Jody Armour (USC) has resurrected his November 2005 L.A. Times op-ed piece, "Black Tax" — The Tithe That Binds, in a BlackProf post entitled West Coast Nigga Thinking:

The following op-ed piece I recently published in the Los Angeles Times illustrates why I characterizize my remarks for this blog as West Coast Nigga Thinking:

The black tax is the price blacks (and other minorities) pay in our daily lives because of racial stereotypes. Like a tax, racial discrimination is persistent, pervasive and seemingly inevitable — as in "Nothing in life is certain save death and taxes." And just as the state collects general taxes, blacks often regard state representatives such as police and judges as IRS agents for the black tax.

But while tax regimes are typically either regressive (falling mainly on the poor) or progressive (falling mainly on the privileged), the black tax falls on both as indifferently as rain. It falls on poor minorities in the redlining — charging higher prices — in their neighborhoods by services ranging from banking to pizza delivery; in the greater exposure to environmental toxins, and in the greater concentration of crumbling schools and hospitals.

The black tax also falls on privileged minorities — those who parlay diplomas, athletic ability or big box office into impressive portfolios, "desirable" ZIP Codes and pricey schools — in the profiling that their pedigrees won’t ward off. Neither my Harvard and Berkeley degrees nor chaired law school professorship gained me a tax exemption. The face of crime for most Americans is black.

For prior TaxProf Blog coverage, see Urban Poor Pay "Ghetto Tax" (7/19/06)