T.H.U.G. Academy

“You only got 2 bucks and give less than a f**k — then you a n—-

Got a nice home and a Lexus truck — you a n—-

World champions and you M.V.P — you a n—-

4 degrees and a Ph.D — still a n—-

To use your platinum card you need four ID’s — then you’s a n—-…”

-Society

“Perhaps I was addicted to the dark side

Somewhere inside my childhood witnessed my heart die”

-2Pac

In his writings, WEB DuBois coined three terms that we continue to use to understand the experience of the “other” in society: double consciousness, twoness, and the veil. While others have done the theories animating the meanings of these more justice than I ever could (see “The Sociology of W. E. B. Du Bois: Racialized Modernity and the Global Color Line” by Itzigsohn and Brown), I feel compelled to write about how they’ve become more salient in my own life as I navigate my tenure as an elected official. I’m haunted by the privilege that my status affords me. Uncomfortable by the deference I get from my elected office and frustrated by the constant reminders that no amount of money, education, or posturing will shield me from American whiteness, I, like Bruce Banner, hold the secret that I live in perpetual rage. I live simultaneously as an exalted politician viewed as powerful by those lobbying for reform in their interests and as an unfit and uncouth outsider that will never be fully American. How long can I walk this tightrope without imploding or exploding? 

As a result of my elected office I receive invitations to all sorts of events and celebrations. I’m not remotely interested in most of these, but I recognize the value of networking and soft politics, so I attend some. Recently, I was invited to an event which I attended with my three year old son. When I arrived I purchased snacks for him and an overpriced beer for myself. We enjoyed the first half of the event and were prepared to leave before receiving an invitation, along with my colleagues, from the Senate Majority Leader to meet with the President of the organization. We obliged and followed him to the upscale area where the big shots were. When we got off the elevator, we followed the caravan of other elected officials and their families being escorted by the Leader until my son and I (just us) were stopped by security and told we were in the wrong place, it was off limits to us, and we needed to turn around. This was the first time I had been “put in my place” in front of my son. I instinctually grinned knowing what was about to happen. The Leader turned around, spoke to security, and clarified that we were “the President’s guests”. Security stepped aside and let us through the hall to the next room where the President stood prepared to greet us. As we continued on, a new colleague (white man) uncomfortably remarked “well that was weird” to which I immediately quipped “I guess we should’ve known better than to have someone that looked like us towards the front of our group” (a use of humor to diffuse what was obviously a disturbing interaction not just for my son and I).

Completely oblivious to what had just transpired, the President greeted me first upon entering, welcomed my son and I, made small talk to make clear that he knew who I was and invited us to have some of the free food and drinks available to all his guests in this area. We thanked him and kept moving along. Two others (including the only staffer of color) present offered us food but my son declined. One asked “do you like chicken tenders” to which my son replied “yes”. He said “do you want some?” “No, I’m fine.” He turned to me “Papi, let’s go home”. I obliged. Despite the best efforts of the host and his staff, the damage had been done and my son was prepared to rebuke any offer in response to us having been rebuked. I was simultaneously proud, impressed, and sad for my son. I was proud of his strength and resolve. I was impressed by his perceptiveness and capacity to understand what happened to us. I was sad because inside me I hold the same rage that inspired his rebuke. I worry that this will be the first seed of his bitterness. A bitterness that I drink, smoke, exercise, and therapize away with no success. A bitterness that is sure to destroy me before any of my vices do. 

When we got to the car, my son asked me to “bump Bad Bunny” which I did until I noticed that he had fallen asleep. It was then that I started feeling tears of rage streaming down my face. I hated the security guard. Hated the President. Hated being an elected official. After all, I wouldn’t have even been invited to the event had it not been for the position that I hold (a paradoxical constant reminder of privilege and lack thereof). I thought back to those times when I was young and strangers would scream at my mother and tell her to go back to her country. Though I wrote the words years ago, I continue to wonder why America hates us and what it expects will come from such hatred. With a clearer mind, I understand that the guard was just doing their job. I understand that I look like an outsider in the spaces I travel. I’m reminded of work on immigrant incorporation in the US that shows folks in the second generation (particularly upwardly mobile ones) actually report more instances of animus than their parents because their social and professional spaces expose them to more white spaces. 

In the weeks following the incident I’ve reflected on who I want to be in those situations and how I’d like my son to see me. Should I be the intimidating Latino that makes people feel uncomfortable as a Graduate School Dean has suggested? Should I be the Obama-esque diplomat who “goes high” when insulted? The truth of the matter is that I don’t know “who” I want to be. I know that in acting out I would’ve affirmed some of the stereotypes that security and society writ large ascribes to me. I also know that taking the high road would haunt me and make me feel like a punk. I want my son to stand up for himself, but I also don’t want him carrying around the rage that I do. I want a world in which we don’t have to wear white masks or be exceptional to be treated as human. Perhaps I want something that does not and will never exist.  

“I’m not a Star,

Somebody lied, I got a choppa* in the car. Unghhh”

– Rick Ross/Lil Wayne

It’s rare to have an opportunity to see social theory in action, but I recently experienced some of DuBois’ key theoretical contributions to our understandings of race and Otherness. In their recent book on DuBoisian sociology, Itzigsohn and Brown discuss the three concepts DuBois coined for understanding the experience of the “Other” in American society: the Veil, twoness, and double consciousness. Starting from the question: “what does it feel like to be a problem?” DuBois walks through the paradox confronting Black folks in American society. At once a part of and excluded from the society. Rooted in these is the misrecognition of non-white people by whites and the inability of the latter to see the former as fully human. DuBois masterfully presented the veil, double consciousness and twoness through his use of parables. In particular, Of the Coming of John strikes a chord with the most recent bullshit I experienced. In the story, John (a black man from the post Reconstruction South) goes away to college and starts to see how the world sees him and how he sees himself. He wrestles with the dissonance that race inspires in our society and it culminates with him killing white John (I’ll avoid spoilers; go read that shit). How did John get pushed to the brink? 

Black people, and many folks of color, experience American society from a position that white folks can never quite understand. Sometimes it’s a subtle thing, a la microaggressions, and others it’s explicit in the form of a slur or physical assault. I live in awe of the patience and grace of my forebears and contemporaries who didn’t/don’t snap in the face of disrespect. My rage haunts me. It keeps me up at night. It nags at me during the day while I’m trying to work on other things. 

I was in a space where I felt comfortable and safe. Surrounded by close friends and in the middle of watching a Colombian soccer game. Then, John arrived. He walked up to the few people he knew, friends of my brother-in-law from the predominantly white affluent South County town of North Kingstown, and said loudly “HOLAAAAA AMI-GOES, COMO ESTAN” with that tone of mockery that many of us know all too well. They laughed and he dropped some more exaggerated nonsense before taking a seat at the end of the high top. I was annoyed. Filled with rage really. But, I’ve spent years working to control my temper. Developing strategies to calm down. It wasn’t directed at me, I rationalized. It’s just another white boy in his white bubble talking about us the way many of us suspect they do. A sort of backstage conversation that people have when they don’t think others are looking. I glanced over at my Colombian boy sitting next to me, we shrugged annoyingly, sipped our beer, and carried on with our game. 

I don’t know if it was because I was his friend’s brother-in-law or if he was simply audacious but as the game ended, John came up to me and asked “COMO TE YAAA-MAS?!” I said swiftly and calmly: “My name is Jonathon and you need to cut that shit out because if I don’t kick your ass, someone else in here will.” He seemed caught off guard. Not expecting to be called out. He fumbled on his words, apologized profusely, asked if he could buy me a drink (a classic white frat boy strategy for diffusing tension). I told him it was fine as long as he stopped exaggerating his accent. 

I worked through the incident in therapy later that week. My therapist asked how I felt as I recounted the incident. I was proud that I warned John before swinging on him. The threat, though violent, was clearly an effective deterrent. It was also an exercise in restraint. My community and I were disrespected but I didn’t respond violently. The white therapist concurred. We talked about the audacity of whiteness. The blindness of it. The bluntness of it. My hatred of it.  

The white male ego can be so fragile as to demand affirmation and understanding when it’s protagonist is in the wrong. As if the white male is owed some kind of appreciation or understanding for their misdeeds.

Weeks passed and I felt like the tavern exchange was just another classic clash with whiteness. I hadn’t thought much of it following my debrief with my therapist. When we celebrated my birthday, we invited my brother-in-law and he mentioned that he had dinner plans with John that day. He asked if they could come over. In the spirit of moving on, I said yes. There’s no use in holding onto rage. It’s generally best to process it and let it go. 

John and his fiance walked into our house. I greeted them, offered them a drink, and welcomed them to our home. The night was proceeding uneventfully until John decided to bring up our first meeting. “You won’t believe what your friend did!” he remarked to my best friend from college who was partaking in the festivities. 

John: “This guy threatened me!” 

“Well…” said Mike chuckling. “What’d you do?!” 

I recounted the events from our first meeting and cautioned John that Mike has known me for years and would be unlikely to empathize with his position. 

John proceeded to offer that I NEEDED to understand where he was coming from that night. He studied Spanish and spent a semester abroad in a Latin American country. For him, speaking Spanish was HIS WAY of celebrating MY culture. As he said: “I made the effort to learn YOUR language. Can you at least appreciate that?!” He went on to offer that he hasn’t had any issue ten out of ten times that he’s done this in the presence of a Latinx person. Plus, “you’re a SENATOR, you can’t threaten people.”

I noted that 1. He was clearly not batting 100 if I took issue with him 2. What the fuck did being a Senator have to do with his bullshit; I wasn’t “threatening people generally, but rather responding to disrespect directed at me” and 3. Had he EVER considered the possibility that the Other might nod in his presence, go home, and remark to their friends and loved ones that they had a frustrating interaction with an unaware disrespectful cracker. It was beyond his abilities to ponder what the Other might think because he had little experience with this twoness many of us live.

It was clear to me that the conversation wasn’t going anywhere. This man was looking for some sort of formal forgiveness for his past transgression and I wasn’t in the mood to cater to his ego. When he entered the tavern that night, he didn’t engage with any Spanish speakers but walked up to his suburban friends and threw out an exaggerated accent.

I asked directly: “what is it that you think would come from this tonight?” 

He said that he expected a “compromise” and “middle ground”. I noted that NOT slapping the shit out of him was the middle ground. He disrespected me, my family, and my people. I didn’t engage him that night. He came up to me and acted disrespectfully. On this day, he was in my house, on my birthday celebration, trying to convince me that I should UNDERSTAND him. FUCK THAT.   

As if this suburban white boy could understand how it feels for a child to watch his mom berated by a stranger at a gas station. A stranger who called her an arrow thrower and demanded that she go back to where she came from. The real problem, as I saw it in the moment, is that I did understand where he was coming from and I had no sympathy for his perspective. An ignorant sheltered kid from the suburbs raised around people from his same background who is all of a sudden confronted by the consequences of his actions is not exactly a sob story. I hate him, but most of all I hate a system of social reproduction that allows people to really believe that their individual choices to move to “good” neighborhoods with “good” schools will have no adverse consequences on the rest of society or their own children. Children raised to believe that their lives are the result solely of hard work rather than an alchemy of luck, some work, and a large dose of ethno-racial class privilege. Children growing up around few people different from them in any substantive way who end up lacking the skills to speak and engage respectfully across differences. Children that are the predictable result of segregation and whiteness. 

My partner looked at her brother and firmly stated “it’s time for you to go.” He concurred but John insisted that we needed to reach some middle ground. His fiance grabbed him by the arm and motioned to the door. I looked at my partner, at the ceiling where I wondered if my sons could hear the commotion in their beds, and agreed that it was best if they left. They did and my brother-in-law sent a brief apology text some time after.

The comings and goings of John have inspired more questions than answers. When, if ever, will they SEE us? How long are we expected to confront disrespect and turn the other cheek? How long will the burden of white fragility fall on the Other? How much of John is in my sons’ uncle who is a childhood friend and contemporary? How much of John is in their cousins who grow up in similar environments? How much of John will be in my white passing sons? How much of John can this world continue take? 

*I do not own any firearms. I don’t condone the use of firearms. I do keep a bat in the trunk for recreational sports purposes.

“She gave me the gift of my son, and plus we got one on the way
She gave me a family to love, for that, I can never repay
I’m crying while writing these words
The tears, they feel good on my face” – J.Cole

This letter is an addendum to our first message to our children. We encourage you to check that one out too as its relevance persists. 

The Acosta-Chatham family is growing, and we are so excited to meet you, our second Leo baby! We can’t wait to hug you, kiss you, read to you, and love you. You, baby, are part of something great, and there are some things you should know! 

The joy you’ll bring the world is immeasurable. It is not an exaggeration to say that the time leading up to your arrival has been tough. The world has been lost. As if the global rise of fascism and the persistent inequality produced by capitalism weren’t enough; a pandemic has ravaged the world, our community, and has taken the lives of friends and family. And yet, humanity has persisted. Despite the loss and despair, we’ve been reminded about how important love is and you, are a symbol of that love. Made during a time of loss, pain and loneliness, you’re the seed of our hope for the future. You’ll grow up in a time post-pandemic where we’ll do our best to show you the world and all the people that make up its beauty. We’ll play, learn, and work to make that world a better place.

We can’t wait to introduce you to León. León is one of the happiest people we’ve ever met. He’s curious, silly, brusque, and has a tooth-filled smile that is contagious. You are going to be responsible for taking care of each other as you grow up together. Mom grew up with two siblings and is super close with them. Papi didn’t get a sister until he was 17, but he can tell you it’s a love like no other. León is ready to teach you how to scream, “Wheeeee!” as you go down the slide, the joys of snow and sledding, and how to make a sea of toys spread across a room within seconds. And you are sure to teach León about what it means to be a sibling, and that as our family grows, our love for each other grows too.

With all of that love, 

Mama and Papi 

My mom and I used to play all sorts of games when I was growing up. One of them was the grocery store math game. My mom would read out the price of every item she put in the cart and it was my job to keep track of the running total. It was a great exercise in mental math and rounding. What I didn’t realize at the time was that it was also useful for keeping our grocery bill within budget. My sister was born 17 years after I was and when my mom didn’t play the same game with her, I wondered why. It took me years to realize that the answer was largely material: we weren’t broke anymore.

As my family and I were driving home from the grocery store the other day, I realized that I didn’t pay attention to the total at the cashier and that I wasn’t keeping a running tab of the items we put in the cart. It’s been years since I had to worry about money in a serious way, but the psychological scars from my youth rear their heads every now and then. There’s a guilt that comes with surviving. It’s not a guilt that should inspire sympathy in others but one that fuels a rage inside me. People might be able to imagine what it’s like to not have money, but it’s difficult to articulate or understand the mental toll. The anxiety of opening a fridge and rationing what you eat; not because you’re on a diet but because the next paycheck is 10 days away. The weight of that lifestyle follows you for years after you’ve left it. The taste of Vienna sausages and spam lingers in the back of your throat and taste buds. I’m the lucky one. These are memories rather than the present. Scars instead of wounds. Yet the fire rages. I hate the idea of anyone not having their basic needs met.

The COVID pandemic has made me hyper aware of food insecurity in my community. Currently, the unemployment rate in Central Falls is around 18%; higher than at any point in the Great Recession and the highest it’s been in the last 30 years (maybe longer but the data available starts at 1990). When any of the local non-profits hold a food distribution event, dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people show up. These are human beings in need. Regular working-class people. Moms like my own 15 years ago. Instead of outrage or frustration at the system that holds them in place, most of them are grateful. Grateful for something to eat.

I’ve volunteered at several food distribution events, and I’m shocked at the supply that we have available. When a State is faltering, it makes sure to feed its people as a means of quelling unrest. Hungry people make for unpredictable potential rebels. Letting people go hungry is a choice that we make in the United States. We have the resources, infrastructure, and capacity to stamp out hunger; but we don’t. If and when we emerge from this tripartite crisis (economic, health, and racial), we must hold ourselves and our government to a higher standard. A standard where, at the very least, no one goes hungry.

“The first wedding that I’ve been in my twenties
Thinkin’ maybe someone is not somethin’ to own
Maybe the government got nothin’ to do with it
Thinkin’ maybe the feeling just comes and it goes
Think I want me a lil’ one that look like my clone
Me and my baby can’t do on our own”

-Frank Ocean

“I’m writing you a letter
This is to my unborn child
Want to let you know I love you
Love you, if you didn’t know I feel this way
How I, think about you every day
I have so much to say”

-Tupac Shakur and Tena Jones

I usually write what goes on here by myself but this was necessarily co-authored. This letter, like the product of our partnership, has both of us in it…

January 17, 2019

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

To Our Children,

As we write this, we are brimming with excitement, a little nervousness of the unknown, and a deep love and respect for each other. We are nine weeks and five days into our first pregnancy, and just yesterday we saw for the first time, the beating heart of the newest member of our family. Your dad shed some tears and supportively grasped your mom’s foot as she stared intently at the image of you, letting the first feelings of motherhood wash over her. These next few months are sure to go by fast, so before we welcome you into this world, we want to make some commitments to you about our family, our love, and our future.

On Family

Our family started many years ago as two separate families, different in many ways, but both filled with lots of love and support from many people near and far. You have great grandparents from Colombia, to Florida, to Cape Cod. Your grandfather built the road connecting his street to the main square in his town outside of Medellin, and your grandmother was the first person in our family to go to business school. You come from a long line of journalists, lawyers, soldiers, ship captains, makers, mothers, rebels, pirates, healers, and educators. There are too many people and stories to share in this short letter, but we promise to tell them all to you. Storytelling and lively conversation are in your blood, and we know that you will be telling your own stories and asking your own questions very soon. When it comes to our family, we may not always agree or see things from the same perspective, but we will always support, love, laugh, and learn from each other.

On Love & Commitment

When we met, we were working together as teachers. We both have a love for learning and quickly realized that there was a lot to learn about each other. We talked about our pasts, our families, our beliefs about ourselves and the world, and our future. We talked a lot. In the process, we taught each other a lot too.  Your mom taught your dad the ring game, the art of compromise, compassion, patience, and a large, random assortment of white people shit. Your dad taught your mom how to dance salsa, play dominoes and cacho, and that what is normal doesn’t always dictate what is right. The most important thing that we learned together is that we love each other.

Once we fell in love, we started to think about our lives together. There was one summer day when your mom sat your dad down and told him exactly how she felt. She told him that she only wanted to be with him, and at some point, she moved her vacuum cleaner into his apartment. See, your dad’s apartment was very dusty, and as much as he hates cleaning, he loves your mom more. As our love grew and our lives became more intertwined, we started to make decisions as partners. We decided to move into a new apartment together, to split cooking and cleaning chores based on our strengths (and weaknesses), and to one day, raise humans of our own. We bought our first new car and home together, we traveled to new places with our families, and we took care of each other when we were sick.

One of the other decisions we made was to not get married. We looked around at our life together at that moment, and it felt full but also full of possibilities. Marriage, as we saw it, didn’t offer us anything we didn’t already have. The one thing we felt could bring something more to us, was growing our family to include you.

Not everybody will understand or value this decision in the same way that we do. If you ever worry about people saying or you feeling that this isn’t normal, remember that one of the things we learned from each other is that what’s “normal” isn’t all that important to us. And really, what is normal? We ask this because what might be normal for you could be very different than what we predict at this moment now.

Honestly, it would be hard for our family to be normal, even if we tried really, really hard. It’s just not our style. Instead of striving to be normal, we’d rather work toward being true to ourselves and to each other.

On the Future

It’s yours. Live fully and remember that we are all connected. We feel privileged to be able to watch you grow and to grow alongside you. You are the dream of all the people who came before you and the example for those who will come after.

Love,

Mom & Dad

P.S. Check out how alien-like you looked:

“You know it’s up to the world, America eats its baby’s, No matter what you think about me I’m still your child, Know what I’m saying, just can’t turn me off like that”

“Perhaps I was addicted to the dark side, Somewhere inside my childhood witnessed my heart die… Please, Lord, forgive me for my life of sin, My hard stare seems to scare all my sister’s kids”

-2Pac

A four-year-old child watches his mother cry as her childhood friend tells her that, after two days, they’ve outstayed their welcome. They sleep in their car at a rest stop that night

America hates you

A security guard escorts a ten-year-old out of a classroom because he hasn’t been tested for that level of rigor

America hates you

A twelve-year-old man accompanies his aunt to the federal penitentiary where he is searched two times before entering. He’s there to translate for her so that she can visit her son

America hates you

A woman screams at the mother of a thirteen-year-old at a gas station saying that she’s a dirty Indian and should go back to her country

America hates you

A campground ranger holding a rifle tells his partner that he can’t stand those n*****s and would love to put one between their eyes. A fourteen-year-old runs back and tells his best friend that it’s better to play cards in their tent

America hates you

A high school AP teacher asks to see a fifteen-year-old’s schedule because he’s probably in the wrong place

America hates you

A thirty-six-year-old mother tells her seventeen-year-old son to cut his hair, tuck his shirt in and tone it down before he leaves for college

America hates you

A twenty-one-year-old woman holds back from introducing her boyfriend to her parents because it will just make their relationship “harder”

America hates you

A twenty-two-year-old boy is refused entry into a bar in Athens, Georgia by a security guard who says, “You can’t come in looking like that?”, “Like what?”, “With those studs in your ear”

America hates you

An eighty-nine-year-old grandma grabs the father of her granddaughter’s partner and shrieks “how could you let him look like that?!” He responds rather incredulously “he’s my son, I love him no matter what”

America hates you

A Dean tells a twenty-seven-year-old graduate student that they’ve seen him around campus and can see why people would find him intimidating

America hates you

A president declares that he wants to revoke the right to citizenship of a twenty-eight-year-old and people like him because they haven’t earned it

America hates you

A twenty-nine-year-old reflects on their brief and wonderous life begging to know

Why does America hate me?

La muerte trae inquietud. Normalmente, me da orgullo de ser una persona que es crítica, intelectual, y entiende que la muerte es un hecho común, natural, e esperada pero cada vez que visita me siento desorientado. Mejor dicho, no respondo bien a la muerte. Recibí el mensaje a las 7:28 de la mañana. “Hermanos… Ignacio falleció esta mañana. Mi tío y yo no compartimos mucho cariño. De hecho, no lo había visto en varios anos.

Ignacio (o “Nacho como le decimos nosotros) era un artista. No simplemente un artista, fue EL ARTISTA de nuestra familia. Como niño, me acuerdo de jugar en la casa de mi tío Koki y de ver el trabajo de Nacho repartido por toda la casa. Sus obras eran hermosas. El hacía máscaras, esculturas, pinturas, machinas, y más. Su ropa siempre estaba acabada, sus manos cubiertas en pintura seca, arcilla, y tierra. Sus ojos siempre estaban bajos, su bigote lleno, y olía a tierra. Su pelo siempre estaba largo, despeinado, gris, y caminaba con una inclinación en su espalda que lo hacía ver como si el cargaba el peso del mundo sobre ella sin ningún problema. Cuando trabajaba, parecía como si estuviera bailando; un movimiento orquestado de un maestro. Las únicas veces que para cie incomodo eran en el frio. Siempre parecía rígido en el frio. Con los anos, me di cuenta de que el olor a tierra era marijuana. Le encantaba la marijuana. Empecé a decirle el “Tommy Chong” de mi familia. Tienen un swagger parecido pero mi tío era más vacano e infinitamente más talentoso.

Yo no tengo ni un hueso de artista en mi cuerpo. Mi habilidad en el dibujo es tan mala que en el Segundo año de bachiller me refirieron a la directora porque mande a una maestra a la mierda por darme notas bajas en una prueba literaria donde teníamos que dibujar. Aunque trate de evitar cualquier actividad y clase de arte en la escuela, el programa diplomado tiene un requisito artístico. Decide tomar una clase de fotografía porque asumí que podría negociar un grado bueno. La clase tenía un componente especificó: todos los estudiantes tenían que dar una presentación con algún componente artístico. Yo estaba ocupado con mis otras clases y se me olvido la fecha de mi presentación. Un martes, al llegar al salón, la maestra declaro “Te toca a ti, Jonathon. Estamos animados para tú presentación.” “Hijo de puta!” pensé yo. Mientras empezaba a sudar sin solución, mi tío Nacho entro a mis pensamientos.

               “Hoy voy a dar una presentación sobre un artista local subestimado de nombre Ignacio Vélez. ¡Este artista produce trabajo en varios medios y encima de ser increíblemente talentoso, es mi tío!” Proclame yo durante mi presentación. “Mi tío es un escultor, pintor, diseñador gráfico, y mucho más. Tiene experiencia trabajando con vidrio, tela, arquitectura, grafiti, y cerámica. ¡Si me permiten un momento, les mostrare su sitio de web!”

Abrí el sitio de web en la computadora de mi maestra en frente del salón y ahí estaba el nombre de mi tío con una página llena de su trabajo reciente: una colección de cueros en forma de vaginas. La clase paro en silencio. Yo la había cagado varias veces en mi escuela (más que todo por hablar mierda, pelear, y contestarle feo a mis maestros) y estaba seguro de que esta vez sí que la cague. Mi maestra tomo un segundo y dijo “donde encontraría los modelos para esa colección?” Le dio riza a la clase y termine la presentación. La maestra me dio una A. Nunca le conté el cuento a mi tío, pero ese día me salvo y es una de mis memorias escolares favoritas.

Yo tengo una rabia brava. Cuando me siento ofendido o que me faltan es respeto, respondo como una rabia fuerte. Yo tengo una relación complicada y frustrada con mi familia. Mi papa es uno de doce. Todos, menos uno, tienen compañeros de vida y todos, menos dos, tienen hijos. Eso significa que tengo suficientes primos para varios equipos de futbol y más que puedo contar. Mientras familias grandes frecuentemente se sienten más cercanas, se pueden sentir muy frías si no te sientes como parte de ellas. Los hijos de los padres divorciados frecuentemente se sienten como los miembros bastardos de la familia. Pasamos menos tiempo con nuestras familias. Nos llamaron menos durante nuestros cumpleaños, nos invitaron a menos eventos de vida, y en general sentimos menos amor. Mi propio padrino (que es un tío mío) ni siquiera sabe escribir mi nombre. Tengo un primo que vive tan encojonado con la forma de ser de mi familia que él no participa ni intercambia con nuestro lado de la familia. Yo tuvo cirugía de Corazón a los diez años. En ese entonces, habían más de 15 miembros de mi familia que estaban en Miami y solo uno me visito en el hospital y durante mi recuperación. Eso le dio papa a mi rabia. Cuando mis primos se casaron, no me invitaron. Mas rabia. Mi graduación, mi ceremonia de Eagle Scout, cumpleaños, días de fiesta, siempre fui el olvidado. Tremenda hijo de puta rabia. Llego a cierto punto que empecé a referir a mi familia como “mi familia de vacaciones.” Si mi papa me estaba visitando, aparecían todos esos hijos de putas y me hacían sentir como un “Acosta”. Pero hay mismo cuando él se iba, ellos desaparecían; era como si él los hubiera empacado en su maleta. Cuando me volví adulto, esa rabia se cristalizo casi como un odio: “si no les importo un putas, entonces pa’ la mierda con todos!”

No fue mi culpa que nunca tuve la familia que yo quería. Tampoco fue la culpa de mi tío que la dinámica de mi familia era como era. Pero en medio de mi rabia, lo empuje a él y al resto de mi familia lejos cuando llegue a la edad donde yo podio iniciar el contacto. Arrepentirse es el peor sentimiento que uno puede sentir. Yo me arrepiento por dos cosas relacionadas a mi tío. La primera es que no lo visite en diciembre. Yo estuve en Miami tres semanas para celebrar la vacación y no pude sobrepasar mi rabia para ir a verlo sabiendo que él estaba enfermo. La segunda razón que me arrepiento es que nunca le dije que lo quería. Con los años, he visto que la imagen de ser un “hombre fuerte” es toxica. Cuando era joven, pensaba que los machos no debían de expresar cariño y amor. Haber perdido Nacho me ayuda ver la ridiculez en esa forma de ver el mundo. Hoy en día, le digo a todos mis mejores amigos que los quiero cuando colgamos el teléfono, pero por alguna razón se me ha hecho más difícil hacer lo mismo con mi familia. Creo que es porque mis cicatrices siguen intactas. Perder a Nacho ha puesto muchas de estas bobadas en perspectiva y me demostró que tengo que enterar mi rabia y remplazarla con amor.

Después que leí el texto de mi prima lo primero que quería hacer era fumarme una bareta o tomarme un trago. Pero me acorde que esta tarde tengo que dar clase de lucha libra. Después de práctica, tengo una reunión con un estudiante de mis días como maestro que me va a hablar sobre sus planes universitarios. La vida sigue; siempre sigue. Pero antes de que continua, quiero mandar estas palabras al universo con la esperanza que el amor que cargan lleguen a su espíritu. Espero que un dio nos podamos sentar juntos a fumarnos uno en el otro lado. Trate de seguir mi rutina normal. La gente que me conoce sabe que soy como un militar por la mañana. Me demoro un minuto y 45 segundos para llenar mi termos y servir mi café. La cagada de la mañana se me demora cuatro minutos y medio donde uso el tiempo para mirar a mi teléfono. Me lavo los dientes a las 7:18 y salgo por la puerta a las 7:27. Vi el mensaje de mi prima y el mundo paso a tiempo lento. Las próximas dos horas, todo se mi caía, me golpeaba con cosas, y se me salían las lágrimas. Trate de ir al gimnasio y a mirar nalgas, pero ni eso me ayudaba. Me siento un poco extraño porque él y yo no nos teníamos ningún cariño en particular, pero veo que el me impacto más de lo que me acuerdo. Arme un castillo de rabia para mi familia y en eso proceso, se me olvidaron todas las memorias bellas que compartimos. 

Cuando todavía trabajaba en una escuela, el padre de una estudiante murió de una sobredosis. Meses después, escuche a un administrador diciendo que la paleda tenía que “sobrepasar” lo que paso y que tenía que ser más “teza”. En ese momento pensé que ese man estaba empujándola en la dirección correcta pero que gonorrea tan hijo de puta ese man. Yo no perdí un padre y nosotros por lo menos sabíamos que él estaba enfermo sin embargo todavía me siento triste e inquieto. Traté de leer una página de mi tarea y no fui capaz. No es fácil “continuar” o “seguir” con la vida y toda la gente tiene su propia forma de hacerlo. Estas palabras son parte del proceso mío. No son para el lector sino para Nacho y para mí. Espero que puedan sustituir por la conversación que nunca tuvimos.

La última memoria que tengo de Nacho fue en Copacabana. Cuando yo tenía quince años, mi papa me llevo a la cuidad para conocer donde él se crio. Un día cuando caminábamos por el parque en el centro del pueblo vi un pendejo con más cara de “Tommy Chong” que un hijo de puta. Este man tenía el pelo más gris que yo me acordaba, pero reconocí los chores rotos, la camisa grande, la pintura en sus brazos y la bareta en su oreja. “Apa, ese es Nacho, ¿no?!” “Si papi, a él le encanta esto aquí. Vamos a saludarlo”. Nacho se veía más feliz que mi memoria de el en Miami y en Nueva York. Me dio un abrazo grande y me pregunto que hacíamos par allá. Le respondí que estábamos conociendo la historia de mi papa y el movió la cabeza de acuerdo. No despedimos y continuamos caminando. Yo me volteé y dije “Apa, se ve super feliz aquí” “A si papi, este es su hogar. El lugar donde primero se hizo artista. Vive en una finca con tu tía. Tiene espacio para su trabajo y puede cultivar su matica, tú sabes.” Cuando su salud se empeoro, mi tía y el tuvieron que volver a los EE. UU. para ir a la clínica. Me da tristeza que no pudo estar en Colombia durante sus últimos meses, pero agradezco que pudo estar cerca a su esposa, sus hijos, y sus nietos.

Hoy perdimos un artista, un padre, un esposo, un tío, un hermano, una persona. No era perfecto en la misma manera en que nadie es perfecto. Como muchos artistas, era super desorganizado con la plata y la familia le toco mudarse mucho, hasta cuando eran viejos. Tuvo cuatro hijos, tres que todos reconocen (con mi tía) y una que es olvidada o ignorada como una historia de García Márquez. No he podido mostrar el valor de llamar a mi tía o a mis primos. No sé qué decirles. No estoy seguro de lo que me gustaría que me digieran a mí el día que pierda un padre. Espero que se fue sin mucho dolor. Espero que ellos sientan que se pudieron despedir. Espero que puedan encontrar alguna manera de “continuar.” No sé si esos deseos pendejos ayudan, pero son los que me vienen. Esta noche, después de practica y después de mi reunión, Jack Daniels y yo vamos a celebrar a Nacho, su arte, su sonrisa, sus matas, su familia, y su memoria. Como nunca es muy tarde: Te quiero Nacho Vélez.

“We found a family spot to kick it
Where we can drink liquor and no one bickers over trick shit

A spot where we can smoke in peace and even though we G’s
We still visualize places that we can roll in peace
And in my mind’s eye I see this place, the players go in fast
I got a spot for us all, so we can ball at thug’s mansion”

-2Pac

Death is unsettling. I like to pride myself in being this rational critical thinker who understands death as a common, natural, and expected occurrence yet every time it happens I lose my equilibrium. Better stated, I don’t respond well to death. I read the text at 7:28 this morning. “Hey guys.. Ignacio passed away this morning.” My uncle and I weren’t particularly close. In fact, I hadn’t seen him in years.

Ignacio (or Nacho as we all call him) was an artist. Not just an artist, THE ARTIST in our family. As a kid, I remember running around my Uncle Koki’s house and seeing Nacho’s work scattered everywhere. His pieces were beautiful. He made masks, sculptures, paintings, gizmos, gadgets, and more. His clothes were always ragged, his hands covered in dry paint, clay, and dirt. His eyes were always low, mustache was always bushy, and he smelled like earth. His hair was always a long moppy mess that got grayer as the years went on and he had a slight bent to his walk that wasn’t quite hunchback but made it look like he easily carried the weight of the world on his back. When he worked, he always looked like he was gliding; a natural movement that looked like an orchestrated masterpiece. The only time he looked uncomfortable was in the cold. He always looked stiff in the cold. When I got older, I realized that earth smell was weed. He loved weed. I started referring to him as the Tommy Chong of my family. They had a similar swag except my uncle was much cooler and infinitely more talented.  

I don’t have an artistic bone in my body. My ability to draw is so bad that I got a behavior referral as a high school sophomore for cursing out an AP English language teacher who gave me a C on a visually interpretative assignment of the theme in a text (I stand by my position). While I avoided artistic endeavors at all cost, I was pushed into choosing a class to fulfill the elective requirement of my IB diploma program. I choose photography because all we really needed was a digital camera and I figured I could finesse a good grade in the class. The syllabus had one catch: you had to present on art of your choosing in front of the class at one point in the year. I was preoccupied with my other academically rigorous classes and forgot my presentation date until my teacher called me up on a random Tuesday morning to present. “You’re up Jonathon, we look forward to your presentation!” As my mind raced to figure out a way out of this corner my uncle Nacho immediately popped into my head.

“Today I will be presenting on a talented underrated local artist named Ignacio Velez. This artist produces work across mediums and, in addition to being amazingly talented, he happens to be my uncle!” I proclaimed with pride. “My uncle is a sculptor, painter, graphic designer, illustrator, and more. He has experience working with stained glass, tapestry, architecture, graffiti and ceramics. If you will permit me a moment, I will pull up his website now to show you some of his pieces!”

I pulled up the website on my teacher’s projector and sure enough there was my uncle’s name with a full page of his most recent works: a collection of leather pieces shaped as vaginas. The class was silent. I had been in trouble a few times in school (mostly for talking back to teachers) and I was sure this one would lead to a parent conference. My teacher took a second and simply said: “I wonder where he got the models from…” The class chuckled, I breathed a sigh of relief and wrapped up my presentation as quickly as possible. I got an “A”. I never told him, but my uncle saved my ass that day and I am forever grateful for the memory.

I’m a bitter mother fucker. When I feel offended or slighted I feed off that shit like wood feeds fire. A lot of my family and I have a strained relationship that goes unspoken. My father is one of twelve. All but one have lifelong partners and all but two have children. That means that my cousins could field several soccer teams and I have more of them than I can count. While large families are usually welcoming, they can also feel cold if you don’t feel a part of them. The children of divorced parents often feel like the bastard members of the family. We spent less time around our family growing up. We got less phone calls on birthdays, less invitations to major life events, and generally felt less loved. My own godfather (who also happens to be one of my uncles) doesn’t even know how to spell my name. I have a cousin that is so moved by this exclusion that he purposefully does not engage at all with our side of the family. I had heart surgery when I was ten years old. There were over 15 family members who lived in the Miami area at the time and only one of them visited me in the hospital or during my recovery. That fed the fire. When my cousins got married, I wasn’t invited. Gasoline. High school graduation, Eagle Scout ceremony, birthdays, holidays, I was the forgotten one. Bonfire. It got to the point that I made a joke of it. They were my “vacation family”. If my dad was in town, my family treated me like I was one of “Acosta’s”. As soon as he left, they disappeared; it was like he packed his family up in the luggage. As I got older, the joke crystalized into an armor. “Fuck me? Well fuck y’all too!”

It wasn’t my fault that I didn’t have the family I wanted growing up. It also wasn’t my uncle’s fault that my family dynamic ended up the way it did. Yet in my bitterness, I pushed him and the rest of my family away when I was old enough to initiate contact. Regret is the worst fucking feeling. I have two regrets regarding my uncle. The first is that I didn’t see him this past winter. I spent three weeks in Miami and I couldn’t work up the energy to go see him knowing that he was ill. The second regret that I have is that I never told him that I love him. As I get older, I’ve been struggling to shed some of the toxic masculinity from my youth. Part of that was an aversion to expressing love, particularly for other men. Not having told him is just another reminder of why I need to get rid of that shit. I tell my closest boys I love them at the end of every phone conversation now but for some reason it’s been a bit harder to do with my family. I think it’s because I choose my friends, but I didn’t choose my family. Losing Nacho puts some of this into perspective and reminds me that I need to put that family fire out and replace it with love.

After reading my cousin’s text, my immediate reaction was to look for a drink or a joint. Then I remembered that I must lead wrestling practice this afternoon. After practice, I have a dinner with a former student who is going to tell me about their college plans. Life goes on; it always does. But before letting it do so, I want to put these words into the universe in the hopes that the love they contain for him drift towards his spirit. I hope that one day we can sit on a stoop and share a smoke together on the other side. I tried to go about my morning. People who know me well know that I’m a disciplined-ass mother fucker in the morning. Everything is timed, and I keep to a tight schedule. It takes me one minute and 45 seconds to fill my thermos and pour my morning iced coffee. My morning shit takes four and a half minutes where I use part of the sitting time to watch two snap stories max. I’m brushing my teeth by 7:18 in the morning and out the door by 7:27. I saw my cousin’s text and the world slowed down. Over the next couple of hours, I kept bumping into things, dropping things, and tearing up. I went to the gym and tried to carry on my normal workout but kept finding myself staring into space. I feel weird because we weren’t that close, but I guess he impacted me more than I can recall. I built a fortress around my emotions in response to feeling rejected by my family and I think that included forgetting the good memories that we shared.

When I was still working in a school, one of our student’s parent died from an overdose. Months later, I overheard a staff member comment on how the student needed to “get over it” and “focus” on their academics. It seemed like harsh tough love at the time, but I can’t help but empathize with that student now. I didn’t lose a parent and, in many ways, we saw my uncle’s passing coming, yet I’m still unsettled. I tried reading a page of Habermas and the words all just blended together. It’s not easy for life to just “go on” and everyone has a different way of coping. These words are part of my attempt. They’re not for the reader but for Nacho and myself. I hope they fill in for the conversation we never had.

The last vivid memory I have of Nacho was from Copacabana. When I was 15, my father and I took a sort of pilgrimage trip to visit the town where he grew up and to get to know each other better. One day, while we were walking in the town plaza that was foreign to me, I spotted a Tommy Chong looking mother fucker from across the park. This cat had longer grayer hair than I remembered but his ripped cargo shorts, baggy tank top, paint covered arms, and the joint on his ear were a dead giveaway. “Dad, ese es Nacho, no?!”. “Si papi, he loves it here. Let’s go say hi.” Nacho looked happier than I remembered him in New York and Miami. The bounce in his walk looked natural and his mustache grin was never wider. He gave me a hug and asked us what we were doing in town. My dad told him that he was showing me where he grew up and Nacho nodded in approval. We parted ways and I turned to watch him glide away. “Apa, se ve super feliz aqui” “Oh yes papi, this is his home. This is where he first became an artist. He lives on a farm with your aunt. He’s got plenty of space to work and he can grow some of his stuff, you know.” As his health declined in recent years, he and my aunt relocated to the US to get better medical attention. It saddens me a bit that he didn’t get to be “home” in the end but I’m glad to know that he was close to his wife, some of his children, and some of his grandchildren.

Today, we lost an artist, a father, a husband, an uncle, a brother, a person. He was flawed like all of us. Like most artists, he wasn’t particularly responsible with his finances and the family moved around a lot, even when he was older. He had four children, three that most people recognize (with my aunt) and one that is forgotten or ignored in the classic Garcia-Marquez story line. I haven’t worked up the courage to call my aunt or my cousins yet. I’m not really sure what to say. I don’t know what I would want someone to tell me the day I lose a parent. I hope that he went without too much pain. I hope that they feel like they were able to say their goodbyes. I hope they find a way to “go on.” I’m not sure any of that shit helps but it crosses my mind as I think about him. Tonight, after practice and after dinner, Jack Daniels and I will meet to reminisce and talk about Nacho, his art, his smile, his plants, his family, and his memory. Since it’s never too late: I love you Ignacio Velez.

“Welcome to the jungle, welcome to the jungle well, goddammit”

-Jay Z and Kanye West

Last semester I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Harvard sociologist Carly Knight. In it, she presented her research on the ways in which corporations are personified and discussed as humans in media and popular rhetoric. Instead of being the collection of private interests, they’ve moved in the public imagination to being discussed as people and in the legal realm as entities with the same rights as citizens (think the now infamous citizens united Supreme Court ruling that essentially allows corporations to finance elections). This means that corporations can lobby for their self interests; interests that in unfettered capitalism are concerned with efficiency and profit maximization. As such, corporations and big businesses often fail to consider public and societal interests. I’d like to be clear that I’m not necessarily anti-business or anti-corporations but rather pro-people and pro-society. Corporations should work for people, not the other way around. As I reflect on my first year in office, I can’t help but feel disgusted by the ways in which businesses and corporations have taken priority over individuals. The Amazon campaign for the company’s second headquarters is a perfect example for how we’ve been brought to our knees by corporations. Two hundred and thirty eight cities and towns across America applied to the challenge (including Central Falls). In the applications, municipalities were asked to outline why they should be granted the “privilege” of having Amazon come to them. These proposals had to speak to certain criteria that the company delineated in its call. The “challenge” is really a demand for a dowry. One of the most important parts of this “dowry” is the tax cuts that the company will receive. Tax cuts that serve the interest of profit maximization. In my hometown, the Miami Heat brokered a deal to build the American Airlines Arena on Biscayne Boulevard with little to no cost to them through 2030. Though the organization has brought in millions of dollars in the last decade, the city has received pennies for its efforts. Central Falls’ sister city of Pawtucket is currently facing a similar dilemma: use tax dollars to supplement the cost of the new PawSox stadium or let the team go elsewhere for its new home. I would love for the team to remain in Pawtucket but I think it’s inhumane to put their interests over those of every day people.

Government and public infrastructure relies on taxes. We live in an era of tea party rhetoric that espouses limited government and low taxes. How exactly do you drive your Porsche to your yacht without a public road or a public dock? When was the last time a wealthy person paved a road? (my father helped lay the cement in his block in Copacabana, Antioquia) Why do taxes get such a bad rap? I’m totally down for the “no taxation without representation” movement but I’m also down for the “tax us and build us” movement. We use taxes to build schools, fund public safety institutions, pave roads, fund youth programming, fund elderly programming, provide health benefits for the needy, and a plethora of other things. If we are to “ease up” on taxes then we should demand more from private institutions. In the 1800s, private companies partnered with the government to build the transcontinental railroad. That partnership yielded public infrastructure that benefited the private companies and the general public. Today, corporations demand that cities pimp themselves out in the form of tax cuts with the promise of “jobs” in return. The private-public partnership has devolved into a public courtship of private deals which favor the wealthy and undermine the public interest.

I live in and represent a city that was crumbled by industrialization, the war on drugs, the longest state takeover of a public school district in American history, and the 2008 economic crash. Part of what makes governance in the city difficult is that we have a small tax base and a relatively small budget (roughly 19 million. For context, the Central Falls School District’s budget is roughly 39 million).Like Pawtucket, Central Falls is faced with the paradox of trying to attract businesses (often with tax breaks) while increasing our tax base (with the hopes of providing more services for our residents and a better infrastructure). Every few months, we’re faced with making decisions on public-private deals that ask for low tax rates and/or exemptions.  While I’m not usually an advocate of moderation, I believe in Karl Polanyi’s philosophy that markets (and corporations by extension) should be regulated by society and not the other way around. Why are we shackled by the demands of corporations? Why do we allow our tax dollars to subsidize the costs of wealthy corporations? For every proposal, it should be society demanding that corporations answer the question first posed by Janet Jackson in the 80s: “what have you done for [us] lately?” We should go further to ask “what will you do for [us] in the future?” The promise of jobs is an elusive and shallow floor. That promise should be the minimum that large business and corporations offer. We need public-private partnerships that benefit us all and not just the shareholders. In Central Falls, I dream of a day where we’ve gotten rid of the private for-profit detention center in our city and we collaborate with businesses and corporations that care about the people in the city and not just their quarterly statements.

If at first you don’t succeed (first you don’t succeed),
Dust yourself off, and try again

– Aaliyah

The paper below is the worst one I wrote in the first semester of my PhD program. The professor (who I have a ton of respect for) ripped me to shreds with criticism about how I write more like a social critic than a social scientist. As such, I figured I’d publish it here. It should be noted that I wrote this paper a month before the Coates-West beef kicked off. It was weird to see the agency argument I make pop up in West’s essay but it makes me feel like maybe my paper wasn’t all bad…

In the months since the 2016 United States presidential election, pundits, journalists, academics, and even laymen have devoted countless pages in attempts at explaining the outcome. How did Donald John Trump get elected? Who voted for Donald Trump? What does the election say about Americans and, more specifically, the American electorate? One compelling and masterfully written essay on Trump’s election is Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Donald Trump is the First White President”. Coates posits that white supremacy was the driving force behind the election. Admittedly, there are many factors to consider in answering questions surrounding the Trump election and the reality is that the outcome is most definitely the result of a confluence of conditions and variables than it is the result of one factor. For example, there are important questions around gender and political patriarchy in the first race with a female front runner that many analysts have either missed or totally ignored in their analyses of the 2016 election. Insights on the gender question may help us to better understand the “how” and “why” behind Trump’s election to the White House but are beyond the scope of this particular paper.

Through a critical reading of Coates’ essay, this paper will show that while available data confirms that white voters elected Trump, it’s not clear that it was white supremacy alone that drove this outcome. Moreover, the black vote in this election, which has received little attention, may have played a larger role than most people acknowledge. White supremacy and working class backlash complemented each other but did not singularly influence the presidential election that put Donald Trump in the White House. More clearly, the large white voter turnout and the depressed black turnout led to Trump’s election.

One of the largest myths about the 2016 presidential election is that it was determined by the white working class vote. Sociologists and political scientists, like Arlie Russell Hochschild and Katherine Cramer respectively, argue that low income working class and rural whites had developed a resentment for the democratic party and its expensive welfare policies (which many of them ironically benefitted from). This resentment in turn, led them to abandon the democratic ticket and vote for Trump despite some grievances with his persona and history.  In response to the claims of working class backlash, Jeff Manza and Ned Crowley set out to test their validity against available data on GOP primary races and exit poll data. Their analysis shows that Trump’s white support came from across educational backgrounds and socioeconomic classes (Manza, 2017). It wasn’t just working class or rural whites who voted for Trump, is was white people in general.

Part of Coates’ claims around the white vote echoes the myth of the white working and rural classes. Coates cites figures from Gallup researchers Jonathan Rothwell and Pablo Diego-Rosell showing that whites who approved of Trump “tended to be from areas that were very white: ‘the racial and ethnic isolation of whites at the zip code level is one of the strongest predictors of Trump support.” (p7) In other words, whites who lived in geographically segregated areas showed stronger support for Trump and his pro white (and relationally anti-immigrant and anti-black) rhetoric. Conversely, in their 1971 article “The Ecology of Dissent: The Southern Wallace Vote in 1968”, Shoenberger and Segal uncover the ecological fallacy associated with the southern vote for George Wallace, a pro Jim Crow Southern dixiecrat in areas with large black populations. Their research showed that greater concentrations of blacks in a southern congressional district was associated with a greater propensity of whites (who outnumbered blacks in these districts) to vote for Wallace. This presents a paradox of anti black sentiment in light of segregation and anti black sentiment in light of proximity. The solution to this paradox may be quite simple: white supremacy. It may very well be that white folks who live close to black people and those who live away from black people cast votes for candidates who speak to antiblack, anti-immigrant, or simply pro white sentiments.

Coates argues that while the specter of whiteness and, more specifically, white supremacy has haunted US elections for our country’s entire history, Trump moved it from a “passive” power of whiteness to an “explicit” one. (Coates, 2016, p2) There has been extensive research in recent decades showing how the ideology of white supremacy is exercised in American public institutions and social life. In their 1997 article “Racial Attitudes and the ‘New South”, Kuklinski, Cobb, and Gilens use innovative survey techniques to uncover the persistence of racial inequality in the American south. It is telling that while their research is 20 years old, Trump won every southern state with the exception of Virginia. The logical rebuttal to this line of reasoning is the 2012 election where Obama, a black man, won two southern states (Florida and Virginia). It should be noted that Obama, while being black, is a man and ran a race against another man. The issue of gender and the black vote may have affected this outcome in ways that are difficult to compare to the 2016 election.

Even if white supremacy did not preclude Obama’s election to the White House, it continued to exert its influence in other areas of American life. Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve used an ethnographic observation approach to show how the country’s largest criminal court exercises what she terms racial justice veiled in colorblind racism (Van, 2016). Devah Pager’s work uses an experimental method to show that blacks are less likely than whites to receive callbacks for employment even when white applicants have a criminal record and black applicants do not (Pager, 2003). Howard Schuman and Lawrence Bobo used a survey method to study attitudes of whites towards open housing and residential segregation. They found that whites have a personal prejudice against blacks moving in as their neighbors which is exacerbated if class differences are taken into consideration. (Schuman and Bobo, 1988) While these authors show the persistence of white supremacy and antiblackness in general attitudes, housing, criminal justice, and hiring, they do not account for or show an uptick in racism leading up to the 2016 presidential election. This brings to bear the question of whether white supremacy is a constant or a variable.

If white supremacy has persisted from this country’s inception to our present day, then it must be taken as a constant and not as a variable. An important distinction that Coates misses in his article is that between the American population in general and the American electorate. In statistical terms, this is the difference between a population and a sample. In this case, the American electorate is a biased sample of people who self select to participate or to abstain in electoral politics. As such, generalizations about the results of the election should be made about the electorate and not necessarily the entire population. This is particularly true given that the turnout and rates of participation have fluctuated among subgroups across all, and especially the last three, presidential elections. According to the University of California, Santa Barbara American Presidency Project, the 2016 presidential election had approximately 136.6 million votes cast compared to 129 million in 2012, 131.3 million in 2008 and 122.2 million in 2004. While some of the differences may be attributed to changes in our total population, the percentage of eligible voters who actually voted also changed across these elections.

Voting is an exercise of civic engagement and agency. A glaring omission in Coates’ essay is a discussion on black agency. In order to understand the election outcome, we must consider the behavior and attitudes of white people and black people. Coates’ essay harps on the first and fails to mention the latter. This problem of black agency erasure is one that dates back centuries and that W.E.B. DuBois specifically sets out to address in his text “Black Reconstruction in America.” (1995) For the eligible voting population, voting or not voting is a behavior that some might argue is an exercise of agency. (DuBois, 1995) According to Census Bureau estimates, in 2016, 59.4% of eligible black voters actually voted compared to 66.2% in 2012 and 64.7% in 2008. Correspondingly, 62.9% of eligible white voters actually voted in 2016 compared to 62.2% in 2012 and 64.4% in 2008. Compared to the last couple of elections, in the 2016 election, white people showed up on election day and black people stayed home. A recent development whose effects will require time to study is the 2013 Supreme Court Ruling on two provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This was the first presidential election since the ruling and while there was a depressed turnout for black voters, it’s unclear if it was caused by the decision.

The voting turnout figures help us reconcile the paradox of white supremacy as a constant. In 2016, less black people (in absolute terms and as a percentage) voted in the election compared to 2012 and more white people (some of which may very well ascribe to white supremacist ideals) voted compared to 2012 (in absolute terms and as a percentage). In the same article mentioned earlier, Manza and Crowley argue that “it is more impactful… to receive 50% of the votes of whites than 90% of African Americans, as there are far more whites in the electorate as a whole.” (2017, p.11) More than 50% of white people voted in the 2016 election and 58% of those white people voted for Trump. The available data also tell us that the eligible black population that voted in 2016 is almost 6% less than the eligible population in 2012. Did the black electorate feel dejected from American electoral politics? Did these candidates speak less to their concerns? These questions are beyond the scope of this paper but speak to the ways in which black voice and agency are ignored even by critical journalists and academics.

Coates’ invocation of white supremacy is provocative and compelling. From rhetorical and anecdotal perspectives, it’s easy to agree with. From a sociological perspective, it’s hard to prove. Because he’s a journalist and cultural commentator, he’s not beholden to the same statistical standards or burden of proof as academics. Rather than showing that white supremacy caused Donald Trump to get elected, we may content ourselves in being able to show how he got elected. White voters clearly favored Trump. Less black people voted in 2016 than in each of the two prior presidential elections. These factors, and likely a score of others, contributed to the outcome of the election. While the white supremacy hypothesis is powerful, academic research has shown that it’s an ideology, attitude, and behavior that has been constant throughout recent history and even existed during the election and tenure of a black president. (Gonzalez Van Cleve; Schuman and Bobo; Kuklinski, Cobb, and Gilens; Pager). Further research should pay more attention to the engagement of black voters and especially to the impact of the recent Supreme Court ruling dismantling two provisions the Voting Rights Act.    

References

Coates, T. (2017, October). The First White President . The Atlantic .

Manza, J., & Crowley, N. (n.d). Working Class Hero? Interrogating the Social Bases of the Rise of Donald Trump. Forum-A Journal Of Applied Research In Contemporary Politics, 15(1), 3-28.

Du Bois, W. E. B, & Lewis, D. L. (1995). Black reconstruction in America. 1st Touchstone ed. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Howard Schuman, a., & Lawrence Bobo, a. (1988). Survey-Based Experiments on White Racial Attitudes Toward Residential Integration. American Journal Of Sociology, (2), 273.

Pager, D. (2003). The Mark of a Criminal Record. American Journal Of Sociology, 108(5), 937-975.

Robert A. Schoenberger, a., & David R. Segal, a. (1971). The Ecology of Dissent: The Southern Wallace Vote in 1968. Midwest Journal Of Political Science, (3), 583. doi:10.2307/2110112

U.S. Census Bureau (2017). Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2016. Retrieved from [https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting-and-registration/p20-580.html].

Van, C. N. G. (2016). Crook County: Racism and injustice in America’s largest criminal court.

Woolley, J. T. (2017) The American Presidency Project. Santa Barbara, Calif.: University of California. [Web.] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://lccn.loc.gov/2005616760.