How to be lucky
My father lived through the civil rights movement and he had stories. Like the time in April of 1968 when he was getting off a train just outside of Columbus, Ohio. He was immediately arrested. No reason was given. He was thrown into a jail cell, packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Everyone was Black. After the police left the room, eventually someone told him, “They just shot Dr. King.”
My father was pretty sure he wasn’t going to get out of that one alive. Luckily, he did. You can bet your ass he never went back to Ohio.
There was the time he was hitchhiking up the California coast to his mother’s house. My father was a musician and he was carrying his trombone with him. Some white boys drove past, threw some trash at him and cackled out the N-word. He flipped them off and they stopped. He reached into his trombone case, pulled out the mouthpiece and pantomimed like it was a gun. The white boys fell for the bluff and took off.
But a cop had been watching from across the street. He sped over to my father and slammed him up against the cruiser, demanding to know where the gun was. He didn’t think he was going to get out of that one, either. Luckily, again, he did.
I’ve been thinking about this luck a lot recently. A lot of Black men of his generation didn’t have it. And his generation was luckier than his father’s. My grandfather’s generation was luckier than my great-grandfather’s, and so on. But for me, it feels like that luck has run out.
Yes, we started with the most luck of all. But my generation of Black men is the first in 150 years to be born with more rights than we’ll likely die with. We’re not alone in that, either. Women, LGBTQIA+ folks, disabled people… Basically, if rich white men have legislated your rights, now is when they’re un-legislating them.
When the Electoral College appointed George W. Bush president, sure, the majority of us voted the other way, but stupidly, we should’ve voted harder. That’s what they told us, anyway. They repeated that line when the Electoral College appointed Trump in 2016. Both of those presidents nominated the current majority of Supreme Court justices who’ve been shitting all over our rights like a Hyrox athlete with cyclosporiasis.
Did you know Wyoming has half the population Maine does? California has more than 25 times Maine’s population. All three states get two senators. This is because the Senate was designed during a time when the original 13 colonies were essentially separate and often adversarial nation-states. A lot of them prioritized preserving slavery. The Senate freezes us in a time when goals, understandings and worldviews were so severely limited, I can only express it in this small play:
Founding Father: What the fuck is that?
You: This? Oh, this is my Apple Watch!
FF: What the fuck is an Apple Watch?
You: It’s like a tiny iPad.
FF: What the fuck is a tiny iPad?
You: Hmmm. Well, actually, it’s like a wristwatch!
FF: What the fuck is a wristwatch?
I know, Troy vs. Suzie is really important right now, but if I’m being honest, I don’t really get why we’re so attached to national politics. The problem is the elites, but the solution is sending someone to Washington, where they will be paid a fortune, given free healthcare from the country’s best doctors, given the best education for their children and on and on? Sending one of our own away to become an elite amongst the elite will somehow solve our problems with the elite? I mean, we’ve been banging our heads bloody against that wall for 250 years and all we got to show for it is generationally wealthy octogenarians flaunting their perpetually freshly coated red wall.
I understand that I’ve got to vote, again, like civilization is counting on it. Don’t worry. I’m not saying not to vote. I’m just saying maybe adjust your expectations of what your vote can do to what you’ve seen your vote do.
What’s the solution? I don’t know, but I can tell you how my ancestors acquired their luck: they were valuable to their neighbors. They learned how to build things and grow things. They learned basic medical knowledge. They learned music and storytelling. They passed this knowledge down and around and maintained practical and joyful communities. They looked out for each other.
I’ll bet your local community college has basic woodworking courses. The University of Maine offers classes on everything farming. Your local Red Cross offers CPR training. Storytelling workshops and music lessons abound. Look into it. Maybe I’m wrong and the USA will be OK. But being a valuable neighbor can’t hurt.
Samuel James also writes “Banned Histories of Race in America” at samuelj.substack.com.
