SONG OF THE DAY: My Uncle

On the bus this morning, the chill driver stopped next stop after mine and picked up this chill dude I always see on the bus and around town, he explicated to me in great detail how he makes good jerk chicken one time. Anyways, those two dudes sat up front talking about house prices in Charlottesville, how everything was like $300K, and three-storey, and how couldn’t nobody working a regular job actually find a house to buy. This kinda tripped me out because since my separation I’ve operated under the assumption I’ll never buy another house, that because of my income and lack of savings and no family to borrow any money from to make shit happen on a down payment or whatever, that I’ll just rent the rest of my life. It had never even occurred to me that it’s normal American dream thinking to assume that if you’re employed regularly, with no plans of not being employed, that you buy a house probably. Like this was not even in my brain as a reality.

That tripped me further out because I’ve always thought of gentrification and rising housing prices as affecting renters, not home owners. Usually low-income renters are in cheaper apartment complexes, and higher-end renters are doing so from private owners, who own more than one place generally. Rising home costs mean people who are ownership class having rising mortgage costs for the extra shit they buy, which means they jack up rents, which also means being able to rent a place goes beyond what working people can afford and then relies on the market of wealthy students or adults who are partially supported by inherited wealth. The idea of a bus driver or the other guy who makes the best jerk chicken allegedly or lmao me actually being able to buy a house, in the city, that was like imagining a trip to Uruguay next weekend – an impossible fantasy which you think briefly then move on with real life.

Anyways, this song is called “Uncle” so my weak tie-in is that if you have familial wealth, and consider yourself “broke” because you don’t have cash wealth at hand but still have a healthy network of familial wealth, including uncles and aunts you can ask for help, or non-cash resources you can easily access should a financial emergency come up, you’re not broke. I mean shit, I’m not even broke to be honest, even though I only have six cents for the next two days. I’ll still get paid on Friday, guaranteed, and got food enough in my basement apartment, and all my regular bills are current, and I’ll be able to juggle and shift the medical debt collections as well, for at least another month (which is all we do each time). So I don’t consider myself broke even, because I’ve known for-real broke before. I’m living fucking good to be honest. But I hadn’t even considered I’d ever own a house again until I heard them dudes talking about it like that was some shit people still aspired to. Normally I would’ve blown it off as elite nonsense gibberish, but being this was two black dudes on the bus, that wasn’t appropriate. It made me want to have dreams again, but also made me mad at the dream crushers out there who have built this incredible inequality in our lives. Fuck y’all. If you’re one of those people reading this, you’re not broke, so stop acting like it. And support my patreon.