I Wanna Be Bad (Bad)* By Alysia Lewis
Every day that I don’t wake up on a sprawling estate somewhere in Jamaica Hills or Kensington, in my 6 bed, 4 bath Tudor style home, I think, with all my heart, that my parents should have raised me to be a whole lot worse.
Like, this is America.
If there was ever a country where being an absolute, feckless, piece of garbage was an option for a lucrative career, this would be the place! There are so many different ways to prey upon those left behind by the American healthcare and education system. But here I am, sitting on my hands working a 9-5 because my mother and father decided I needed to learn stupid shit like ethics and morals. I’m a perfect conduit for a large-scale grift of the Black community and I’m wasting it! My qualifications are as such:
I’m Black.
Thanks to the general abuse of the American Government, Black people are very easy to scam if you are also Black.
I have 3-4 African head wraps in my possession.
The Magical Negro™ trope works on Black people, too. But it only works if they’re exotic (that’s where the magic comes from). I’m not African but, if Rachel Dolezal can give herself an African name and a doctorate, why can’t I?
I know the secrets of Big Pharma.
And by secrets I mean I worked in pharmaceutical advertising. But! If I keep it vague enough I can imply anything from I was mixing the chemicals at Pfizer to being a witness to the back door dealings of the evil FDA.
Put all those things together and you’ve got the blueprint to a money making machine. A.K.A, The Dr. Yejide Opeyemi (that is not my name) Cancer Center for Healthful Life and Human Glory. For a reasonable consultation fee of $700, I would tell people the truth about the pharmaceutical industry. How it’s innately corrupt and aims to use the Black community as test subjects while the real medicine goes to the rich and white. The pills? Poison. Chemo? Poison. Radiation? You guessed it, it's poison! I’d tell them that what they really needed was a whole food diet that would strengthen their immune system against cancer cells. And whadaya know, I could write one up for them! For only 5,000 more dollars. Then, while the cancer cells in their bodies used the energy from the whole food diet to eat them alive, I would take their money to go yachting in Dubai or buy a penthouse overlooking Central Park.
What’s great about this grift is that I don’t need a success story for people to believe me. The odds are by the time someone came to see me, they’ve already done a few rounds of unsuccessful treatment. When they obviously don’t get better after eating spaghetti squash and boiled dandelion, I can just say “Unfortunately, the radiation has deformed your body so much that not even nature’s bounty can repair it. No refunds.”
I’d write cancer-killing macrobiotic cookbooks ($36–even for the e-book), I’d do retreats in the wilds of the Caribbean ($16,000 at LEAST), I could even end up in the background of one of Kim Kardashian’s insta posts.I would be sweating money! Truly there’s no better time! We’re in the height of the anti-vax age. Raw milk is sending people to the hospital every 3-5 business days. RFK Jr. exists and people listen to him. I could be up there too! What’s stopping me?
Oh yeah.
It would make me feel bad.
For the new year, I’d like one good knock to the head to really scramble my shit and make me the horrible and wealthy person I know I have potential to be.
*Great song by Willa Ford.