DailyJim: Black tax: Familial welfare in the lack of social welfare

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. Today is Tuesday, July 30th, 2024. Today I want to talk about black tax and familial welfare in the absence of social welfare, or in the, some other word that's not full absence, but just missing part of it. In the lack of social welfare let's put it in let's call it that way so this is a concept I've heard about for many years and many of you listening may have never heard about it if you're coming from maybe western Europe or you're coming from the U.S. It's referred to as black tax or sometimes brown tax it's a concept that I believe originated in name in South Africa And it talks about how many black professionals or just people in general of black, you know, African origin have to support their family members financially. And when I say family members, I'm not just talking about how maybe in my experience it was children and maybe the parents. Sometimes it can be children parents siblings aunts uncles cousins grandparents and more.

And it's a concept I've heard about for many years and I think lately started to resonate a little more when I realized just how much of a burden it can be so now imagine if you are the eldest sibling.

Typically, if you're the eldest sibling, and maybe you're the one expected to have the best job, and you're expected to take care of all the other siblings and the parents and the grandparents, etc. That's just in general, if you stay in your normal town or village, I think. But if you are to move to a bigger city, people expect you to be more rich, and therefore maybe take care of even more people. If you move to a larger position in a company, again, the expectations seem to grow even higher. So not only are you have just a few people you're taking care of, it can be many. If you move overseas to the United States or you move to Europe, then, or to another place, Dubai maybe, then there's also that expectation, like even higher of taking care of even more people. And this, quite frankly, came to light to me of, and I should have seen it earlier, but realizing through going on dates and just being like, oh, why do women don't want all this money? Oh, it's hard for young women to get jobs. It's hard for young men to get jobs. It's hard for people to get jobs sometimes in these places. And so sometimes there are many people financially dependent on one person. I think of someone I knew that was out here financially dependent, I think, on the grandfather who had made money before, a long time before, and kind of generational wealth that's passed down to many people. People uh i think of my friend in uganda who told me that when you know he was so obsessed with money i was like dude why are you so obsessed with money and he told me well when his mother passed away she was taking care of something like school fees for about 30 children and so he inherited that responsibility i was like wow and i don't think i don't know if these were even children in his family. It's just kind of sponsoring these children fiscally.

And it's really hard, I think, to operate in this environment where there's kind of a lack of social welfare services. Because I think about in the US, and one, I think more people have more jobs. And so it's easier for people to get jobs. And so therefore, people are maybe closer in financial status than they would be here. But I think there's also a lot of social welfare services from the government, but also from nonprofits or NGOs that help people in need. So in the US, there are food banks, there are SNAP benefits for somebody who needs food. There are, I'm sure, different programs, other programs to help out if people are in need of food specifically. Out here, not so much. Maybe a UN program, but a lot of people's ability to stay fed depends on their family, I think. I'm open to being proven wrong and I'd love to continue this conversation, but that's the impression I got.

That can be really tough because if there's one person who is maybe the breadwinner for the family and something happens to that person, I mean, that can take down the whole family. In the U.S., yes, it could take down, you know, the income of the family could be dramatically impacted, but still that person could probably get food, still the person could get medical, health care, emergency services, still the person could maybe have shelter and if worst case scenario in a homeless shelter or something like this still like there's still lots of avenues to kind of catch this person a safety net to catch this person so they don't go too far down whereas i think in lots of parts of the world it's not the case and trust and connection lies solely in the family or if not solely then primarily, very primarily in the family. And I just, I'm curious how societies have gone from having that tight familial welfare or that family welfare system to more of a social welfare. It doesn't have to be at a national high level, but even just having more support services, whether it's from a church or a synagogue or a temple or whatnot.

And just having more of that social safety net for people that it's not just reliant on sometimes just one family member.

And yeah, I mean, another thing to talk about with that is that a lot of times people out here talk about corruption in the government. And the argument I try to say to them is, now imagine you're a normal kenyan or east africa person and then you get a job in the government and people think you are rich rich beyond belief but you're not that rich so maybe your salary let's say it's a ridiculous number because i think maybe only the members of parliament or the president gets this level here in kenya but maybe you get a hundred thousand u.s a year in your salary. But people think you're making a million dollars a year. And the demands from the family may be about a million dollars a year, because it's not just the kids. It's the, again, the siblings, the cousins, the aunts, the uncles, the parents, grandparents, the second cousins, the third cousins, and their kids. And it could probably grow to supporting a full village, at least the expectation. And if someone doesn't give that financial support, There can be so much shame that I've seen. Like, oh, you're bringing shame to the family. What kind of son are you? You know, you're the eldest. This is your responsibility. You don't care about us. I think there's so much pressure on people to fulfill that. And I don't think it's because...

I don't think it's because people are evil or people are, I think it's because people don't have many other options or don't think they have other options. And so that becomes their financial lifeline.

And I don't know. I just, so when somebody gets into a government position, is it corruption or is it supporting their family? Their very, very extended family. If it's just supporting the one or two kids and they're stealing all this money for that, that's one thing if they're stealing all this money to support 100 to you know 200 300 kids to go through school it's a different thing i don't know so for me it's just trying to understand this concept a little more because in the u.s and i imagine in different parts of europe and other parts of the world that have more developed social welfare programs and maybe higher employment as well. Maybe the combination. I don't think this is as common, but I can only imagine what it's like to be someone in that position where they have to support so many people. I mean, I've noticed it a little bit if I thought about, ah, if I were to date or marry a woman from one of, who has a culture that expects that, hey, maybe now I'm jumping into that. And it's not just financially adopting one person, but financially adopting a whole family or even in an extended family because of the expectations of how rich I might be just by being white. And so just really interesting for me to pay attention to some of these dynamics about.

Who helps us, who supports us, and maybe what happens when our support system is, very almost exclusively tied to the family and we don't have a lot of people outside the family that are supporting us, not just financially, but in other ways as well. And yeah, just curious about how societies transition, I would say maybe from more familial, like only familial trust to having more social trust and connection and relationships. But maybe that's a conversation for another day. I'm sure I'm over time. So I need to stop being over 10 minutes. It's way too often these days. All right. Talk to y'all soon. Bye.