns into an obligation which eventually sires a requirement. And overall, we become too much focused in correcting our parents’ pasts while we should, in essence invest in our futures.

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Back to the Trans Nzoia man. This man, golden in age, gathered his papers and went to court to sue his son. His claim was that the son was doing well in life, and he, the father who had given his all to avail to his son an opportunity to succeed, was languishing in poverty in the village.

One of the many prayers of young people across the nation is to ball so heavy that they can spoil their parents like crazy. Hell, if I was a parent and my children ball this much and they feel like blessing me, who am I to refuse? But, the decision as to whether they want to spoil me or not should entirely come from them, not be deeply rooted in family values and responsibility. Don’t you think?

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In court, the father was demanding a section of the son’s monthly salary. His plead to the court was that after a lifetime of hassles of putting the son through school and being the major financier of the backbone upon which the son now built his success, as the father, he was entitled to upkeep from the son.

And this now throws the ball to us, thinkers. Do we grant the father his wishes and open the floodgate to other parents out there who struggled to put children through school to demand the same? Shall we uphold the son’s preservative nature of enjoying his success and encourage neglection? Do we acknowledge a sense of entitlement among all contributors to a person’s success, however you define success?

Look, black tax is real. And it is affecting a lot of young people out here. While we can only name it to tame it, that’s the much that we can do. No one wants to be that douche-bag who leaves their folks in the gutters while they are enjoying the fine things in life. And it goes beyond this. It goes deep within our misplaced sense of superiority and significance. That when we encounter failure, we look back at the expectations and obligations weighing down on us by black tax and we feel like we are inferior and we have lost our sense of significance.

Let me be an idealist. That shouldn’t happen. Our generation is the one where it ends, right? It is the one that secures our past, present and future. Doing it by being the source of love; not an example of responsibility… No! Love. That when we don’t have much to give back we shall give love; and that our folks shall understand that that is all we got to give: Love. Love will beat how much we’d want to spoil our Mamas, or how much we’d want the best for ourselves, or how much we’ll invest in the future of our children. I know love and I know black tax. And they ain’t the same damn thing.

All rights reserved.

Copyrights: Mokaya Atambo.

2023.

Mokaya Atambo is a young, up and coming contemporary African literature author and researcher. His work revolves around issues to do with social consciousness, mental liberation, and self-empowerment. Currently, he writes with the University of Nairobi Law Journal, specializing in contemporary revolutionary ideas and short fictional stories. He writes blogs on Substack, going by the same name, with the objective of raising social consciousness engulfed in indispensable virtues like love, acceptance, compassion and loyalty to self. He is yet to make his debut in the publishing world of African literature.