by Casey Gerald
In any event, Maria Shriver was marvelous on Meet the Press—she had the face and mind for television, which I don’t mean as an insult—and if our first exchange was, at base, a misunderstanding, then it was just a foretaste of my time in Washington.
You see, there were many people in the world who really did not understand, or said they didn’t, what the great issue was between the liberals and the conservatives of that era. They should have gone to Berlin, as President Kennedy had demanded and as I did. It was there, on two consecutive days, that I witnessed liberal values in their purest form, at least pure enough for me to understand why, as I tell you this story, liberal values are under siege across all that is called the West—which is now defended most vehemently, funny enough, by the Germans. Here, I present the recently unearthed thoughts of twenty-two-year-old me, in part because I must (or want to) seize every opportunity to show that, though Casey Gerald was not a good person, he was not the Antichrist that he was prophesied to be from birth. Besides, in the years since he had these thoughts, the man he became had other thoughts, some better, some worse, about that summer in Berlin. Those new thoughts would only get in the way. So here he is, at the end of the first day in question.
DAY 13 - BERLIN (6.17)
-The Day that Tipped the Scale-
Trying to summarize today is not very easy, because there is a conflation of feelings & experiences that produces a general sense of anger.
Today’s topic: Race/Ethnicity . . . Does Race Matter in Germany Today? The more important question in my mind is: Does Race Matter (Anywhere) Today? My answer is more clear today than it has ever [been] before: YES
During our discussion . . . the issue of affirmative action comes up. Camille, a French girl who has studied in the States for 7 years raises her hand and starts her dreaded oration:
I know I’m going to be unpopular after this. But, just playing devil’s advocate: I’m not a racist, but I don’t think stopping/suspecting/arresting someone is racist if the people are more likely to be criminal based on stats. I worked at a federal court in the States, and all of the criminals were black or hispanic. And I saw a black lawyer and thought—”oh, that’s weird.”—But anyway, I don’t think it’s racist to suspect people if statistically they are more likely to be criminal anyway.
Of course, I was thoroughly disgusted and couldn’t hold my piece [sic]. First, I had to tell her not to “play devil’s advocate” for something you don’t believe. If you didn’t believe it, you wouldn’t have said it. Secondly, at the very least your comment and viewpoint is mentally lazy and/or ignorant. But in this case, it is also racist. If you assume that someone will play a certain role—especially one that is inferior/socially deviant, just because of their race or the color of their skin, then your actions are racist. Point blank. If you want to racially profile in the name of probability for your job, then you can do that but you must accept the fact that your actions are racist. You can’t have your cake and eat it too in this case.
To make matters worse, it was just as disgusting to see how people coddled her after this incident. In my opinion, they didn’t want to believe that even someone in [this human rights fellowship] could be racist. At worst, they agreed w/ her secretly but didn’t want to say anything out loud.
Today was one of the few, if only, times that I felt overwhelmed as a black man. Everyone in this program looks to me for the “black answer” or uses me as the “black example” . . . that’s though [sic] on its own. Throw in the fact that I’m about the only black guy in Berlin, and now to be reminded that at the end of the day, even “humanitarians” are mentally painting black people as inferior/criminal/etc. They’ve probably broken more laws than I have!!
Short of crying, I vented for a good while. Being a black American is something else, man.
You might like to know that since that day in Berlin, Camille went on to receive a public policy degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a law degree from the Harvard Law School. She also spent some time at the World Trade Organization and the United Nations and the World Bank. It is quite possible that she has changed since 17 June 2009—at the very least she has tickled nearly every lever of power that the West has to offer. In return, the West has offered her to you and to me, as an example if not a sacrificial lamb. I hold no brief for her, either way—nor for the other high-minded Europeans in that small lecture hall who consoled her, nor for the German chaperone who chastised me for not taking the time to hear Camille out and offer my personal experience for her edification. I hold no brief for them—nor for all the liberal leaders in Washington who seemed to have a terribly hard time finding nonwhite liberals to hire for their think tanks and aid organizations and other people-saving outfits, not to mention nonwhite liberal neighbors and friends—though they did, to their credit, have an easier time finding a colored au pair or a clean articulate colored person to vote for as long as the candidate said things like:
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave-owners—an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents . . .
Which translates to: I AM NOT A NIGGER.
And I hold no brief for myself at twenty-two. I was such a budding jingo that I could only conclude: Being a black American is something else, man. I had not read Fanon, I had not learned of James’s Black Jacobins, I had not watched Sembène’s Black Girl, or considered why the Turkish Muslim woman in my delegation seemed equally upset at Camille, or wondered why the two young Arab men who sold me that croque monsieur outside the Louvre seemed so thrilled to see me, so eager to shout the proudest boast, themselves—Barack Obama!!!—which is all they could say to me, since I spoke no French nor Arabic and they spoke no other English than that man’s name. I had not realized, you see, that there was hardly any place in the West where the Nigger—black or Arab, poor or not—does not have a hard time. And the primary if not only difference between the liberals and the illiberals on this issue is that the American alt-right and France’s National Front and Germany’s National Democratic Party (I haven’t been to England, so will leave them out of this) will try their best to kill you quickly or keep you out of the West altogether, whereas the liberals will write elaborate pamphlets about your condition while doing little to change it and even less to come in contact with it—or with you, for that matter.
The good thing—well, the sad thing, but a helpful thing since we have other things to get to—is that there is so much evidence that the West would like to rid itself of its niggers that I don’t have to drone on about it. Even if I should, I don’t want to, because I am not convinced that this is the chief threat facing this neck of the woods. Racism, after all, has been good to the West—and if not good, then at least central. Even if we want to strike Hitler’s reliance on the American eugenics movement from the record, it is a bit more difficult to strike the generations of Africans who were shipped to the New World, over 10 million of whom survived the Middle Passage to live and work in bondage for the sugar and cotton and tobacco etc. etc. that made the West rich, or the untold millions who were subjected to colonial rule and the Western ideals of men like Cecil Rhodes. Yes, white supremacy—again, by this I only mean a belief, even subconscious, that non-“white” persons are inferior—seems to be as fundamental to the West as free votes and free trade. I have nothing to share that will change this fact.
But there is a problem more interesting, and perhaps more solvable, that I noticed i
n the liberal leaders of the West. Let’s go back to Berlin, for day two.
DAY 14 - BERLIN (6.18)
Yesterday’s near meltdown was juxtaposed w/ today’s visit to a school in Westhafen (northern area of Berlin.)
The German education system is scary: start school at 6 yrs old and at 10 yrs old (some places at 12) you are separated by your perceived level of academic prowess → Realschule, Hauptschule, and Gymnasium. The gist of the story is that only those students in Gymnasium can go to college. Period. The students in the middle school sometimes have extra years of technical or vocational training, but mostly kids have to go out & try to find a job or “apprenticeship”! That is easier said than done. It goes w/o saying that most of these kids have migration backgrounds, are poorer, and have more difficult life conditions (unemployed/absent parents, etc.). From 10-12 years old, they are pegged to either have free (mostly) higher education, or have no higher education at all. 10 yrs old. Frightening. The headmaster told us that typically only a handful of students (less than) end up going to gymnasium.
The highlight of my trip so far was this visit—I taught 8 young men (and some [program] fellows) how to play football. This was the first time I’ve ever taught someone the game from scratch. To say the least, everybody was pretty bad @ first. Falling while backpedaling, running crazy routes, looking generally unathletic ☺. There was one kid, Tom, who actually showed a bit of promise. He was a quick learner, a good athlete, and a nice kid.
After I felt that people had some clue about playing offense & defence [sic], I sensed that they wanted to actually get after it, so we went outside. The playing surface was tiny—probably 10-15 yds long, 20-25 yrds wide, and we started the “game” w/ 8 v. 8. What commenced was frantic running into, around and away from one another until a ball was snatched from the air or allowed to fall helplessly to the ground. Playing to 28, we reduced the team size to 4 v. 4—only the kids were playing against each other.
As folks cheered on, [two fellows] tried to give the kids plays to run (most of which were unsuccessful). They did score, and the game was eventually tied at 21. [One fellow] wisely told me to arrange the game so that it would end in a 21-21 tie (we were running out of time so only one team would have a shot @ 28). I agreed, but apparently the kids were thinking otherwise.
Tom & his teammates devised some whacky hook & lateral play that we all thought would fail. Only problem? It worked & Tom cruised into the endzone to give his team a 28-21 victory. Everyone was sweaty and happy, especially the kids, who had found a new admiration for the game (and for their coach—“Coach Casey” as they called me). Hopefully I was able to be a good coach about larger lessons—mostly selflessness, which I find to be one of the ultimate requirements of football & life.
The only downside to this story was that I had to leave the kids, probably never to see them again. Seeing as though they won’t be in university most likely, they will probably never have the same opportunities that I’ve been blessed with. It really pisses me off to think about that because I felt their humanity, even though we couldn’t verbally communicate. There will always be times that I think about them.
Times like now. If you think I was sick on Halloween 1992 when Granny made it clear that there would be no candy or joy for the two men on her porch, just imagine how I seethed when I discovered that there would be no future for my nigga Tom and his buddies—unless you call being left behind a future—all on account of somebody who thought they were so brilliant that they could tell which ten-year-olds deserved some education and which ones did not, all without ever meeting them. I bet they never let Tom design a play, or break the rules, or score a touchdown of his own volition, or smile that snaggletooth smile in his dingy T-shirt and be happy and on top of the world for a few minutes, did they? Man, I want to weep for Tom and his buddies, just thinking about it, I want to punch one of those brilliant Germans right in the goddamn face, I wanna know how Tom’s doing these days.
And Tom was not black or Arab. He was an organic German boy of fourteen, as were a few of the boys who helped him finagle his way into the end zone; just as some of the kids I saw in the banlieue of Paris were not Congolese or Algerian but might have been pure-blood Huguenots for all I knew; just as Elijah did not trace his people back to a plantation in Alabama but to some town in Mexico. I say all this to say that though I did not know much at twenty-two, I knew my people when I saw them, even if they did not speak my language or come from my block or share my color. And I knew—or I felt certain enough to call it knowledge—that day in Berlin what I went on to realize at the Center for American Progress, every time I wrote another report or did more analysis on the computer or sat through another expert lecture—yes, I knew that the world, or the West, or just my corner of it, was shaped by ideas so perfectly designed that they left little space for people. I suppose it was believed that, somehow, all the issues that plagued the human race could be contained or controlled or at least understood without having to be troubled by interacting with human beings at all. That has never worked and never will.
* * *
—
Now before I get too comfortable on my high horse, let me say that these discoveries were not what led me to despair. I had not gone to Washington to end racism or, primarily, to fight for my people in America or anywhere else. I went to Washington to find power—to find people who had it and who knew how to use it, to move things, to move people, to take a clever idea and turn it into history. I could do without goodness or even brilliance. What I could not do without was action.
And if there is one thing that angered me most during my time in Washington—not just me but many of my friends who also dreamed of being great men and women and who, almost to a person, quit the capital before the end of Mr. Obama’s first term—it was that, compared to what we expected, nothing seemed to be happening. We all had changed the course of our lives to follow if not worship the least dramatic messiah in the history of the world—a man who campaigned in the style of Revelation but who governed more like a book of the Bible from which no one ever preached a sermon. Nahum or something.
I did not have words to describe Mr. Obama’s style until I read a 1986 New Yorker article by Frances FitzGerald that traced the gay rights movement in San Francisco, the rise of the Castro and, with it, the rise of Harvey Milk. FitzGerald recounts the events leading up to and beyond Mr. Milk’s assassination in San Francisco City Hall, minutes after Mayor George Moscone was also assassinated—a tragedy that came just eight days after the mass suicide (more accurately, mass murder) at Jonestown, Guyana, where over 900 men, women, and children, many of them San Franciscans, under the direction of Jim Jones, drank cyanide-laced Kool-Aid and perished. Left to respond to the most public assassinations in the history of the city and the largest murder-suicide of its kind in modern times was Dianne Feinstein, who had been president of the board of supervisors and became mayor after the tragedy and then the senior senator from the state of California. FitzGerald wrote:
Dianne Feinstein made a sustained and masterly effort to defuse the tensions. She urged no prosecutions, reassured everyone, and talked endlessly, soothingly, never making a point. The city that had gone through the assassinations of its mayor and a supervisor, the Jonestown suicides (the Reverend Jim Jones had a church in San Francisco), and the rioting seemed grateful for the sheer prosiness of her response.
That is almost exactly how I would describe Mr. Obama’s approach then and later, as I witnessed it when we headlined an event together in Texas. Together is a bit too strong, sorry. They put my name in small font under his on the tickets everybody received, and even made me go through all the extra background checks just so I could share the greenroom area with him—which did not happen because the president went to eat tacos beforehand and showed up late. I don’t blame him for that, either. I finished my talk and sat in the audience to listen to his and, sitting there, was reminded all over just how thoughtful, de
cent, charming, and longwindedly boring our 44th president could be. Again, as with Dianne Feinstein, this was perhaps exactly what we needed. But it was a far cry from what I and many others expected from the next John F. Kennedy.
These expectations, I eventually realized, were also based on a big misunderstanding. Turns out John F. Kennedy was not the John F. Kennedy, himself. If I had been interested in research at that time, I might have found the first draft of his Berlin speech, which includes the following paragraph:
I cannot lead you to believe that this will all happen quickly or easily. I cannot lead you to believe that . . . rebellion is a solution, when that would endanger all you have built. Nor can I tell you that the situation is improved by private, provocative actions expressing your anger and deep frustrations against the Wall.
I understand why he or somebody else drew a big line through this section. People really cannot stand it when you tell them the truth, which is why our greatest presidents have also been amongst the greatest liars of their generation. But I sure wish President Kennedy left that passage in, because it took me many years to learn that not much happened in the Kennedy administration, either, at least not as much as I thought, not with all the vigor I’d thought. And that most of the great ideas that Mr. Kennedy spoke about were ultimately put into action by Lyndon Baines Johnson, one of the most effective and morally depraved presidents of all time. I should have apologized to LBJ’s granddaughter for giving JFK all her old-old man’s credit when I rode with her to his Hill Country ranch a few years ago, but I’m a big fan of letting bygones be bygones, whenever I’m the guilty party.
Anyway, I did not know at the time that not getting much done was also a big part of running the country, so I added laggards to the list of epithets I had for the liberal elite. And, having found my final straw, so to speak, and having an open mind, as I did, and knowing so many rich old men who had been trying to influence me since the summer before I went to Yale, I decided to consider being a Republican.