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Lots of minor SPOILERS ahead. This piece is definitely for people who've watched both seasons. It’s hard for me to write about Ted Lasso. So many others have delivered skillfully written think pieces detailing what’s right or wrong about the show, like how it serves as a balm for what’s ailing a COVID-ravaged and divided America, or how it reinforces the power of Ted’s white male privilege and fails to amplify LGBTQIA voices. Such articles make my words feel small and redundant, especially since I first tuned in to the show for less lofty reasons. The idea of a folksy yet clueless American football coach rubbing up against English football culture just seemed like a good laugh. I remembered the original promos Jason Sudeikis shot for NBC when they inked the US broadcast rights to the English Premier League in 2013. The mammoth potential to send up two very different but equally ridiculous versions of “football” culture stayed with Sudeikis and seemed too good to not flesh out. Those absurd moments hilariously came to pass in the show, but as the cartoon characters filling the screen began brushing up against one another, it was clear that the creatives behind the scenes were reaching for something deeper: so much so that I’ve found myself laughing, crying, and even thinking during its run right along with millions of others. Ted’s earnest sincerity won the hearts and minds of the show’s other characters while being an aspirational touchstone during the COVID shitstorm that was America in 2020. Every time he brought Rebecca biscuits (cookies in ‘Murica), shrugged off being a “wanker,” and called on his players to “believe” he was reinforcing the ideals we wanted to see in the world -- from our leaders, even -- but that were absent in the moment. But where does a protagonist go when his antagonists are no longer antagonistic? Ted succeeded in helping other characters become better people just as he was falling apart. This is where the show lives for me, and probably for a lot of people. Though finally copped to in full in “No Weddings and a Funeral” (Episode 10, Season 2), Ted Lasso has always been about parents and children. Initially, what we see regarding parenting in Ted Lasso is just thumbnails, not photographs, done quickly to capture and convey an impression in service of conflict and character development -- like when Ted calls home in the pilot episode. The brief exchange Ted shares with his wife and son lets us know that part of Ted’s journey will involve balancing long-distance fatherhood against an incredibly demanding job he is hilariously unqualified for while trying to save a marriage he doesn’t want to end. The poignancy of this scene is brilliantly soundtracked against “Opus 26” by Dustin O’Halloran, but I might have played Jamie T’s version of The Replacements’ “Bastards of Young.” The opening line -- “God, what a mess…” seems to capture the gravity of the moment and the premise of the show, while also solidly connecting to issues Ted has with his father. Later we learn that Ted’s tenacious optimism stems from losing his father to depression and suicide. He is determined not to quit -- on his players, his marriage, his friends, or his life. Like Ted, many of the characters can trace their struggles to the universal need to define ourselves against and apart from our parents, or to be the people they hope us to become. Getting star player Jamie Tartt (“doo-dooo-do-do-do-doo”) to play the sort of football that puts the team’s success ahead of his own glory is another arc directly related to fatherhood. Jamie’s father James stands as Dick Dastardly to Ted’s Peter Perfect, and in coaching Jamie to “make the extra pass” Ted is really asking Jamie to disobey his father. Owner Rebecca Whelton’s need to tear down the team her ex-husband loves so much can be seen not only as an attack against his unfaithfulness, but also against her father’s infidelity and her mother’s acceptance of it. Nate Shelley’s rise from bullied kitman to a (somewhat) confident coach only happens when he ditches the humble, unassuming persona crafted by his parents and bluntly calls out Richmond players. He completes his arc towards villainy in this season's finale when he confronts Ted and rejects the Lasso Way. He moves on to Rupert as a role model because for Nate, "the ones who love us least are the ones we die to please." Sam Obisanya puts his role on the team in jeopardy after a text from his father pointing out a sponsor’s role in Nigerian corruption and environmental exploitation inspires Sam to protest. Roy Kent, whose signature lines are “Fuuuuuuck” and a cross between a grunt and a growl, lovingly stands as a surrogate father to his niece Phoebe. He comes to realize that his professional life after football carries little meaning unless he is passing his knowledge of the game on to younger players. It is Roy, Jamie’s foil in season 1, who steps in to comfort Jamie when Tartt’s anger at his father boils over into violence. In all of these examples the show is not just comedically sending up sports culture, but critically inverting the masculine expectations of that culture; and, by extension, fatherhood itself.  The author, before he learned the truth about Dubai Air. All of us need a Doctor Sharon to help us unravel our issues with our parents. My dad was absent, but in his absence he was no less an influence. Much of my adolescence saw me reaching to connect with possible stand-ins -- something grown-up Nate seems to be doing -- as I longed for the attention my dad took from me when I was six. When I became a father myself, I worked to be the inverse of the negative he left undeveloped in my psyche; even as my marriage fell apart shortly after my daughter was born. I also tried to run, but the weight of my father’s absence in my life kept me nearer to my daughter. It becomes clear that Ted’s choice to leave his family back in the States is motivated by personal reasons as much as professional ones, and that choice gives the show’s absurd premise unexpected sharpness that cuts deeper as the show progresses. Like the Greyhounds, Ted’s role as “husband” is relegated by the first season’s end, and while he tearfully resigns as husband just as he later offers to resign as coach, we know Ted will never step away from being Henry’s dad. This is the better path he plots for his son, and the example he sets for his players and for the very real men watching the show. In loving Michelle enough to let her go, Ted shows Henry that true love is selfless. Even if it hurts. It stands in sharp contrast to James Tartt and to every real story about a controlling male athlete or abusive male coach. It also serves to drive the show’s acclaim and criticism, at least to some extent. "Carol of the Bells," the controversial Christmas episode works because it shows people being buoyed by the loving presence of others -- something we all long for even if we may be too jaded to admit it. Ted’s disconsolation at being away from his son on Christmas is eased by Rebecca as they play Secret Santa for children in need. Roy and Keely help Phoebe in an arc that sees them help her and a bully at school be better. Meanwhile a stream of Richmond players make their way to the Higgins family home. It is the bumbling Leslie Higgins, who is probably less qualified for his role as Director of Football Operations than Ted is as manager, who represents the show’s best father figure. No doubt, even his seemingly well-adjusted children are destined to struggle against their perceptions of their parents’ expectations or shortcomings. It’s the caring community, so sweetly presented to those kids in this episode -- and the hope that comes with it -- that Ted Lasso fans love. In this sense, criticism of the show’s lack of representation is valid. I have faith that Ted Lasso will introduce a character who is a member of the LGBTQIA community, though some suspect they already have (#ColinHughes). When that happens it will be controversial and polarizing, and perfect in its imperfection. It’s a challenge to give ANY sitcom character three-dimensions, and the male sports world is not known to be the most welcoming of places. The basic premise of professional athletics is rooted in the traditional, often toxic norms of fathering and fostering masculinity (to the detriment of female athletes whose growing success challenges those norms). While AFC Richmond is a fictional pro sports team, it is still a product of this reality (which Nate embraces in Vaderesque fashion). It's Ted Lasso's inversion of those ideals that I stay tethered to and want to see in my world. All of us -- even people who don’t like the show -- are Richmond til we die, the sons of no one, and we all want a seat at that surfboard.
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 Michigan is everything America was, is, and could be all packed into what can look like a campfire on souvenir t-shirts. My wife Cecily and I recently cut through the state on a road trip that saw us boomerang from Beverly, Massachusetts to Chicago, Illinois and back. My sister-in-law was getting married in northern Illinois, so in addition to celebrating with family, Cec and I decided to use the occasion to break out of our COVID cocoon. We picked Michigan as a featured stop. Cecily had been secretly carrying on with Michigan behind my back after we saw a band called the Michigan Rattlers open a show in Boston. They blew us -- and the headliner -- away. They quickly became one of Cecily’s favorite bands, and we were both struck by their presence and their music's ability to project a sense of place we didn't know but might want to see. Until then, all we knew about Michigan was:
 The author and his better half. On the road again. You grow up hearing “America the Beautiful” and I live in a beautiful place. But the beauty around you is often dulled into normalcy because it’s the setting for all of the mundanities of daily life. Vacations are supposed to remedy that, but COVID forced me to really see and appreciate the beauty of Massachusetts’ North Shore because I couldn’t leave it for over a year. One of my favorite biking and birding spots is just three miles away, but I never knew it existed -- and I’ve lived here for nearly fifteen years -- until COVID shook the kaleidoscope and changed the view. That’s another reason why we chose Michigan; because COVID inspired us to look for beauty in places we may not have considered before. People around here plan vacations to Florida, or to Vegas, or -- if they’re really ambitious -- to Italy. They don’t go to Michigan. Didn't Michigan spawn McVeigh? Didn't armed men "storm" the capital over COVID restrictions? Weren’t some of them arrested for plotting to kidnap the governor? Aren’t the cities rusted, broken, and dangerous? Maybe, but we found beauty in the state and in the act of being there. We would go back in a heartbeat. Suttons Bay felt like the kind of resort town one might find in Maine, only "unsalted" and sans lobster. There was a small, colorful strip filled with restaurants, coffee and souvenir shops, and a small theater all promoting the idea that life was different on the M22 -- the state highway that followed the coast of Lake Michigan along the Leelanau Peninsula. We had booked a room at the M22 Inn - Suttons Bay, which is a holdover from the days when driving was a new and exciting way for middle-class families to spend their leisure time. We were across the road from the lake, though the view was more beautiful than it was practical as it lacked a beach. Our room was large and clean, just a few miles away from downtown, and last updated in the 1980s. Still. It would do, mauve and all. We dropped our bags and headed into Suttons Bay for dinner buoyed by nostalgia for a time we barely knew, when cars were tipped with chrome.
COVID's impact was evident everywhere. We never saw a member of the motel staff, as check-in and check-out was entirely remote. Our room was open with keys waiting on the dresser along with a number to call if we needed anything. In town some shops stood closed, others had signs apologizing for service issues brought on by staffing shortages, while some were only open with limited hours. We had trouble landing a place to eat until we found Hop Lot Brewing Company just outside of town on the way back to the motel. We dropped ourselves into one of the many outdoor tables situated among the fire pits and corn hole games in a large, inviting courtyard surrounded by beautiful trees and tried to shake the miles off. Despite being ordered from our phones via QR code, the food at Hop Lot was tasty and made with care, the cider was sweet and cold, and we found the grumpy weariness that came from a day spent on the road only to struggle to find a meal quickly fading away. When Cecily and I travel, we like to connect with locals if at all possible. I remember a trip to Puerto Rico where we spent a couple of hours at a kiosko in Luquillo sharing stellar mojitos with the bartender and a regular who were schooling us about the pros and cons of Puerto Rican statehood. Something like this happens to us wherever we go, but despite being out in the world after more than a year locked away, we had simply made our bubble portable. We were Spartans using masks as shields, with weak strings of drifting conversation tenuously connecting us to people sorta nearby. We looked at the itinerary for the next day's winery/cider-house bike tour between bites and sips as the sun dipped behind the trees. Lights strung on wires among their branches gave our bubble a warm glow.
Grand Traverse Bike Tours is right in downtown Suttons Bay. They would provide hybrid bikes, choreograph stops at wineries and cideries near the trail, and pick up any purchases we made and have them waiting at their shop at the end of the day. There’s a freedom that comes with moving from one place to another on a bicycle, particularly if those places allow you to consume large quantities of alcohol. I know you can be cited for driving under the influence on a bike in Massachusetts, and probably on a bike trail in Michigan, too. Thankfully, pedaling from place to verdant place kept us alert, even at our fairly leisurely pace. Being in a car with Cecily during our trip was probably the closest we came to feeling as safe and secure as we had traveling pre-covid, and this comfort followed us on bikes in Suttons Bay. In the open air we could risk being maskless, and this buoyed us as we navigated masking inside each winery before reaching an outdoor table where we could eat and drink mask-free. Grand Traverse had us stopping at Black Star Farms, Shady Lane Cellars, Suttons Bay Ciders, and Mawby Wines. We were looking at roughly seven miles out and another seven back, which was a lot for us. Fortunately, the bike trail itself is mostly level and very well maintained, but we had to go on-road and up some hills to get to a few stops. Sometimes we walked if a particular hill was too steep. We did a lot of pedaling, and tasted a lot of fermented fruit juice, but didn’t appreciate all of it. That has more to do with us, as Cecily and I aren’t big wine drinkers, and we like our cider on the sweet side whereas the American cider market leans towards dry. Still, each place was simply beautiful. Black Star Farms is a “160 acre winery estate” with an inn on-site that offers gourmet, farm to table meals complete with wine pairings, and guests can stroll through the vineyards or hike some of the trails running through the property. We settled into a table on a deck overlooking the vineyards and ordered a flight; and while we were tempted by a few wines, their apple-cherry cider was the winner. Having never been to the area before, I’m not sure how crowded it should have been, but it seemed like we had more space than we should. That cuts two ways with COVID. You want enough room to feel safe, but you want a place like Black Star to be crowded enough to thrive. Maybe we were just early -- it was barely after 11:00 -- but wasn’t day-drinking a thing in wine country in the summertime? We had another glass of the apple-cherry cider, bought two bottles, and then wobbled, er -- pedaled -- to Shady Lane, where Grand Traverse had a delicious lunch waiting for us in insulated coolers. Shady Lane sits on an “historic estate” and claims to offer “an experience worth having” in addition to wine. The grounds were beautiful, and they had an amazing outdoor bar, but the staff seemed a bit put out by having us there, and people at a nearby table were complaining about their daughters-in-law and the perils of shopping. They seemed immune to the same novelty and charm we found so intoxicating (I swear it wasn’t just the wine) in Suttons Bay. This was a bit sad, but understandable. Work is work; life is life; and both can be mundane -- even in the prettiest of places. We finished our lunch and moved on to Suttons Bay Ciders, which boasts of having the best view in Northern Michigan. They might be right. Their deck stands over tree-filled hills that roll right down to Lake Michigan, and they have this beautiful border collie who chases frisbees through the trees and brings them back minutes later. We found much of what we tasted to be too dry for us, but the ice cider was quite nice, and while I regret not trying the apple brandy, we had bikes to ride, and we were wobbly enough already. When we finally made it to Mawby, we were tired and a little hurried as we wanted to get back to the bike shop before they closed. We were going through the motions on and off the bike. We had already ridden about 12 miles at that point, and it was another 4 back to the bike shop, so glasses moved from tables to mouths like feet on pedals. We didn’t do much bird watching that day. Birding is a casual activity that requires time and patience. We were on a schedule, and most of what we saw were fleeting glimpses of familiar birds -- an American Goldfinch, a Robin. A Red-Winged Blackbird, and a Cedar Waxwing. I had never seen a Waxwing before this summer, and now they seemed to be everywhere I looked. Despite being rushed, I did add two birds to my life-list: a Purple Finch, and an Indigo Bunting. The birds, the wine and cider, the scenery, and the company roll together in my memory like a blurred out montage from a video for a happy song by the Cure or some other dreamy shoe-gaze act, all gauzy and bright and warm, which is exactly how I felt at the time. Unsalted. Unhurried. Content.  Normalcy isn’t the only thing that can blur a place’s natural beauty. It can be blunted and obscured by things that happen there. Two days after my wife and I left the Leelanau region for Detroit, this Washington Post article about how white students “auctioned” off their black classmates over social media came across my news feed. This mock slave auction took place in Traverse City, where my wife and I would have wound up if we followed the Leelanau Trail to its southern terminus. School administrators and community leaders took the incident as evidence that students and staff needed more training about what it takes to live in a diverse community, while others argued that the “slave trade” group on Snap Chat was not indicative of who and what Traverse City is as a whole. Proponents of this bad-apple point-of-view claim that the district’s equity resolution was an unwarranted attempt to slip critical race theory into the curriculum. One parent, a “White mother of two who graduated from Traverse public schools,” told the Post, “We were all brought up not to take someone’s race into consideration. That’s what we’re guaranteed in America.” But some students did just that: they singled out some of their classmates on the basis of race and subjected them to a humiliating reminder that it was once legal to buy and sell people who looked like them. I wonder if the people who stood up against the resolution were motivated by something they wouldn’t say aloud, that Traverse City students don’t need diversity training because Traverse City isn’t very diverse. The town is 90 percent white, but that didn’t stop Nevaeh Wharton’s classmates from “selling” her for a hundred dollars before ultimately giving her away. Even under the pressure of a global pandemic, we cannot live in a bubble; not really. In communities that are physically closed because of COVID digital roads continue to push and pull information to us and our children, no matter how fast we pedal. This year, students in two other communities -- one outside of Fort Worth, Texas and another outside of Portland, Oregon -- conducted their own “slave auctions” on social media. While people and politicians argue whether or not systemic racism exists, America the Beautiful remains ugly and unwelcoming in ways you can’t see from the seat of your bike, though the people you ride by may be on either side of that ugliness. Southern trees once bore strange fruit. Oregon was meant to be a “white utopia.” What happened in Traverse City doesn't make my memories of the area any less gauzy and golden. The ugly things that happen in beautiful places challenge us to make sure that all Americans can enjoy that beauty, especially when most of the Americans who live in our community look like us. “America the Beautiful” isn’t just about the physical beauty of the country, even though those are the lines most people seem to remember. Other lines talk of brotherhood, something I don’t think some students in Traverse City remembered or that the ones they bid on felt. It recognizes that our nation has flaws -- an act some people feel is now divisive and unpatriotic -- and asks for God’s help in mending them. It mentions gleaming alabaster cities, which describes Detroit, our next stop, in its prime.  My daughter asked why I always say good things about the songs she writes. She'll be 18 soon, and she's rightfully expecting me to treat her like the adult she's becoming, even if that means introducing a new level of static into our lives. Mirren knows that adults who are in healthy relationships sometimes say hurtful things in service of honesty, just as adults might hide truths from children for the sake of self-esteem. I loathe conflict, and I often find myself walking a tightrope trying to be honest while not creating tension. I honestly haven't heard a song of Mirren's I didn't like, though. I think there are a few reasons for this. I'm not sure how she hears a finished song, but when Mirren plays me the rough cuts, they're in a style that I'm already partial to: just her and her guitar. I love the "three chords and the truth" vibe that comes through as opposed to this: There's a purity in her rough drafts' lack of precision that's almost punk to me, and I hope it carries over should she ever do more with the songs. Mirren's also got a great sense of wordplay, and her lyrics often wrap themselves in and around a melody in ways that remind me of my favorite artists. Her words aren't just there to prop up the music, and vice-versa. Mirren's music and lyrics love each other. These songs are hers to share, but I mention them because I'm certain about how I feel about them, whereas I find myself wavering about how to close my soundtrack. Stories have arcs because we are satisfied by the idea of resolution, and stories with unsatisfying endings don't find much of an audience, or leave those they do find scratching their heads, especially if "Don't Stop Believing" is playing in the background. When I started out this series of posts over a year ago, I set out to create a playlist that served as a soundtrack to my COVID story. This is the last post in that series, and while (I think) I have a suitable song to roll over the end credits my story doesn't have a neat ending. Our stories don't stop when the theater lights come up. As my COVID story ripples and vibrates into a future I can't predict or understand, this is the song that plays at the end: "RESERVATIONS" - WILCO |
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This picture is as much a tribute as a swipe, as discerning Stones fans will recognize the shirt and the pose from this picture of Keith Richards taken during the band's 1975 US tour. In that, McKenna reaches back to a time when touring was possible. While the Glimmer Twins have decades of earned swagger to carry them through the pandemic, COVID has sidelined emerging artists like McKenna, cutting off a vital marketing and revenue stream that threatens the viability of their craft for years to come. That makes McKenna's photo smart marketing as well as good crack. With traditional methods of promotion altered by the pandemic, McKenna and his fans mounted a social media campaign to #getdeclantonumber1. Speaking to Jess Iszatt on the UK's The Record Club, McKenna confessed, “I’m determined to beat The Rolling Stones, which is pretty strange to be saying. You’ve got to go into these things with confidence, even when you’re technically the underdog. I think you’ve gotta have faith. I’ve been blown away by the response, it’s been pretty outrageous the people who have got behind it and how amazing this past week has been. It’s unreal, it’s really getting down to the wire.” And it almost worked. Despite leading heading into the final day, Zeros ceded the top spot to Goats Head Soup, coming just 800 units shy.
You would think going up against one of the greatest rock and roll acts of all time with an album that many feel successfully channels another would be enough to satiate any 21 year-old's ego. But McKenna is driven by doubt as much as anything else. Zeros is an homage to McKenna's love of 70's glam. It's Major Tom stepping through the door and emerging as Ziggy Stardust. But McKenna wants to be himself more than anyone else, and sitting on Zeros due to COVID has led to some self-doubt. “The most imposter syndrome I’ve ever felt is now,” he told NME. “I’ve just been sitting on an album for a year, and I have had too much time to ask myself questions about the musical direction I have gone in. When you get to that point, you begin to wonder if you are an absolute fraud.” Taken against that comment, and you know the arrogance McKenna wears has more to do with him and less to do with Jagger.
"You Better Believe!!!" is the lead track from Zeros, and it simultaneously affirms and indicts what's possible if... you do what the title suggests. In "You Better Believe!!!" the success McKenna craves, technology and the consumerism that drives it, and religion and religious leaders all "lose their flavors like gum stuck to our heels." Yet McKenna's response to all of these failures is an emphatic, three exclamation point declaration that, still, "You Better Believe!!!" It's an anthem with sentiments the left and right can get behind, even as McKenna hints that they shouldn't. It's this dichotomy that I'm struggling with at the moment. I'm not sure my red is red anymore, though I know the bird itself exists.
I want a climax to this strange story we're staging, but I feel instead that I'm caught in a looping montage of rising and falling action. If 2020 is our collective rock-bottom, then the protests, the election, the vaccine -- all amplified by COVID -- should cause us to engage in the sort of self-reflection that might lead to the cathartic shift I crave. That hasn't happened. Instead the distance between the people who want America to be great again and those who finally want it to be great for all has further eroded and canyoned before my eyes. A disturbingly large number of Americans -- including some at the highest levels of government -- believe that wearing masks to combat COVID's spread should be an individual matter. They're willfully blind to the collective good that comes from the inconvenience of wearing a mask. Yet these same people suddenly have eyes for all lives when it comes to people of color.
"You Better Believe!!!" is the lead track from Zeros, and it simultaneously affirms and indicts what's possible if... you do what the title suggests. In "You Better Believe!!!" the success McKenna craves, technology and the consumerism that drives it, and religion and religious leaders all "lose their flavors like gum stuck to our heels." Yet McKenna's response to all of these failures is an emphatic, three exclamation point declaration that, still, "You Better Believe!!!" It's an anthem with sentiments the left and right can get behind, even as McKenna hints that they shouldn't. It's this dichotomy that I'm struggling with at the moment. I'm not sure my red is red anymore, though I know the bird itself exists.
I want a climax to this strange story we're staging, but I feel instead that I'm caught in a looping montage of rising and falling action. If 2020 is our collective rock-bottom, then the protests, the election, the vaccine -- all amplified by COVID -- should cause us to engage in the sort of self-reflection that might lead to the cathartic shift I crave. That hasn't happened. Instead the distance between the people who want America to be great again and those who finally want it to be great for all has further eroded and canyoned before my eyes. A disturbingly large number of Americans -- including some at the highest levels of government -- believe that wearing masks to combat COVID's spread should be an individual matter. They're willfully blind to the collective good that comes from the inconvenience of wearing a mask. Yet these same people suddenly have eyes for all lives when it comes to people of color.
Photo via Riverfront Times
McKenna ends "You Better Believe!!!" by explaining:
| I'm off out to buy a bag of Quavers And Nike trainers Comfort you can feel And you know that it's real because you saw it at the station God's creation With a half off summer deal |
It's an ending where everything that lifts us up brings us down while everything that brings us down lifts us up. I'm stepping into 2021 with no idea how my movie will end, knowing only that I'm more afraid of other peoples' certainty than my own lack of it. There are ghosts stealing votes in Michigan, where all cops are bastards. Black Lives Matter in DC, where Trump rides clouds of tear gas to church.
A portrait of George Floyd by Nikkolas Smith. Click the image to learn more about Smith's work.
Racism is a poison that's been polluting America since before the States became United. Umbilically present in the womb of our colonial birth, racism saw our colony through to independence, and it continues to infect the US today. America became great by exploiting the land, labor, and lives of people of color. We built our greatness on the backs and with the blood of others. This is a fact.
While we've tried, we've never fully committed to undoing and repairing the damage done to Americans of color, and the steps we have taken have always been met with fierce resistance. It took a civil war and over 600,000 dead to make owning another human being illegal in America, and even then the losers innovated ways to exploit the newly emancipated. We will never fulfill our nation's promise until we accept that believing all are created equal means nothing until all are given an equal footing. Take two identical fish, put one in water and the other on dry land, and tell me which survives.
While we've tried, we've never fully committed to undoing and repairing the damage done to Americans of color, and the steps we have taken have always been met with fierce resistance. It took a civil war and over 600,000 dead to make owning another human being illegal in America, and even then the losers innovated ways to exploit the newly emancipated. We will never fulfill our nation's promise until we accept that believing all are created equal means nothing until all are given an equal footing. Take two identical fish, put one in water and the other on dry land, and tell me which survives.
A sign a Cincinnati duplex owner posted at her pool in 2012. Photo: CNN
People of color have always been fish out of water in America, no matter their collective or individual gifts and strengths. We celebrate black athletes and entertainers but cross the street when a black man who isn't singing, dancing, or scoring comes walking towards us. The false narrative of a nation imperiled by the lasciviousness of black male lust and violence was the story of the first-ever American blockbuster, 1915's The Birth of a Nation. Based on Thomas Dixon's novel The Clansman, D.W. Griffith's 10 reel epic "is three hours of racist propaganda -- starting with the Civil War and ending with the Ku Klux Klan riding in to save the South from black rule during the Reconstruction era."
It's the same trope that Mayella Ewell brought to bear against Tom Robinson in Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The fictional Robinson is a stand-in for the thousands of real men and women of color who lost their lives to racially motivated terror. The idea that black men in particular are somehow more dangerous than others makes living while black complicated at best and lethal at worst. This notion drove Amy Cooper to tell a black birdwatcher that she was going to call the police "to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life" after he asked her to leash her dog. It is what killed Emmett Till, Amadou Diallo, Trayvon Martin, and now George Floyd.
It's true that these deaths can be traced back to individual actions, but those actions grew from thoughts and perceptions shaped by our nation's cultural conditioning when it comes to black men and black lives. This conditioning didn't start or end with The Birth of a Nation, and it still has lethal consequences. As Dylan Roof shot up a bible study at a historically black church in South Carolina, he told one of his victims "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country, and you have to go."
Roof uttered those words in 2015, but you could easily imagine them falling from the lips of a Reconstruction Era Klansman. The same culture that made Roof a killer has, to some degree or another tarnished us all. This has had dire consequences for people of color as a whole. The Sentencing Project's 2018 report to the United Nations on racial disparities in the US criminal justice system found that "African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences." To draw a sharper contrast, Dylan Roof took nine black lives at that bible study, then got humane treatment and a Whopper from the police. George Floyd got a knee to the neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds for allegedly passing a fake 20-dollar bill.
It's the same trope that Mayella Ewell brought to bear against Tom Robinson in Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The fictional Robinson is a stand-in for the thousands of real men and women of color who lost their lives to racially motivated terror. The idea that black men in particular are somehow more dangerous than others makes living while black complicated at best and lethal at worst. This notion drove Amy Cooper to tell a black birdwatcher that she was going to call the police "to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life" after he asked her to leash her dog. It is what killed Emmett Till, Amadou Diallo, Trayvon Martin, and now George Floyd.
It's true that these deaths can be traced back to individual actions, but those actions grew from thoughts and perceptions shaped by our nation's cultural conditioning when it comes to black men and black lives. This conditioning didn't start or end with The Birth of a Nation, and it still has lethal consequences. As Dylan Roof shot up a bible study at a historically black church in South Carolina, he told one of his victims "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country, and you have to go."
Roof uttered those words in 2015, but you could easily imagine them falling from the lips of a Reconstruction Era Klansman. The same culture that made Roof a killer has, to some degree or another tarnished us all. This has had dire consequences for people of color as a whole. The Sentencing Project's 2018 report to the United Nations on racial disparities in the US criminal justice system found that "African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences." To draw a sharper contrast, Dylan Roof took nine black lives at that bible study, then got humane treatment and a Whopper from the police. George Floyd got a knee to the neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds for allegedly passing a fake 20-dollar bill.
"WHAT'S GOING ON" - MARVIN GAYE
"Brother, brother, brother... there's far too many of you dying."
"What's Going On" was written by Obie Benson with contributions from Al Cleveland and, eventually, Marvin Gaye. Benson, who was a member of the Four Tops, wrote the song after witnessing acts of police violence against peaceful protesters in San Francisco. His bandmates felt the song was too political, so Benson shared it with Joan Baez, who also passed. Then it made its way to Gaye, who, according to Benson, "added some spice to the melody. He added some things that were more ghetto, more natural, which made it seem more like a story than a song."
Released in 1971, "What's Going On?" climbed all the way to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. I fell in love with the album of the same name in college, some 20 years later. My musical tastes, like my world view, were expanding, which tends to happen at that age. But What's Going On? reached me at a particularly formative time in my life. In high school, I was a member of a church we would now call "Evangelical," but my congregation was pretty apolitical. We were not so much interested in establishing Falwell's Moral Majority as we were in keeping kids like me out of juvenile hall. I left after high school, when the focus became more about growing the church than nurturing the people in it, but I can see that my interest in social justice took root there before growing and flowerain’t at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas along with my tastes in music.
What's Going On was part of the soundtrack of that time of my life, along with The Clash on Broadway, Achtung Baby, and Fear of a Black Planet, among many others. Leaving the church cold turkey was not easy. My view of religion was so distorted, I went through physical withdrawals and bouts of intense depression because when I left the church I felt that God had left me. Music and books like The Catcher in the Rye, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and The Autobiography of Malcolm X (which I've written about in detail) helped me figure out the kind of person I wanted to be post-church, and new people came into my life to help me heal. Then the Rodney King verdict was announced and Las Vegas, like many of the nation's cities, caught fire.
The collective disbelief people felt when the not guilty verdict was announced was profound. Officers claimed King resisted, though witnesses contradicted those claims. Then the police said King was on PCP, which gave him a sense of invulnerability and made extreme force necessary, but there was only evidence of alcohol in King's system. There was something else that kept the police's account from being accepted as gospel. The more than 50 baton blows officers rained down on King, resulting in multiple injuries including a broken leg, had all been captured on video. If ever there was a moment where bad cops would see justice for an injustice they perpetrated on a black man, it had arrived. And yet it didn't.
When the cops who beat Rodney King were acquitted, "What's going on?" seemed like a reasonable question to ask.
I remember attending a rally held by UNLV's Black Students Association. I walked up to one of the speakers, who had just given a fiery speech about "mighty-whitey university" and complimented him on his words. After his initial shock, David Smith became one of my best friends. We tried to integrate the student union. We challenged and changed one another only for the better. Since then, we seemed to have grown on somewhat parallel paths, at least socially and spiritually. But we are those two fish I mentioned earlier. While I see David as my equal in every way, I know that society as a whole, subconsciously at the very least, does not.
So "what's going on?"
Accepting my privilege as real doesn't mean life can't be or hasn't been hard for me and other white people. White dividend payments are not directly deposited into my checking account (though I probably make more money than a black man doing the same job). Other white folks don't give me things for free when we are alone (at least not as often as I'd like), despite what Eddie Murphy learned in the 80s.
What's Going On was part of the soundtrack of that time of my life, along with The Clash on Broadway, Achtung Baby, and Fear of a Black Planet, among many others. Leaving the church cold turkey was not easy. My view of religion was so distorted, I went through physical withdrawals and bouts of intense depression because when I left the church I felt that God had left me. Music and books like The Catcher in the Rye, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and The Autobiography of Malcolm X (which I've written about in detail) helped me figure out the kind of person I wanted to be post-church, and new people came into my life to help me heal. Then the Rodney King verdict was announced and Las Vegas, like many of the nation's cities, caught fire.
The collective disbelief people felt when the not guilty verdict was announced was profound. Officers claimed King resisted, though witnesses contradicted those claims. Then the police said King was on PCP, which gave him a sense of invulnerability and made extreme force necessary, but there was only evidence of alcohol in King's system. There was something else that kept the police's account from being accepted as gospel. The more than 50 baton blows officers rained down on King, resulting in multiple injuries including a broken leg, had all been captured on video. If ever there was a moment where bad cops would see justice for an injustice they perpetrated on a black man, it had arrived. And yet it didn't.
When the cops who beat Rodney King were acquitted, "What's going on?" seemed like a reasonable question to ask.
I remember attending a rally held by UNLV's Black Students Association. I walked up to one of the speakers, who had just given a fiery speech about "mighty-whitey university" and complimented him on his words. After his initial shock, David Smith became one of my best friends. We tried to integrate the student union. We challenged and changed one another only for the better. Since then, we seemed to have grown on somewhat parallel paths, at least socially and spiritually. But we are those two fish I mentioned earlier. While I see David as my equal in every way, I know that society as a whole, subconsciously at the very least, does not.
So "what's going on?"
Accepting my privilege as real doesn't mean life can't be or hasn't been hard for me and other white people. White dividend payments are not directly deposited into my checking account (though I probably make more money than a black man doing the same job). Other white folks don't give me things for free when we are alone (at least not as often as I'd like), despite what Eddie Murphy learned in the 80s.
But Murphy's sketch hyperbolized the essence of what it means to be white in America. I do benefit from a system that has always bent the odds in my favor. Take my educational experiences in Las Vegas. My parents' marriage imploded when I was six, and my elementary and middle school years were marked by transiency, with me attending 10 different schools throughout the valley prior to finishing up at a single high school. This would be hard for any child, regardless of his or her race (again, privilege does not exempt one from hardship). Changing schools impacted students with stable homes, too. Because of its rapid growth, many students in the Clark County School District switched schools without switching residences as school zones were periodically redrawn. Still, throughout my winding path through the CCSD, African American kids were unfairly bused to schools all over the city for a different reason.
"What's going on?"
This was the result of the CCSD's "Sixth Grade Center Plan of Integration." In 1968, despite the Supreme Court ruling almost 15 years earlier requiring schools to integrate "with all deliberate speed," 97 percent of the students enrolled in schools in Las Vegas's historically black West Side were black. The unfair and inequitable plan the district came up with was to convert schools in black neighborhoods to Sixth Grade Centers. Black children would attend neighborhood schools for kindergarten, and then be bused to schools in white neighborhoods for grades 1-5, stay in their neighborhood for sixth grade, then hit the buses again for grades 7-12 (which was always the case, as there were no secondary schools on the West Side). White students would face this inconvenience just once, being bused to schools in the West Side for sixth grade only. Even though it was clear that much of the burden to reform a broken system was being placed on the students who suffered from it the most, white families still resisted. Opposition groups staged a one-day "Bus-Out" that kept 15,517 white students home. I can't imagine the impact this must have had on black children, and their perceptions of themselves and the neighborhood they lived in. What were white parents telling their children about black people and how they lived?
When I rode the bus to the Kermit R. Booker, Jr. Sixth Grade center for the first time in 1982, I was scared. I had been led to believe that the West Side was a war zone filled with gang members who shot up buses filled with white children. By the time I moved again, and started taking a different bus to a different West Side sixth grade center, the only thing I was worried about was having to make new friends. My experiences at Booker, including getting there and back, dispelled the myth of the dangerousness of the black community, so much so that I even attended black churches in the West Side on occasion in high school.
I'm thankful for friends like David who helped me change and grow. Yet I still carry racism with me. I think everyone is guilty of leaning on a stereotype now and again, because it's easier than challenging our own biases. Those prejudices have had dire consequences for African Americans. A black man jogging through his own neighborhood can arouse the fatal suspicions of his neighbors. What happened to Ahmaud Arbery, with three white men "saddling up" to protect their property from a threat that existed only in their twisted minds, is a natural consequence of the hate Griffith propagated all those years ago. The fact that one of those men was a former police officer says something about how deeply racism continues to infect our society and its institutions.
"What's going on?"
This was the result of the CCSD's "Sixth Grade Center Plan of Integration." In 1968, despite the Supreme Court ruling almost 15 years earlier requiring schools to integrate "with all deliberate speed," 97 percent of the students enrolled in schools in Las Vegas's historically black West Side were black. The unfair and inequitable plan the district came up with was to convert schools in black neighborhoods to Sixth Grade Centers. Black children would attend neighborhood schools for kindergarten, and then be bused to schools in white neighborhoods for grades 1-5, stay in their neighborhood for sixth grade, then hit the buses again for grades 7-12 (which was always the case, as there were no secondary schools on the West Side). White students would face this inconvenience just once, being bused to schools in the West Side for sixth grade only. Even though it was clear that much of the burden to reform a broken system was being placed on the students who suffered from it the most, white families still resisted. Opposition groups staged a one-day "Bus-Out" that kept 15,517 white students home. I can't imagine the impact this must have had on black children, and their perceptions of themselves and the neighborhood they lived in. What were white parents telling their children about black people and how they lived?
When I rode the bus to the Kermit R. Booker, Jr. Sixth Grade center for the first time in 1982, I was scared. I had been led to believe that the West Side was a war zone filled with gang members who shot up buses filled with white children. By the time I moved again, and started taking a different bus to a different West Side sixth grade center, the only thing I was worried about was having to make new friends. My experiences at Booker, including getting there and back, dispelled the myth of the dangerousness of the black community, so much so that I even attended black churches in the West Side on occasion in high school.
I'm thankful for friends like David who helped me change and grow. Yet I still carry racism with me. I think everyone is guilty of leaning on a stereotype now and again, because it's easier than challenging our own biases. Those prejudices have had dire consequences for African Americans. A black man jogging through his own neighborhood can arouse the fatal suspicions of his neighbors. What happened to Ahmaud Arbery, with three white men "saddling up" to protect their property from a threat that existed only in their twisted minds, is a natural consequence of the hate Griffith propagated all those years ago. The fact that one of those men was a former police officer says something about how deeply racism continues to infect our society and its institutions.
 A still of Klansmen bringing "justice" to a freedman who proposed to a white woman. From The Birth of a Nation. Photo: NYPL/Smith Collection/Getty Images, 1915. |  A Klan member confronts counter protesters at the Unite the Right Rally. Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images, 2017. |
So here we are again, a nation coming face to face with the poisoned fruits of its past as it struggles to grow a more sustainable future. When riots erupted after the four officers were acquitted of beating Rodney King, President George H. W. Bush didn't turn off the lights and bunker down. He didn't order the use of tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful protesters so he could stage a hackneyed photo-op. When he addressed the American people, Bush didn't use the riots as an excuse to dismiss the injustice of what happened to King. He drew a distinction between legitimate protest and mob violence that our president doesn't seem to be willing or able to do. When you have a someone in the Oval Office who is so bad that he makes George H. W. Bush seem overqualified to be president... well, "What's going on?
But this isn't about Trump, just as the racism in Griffith's film wasn't really about him (though he was undoubtedly racist). This is about us. When"What's Going On?"was released in 1971, Gaye suggested it was a question we should be asking one another in order to break down walls and build understanding. "Talk to me," he said, "so you can see what's going on." Today, "What's going on?" is a question we should be asking ourselves. For white people as a whole, that means accepting that racism is our problem, even if we truly believe that we aren't racist, or feel that we haven't benefited from racism in any way. We must no longer give the oppressed the added burden of ending their own oppression the way the Clark County School District did.
If I could, I would kneel on the neck of my privilege, but privilege is not something I have, it's something that's given to me. Ahmaud Arbery's white neighbors probably ignored a few white joggers the day they murdered him. They probably didn't even notice them. In this, we see how privilege is transactional. We must ensure that our African American brethren are included in the exchange -- not because we are racist, but because they are suffering, and for no reason. It's not good enough to not be racist. We must be antiracist. In that sense, "What's going on?" is still a question we must put to others, just not to black people. We know what's going on with them. They are suffering. They are dying. They are tired. "What's going on?" must be a challenge we make to power whenever a person of color is denied the level of dignity and respect we demand for ourselves. Racism did not start with us, bit if we question more than we accept, we can conquer the hate it causes.
But this isn't about Trump, just as the racism in Griffith's film wasn't really about him (though he was undoubtedly racist). This is about us. When"What's Going On?"was released in 1971, Gaye suggested it was a question we should be asking one another in order to break down walls and build understanding. "Talk to me," he said, "so you can see what's going on." Today, "What's going on?" is a question we should be asking ourselves. For white people as a whole, that means accepting that racism is our problem, even if we truly believe that we aren't racist, or feel that we haven't benefited from racism in any way. We must no longer give the oppressed the added burden of ending their own oppression the way the Clark County School District did.
If I could, I would kneel on the neck of my privilege, but privilege is not something I have, it's something that's given to me. Ahmaud Arbery's white neighbors probably ignored a few white joggers the day they murdered him. They probably didn't even notice them. In this, we see how privilege is transactional. We must ensure that our African American brethren are included in the exchange -- not because we are racist, but because they are suffering, and for no reason. It's not good enough to not be racist. We must be antiracist. In that sense, "What's going on?" is still a question we must put to others, just not to black people. We know what's going on with them. They are suffering. They are dying. They are tired. "What's going on?" must be a challenge we make to power whenever a person of color is denied the level of dignity and respect we demand for ourselves. Racism did not start with us, bit if we question more than we accept, we can conquer the hate it causes.
TAKE ACTION:
Consider learning about and supporting the following organizations committed to bringing justice and equality to America:
GET EDUCATED:
Grow your understanding of the African American experience, and learn about how you can work to make change:
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X
- Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Beloved, byToni Morrison
- How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
- The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein
- So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo
