I Have A Smoker's Cough

Every New Yorker Does

It’s Black History Month! And I wanted to highlight a thing that Black people love… cigarettes! Hey! Don’t get mad at me, the tobacco industry targeted Black communities with menthol cigarettes dating back to the 50’s. I can name ten Black people who smoke cigarettes, as a matter of fact, I don’t know a Black person who doesn’t know a Black who doesn’t smoke cigarettes. And now you are all about to know one more…

It was my mother’s birthday this week, she will tell you that she is getting younger, yup she is the only 30-year-old on the planet born in the 50s and her greatest accomplishment is me—an American child. I’m serious ask her. She will without hesitation say birthing an American. Does this make my siblings feel a way? Do you think they might feel slighted perhaps? No no, because they know it has nothing to do with me as a person but the fact that her high school nemesis one day told her she would never live in America so I am just her physical proof that she was here. And being the self-centered American child that I am I thought, on her birthday I should disappoint her by revealing that I socially smoke cigarettes. And by socially, I mean every day. I go outside and judge the trust fund baby across the street who chews on a cracker in her Swedish stroller, and the baby’s adult who is pushing this stroller looks at me with desperation as I know they would like my cigarette.

I’m such a smoker that I am an ally to strangers who cough loudly in public —