This is my ninth weekly newsletter. Hopefully you’ve been enjoying it as I play around with what I want it to be. So far, I’ve tested and mixed a variety of ideas: personal news, writing updates, things I’ve enjoyed across a variety of media and, whenever I am working through feelings, an attempt to dissect that process for you.
Why the latter? And why in newsletter form? Mostly, I am copying more successful people who I have learned a lot from (Tim Ferriss, Ryan Holiday, Ezra Klein etc…). I think there is tremendous value in hearing how other people think and work through their lives. Since I am so focused on that myself, and I need practice writing, it feels logical that I would share those feelings with the roughly 35 friends and family who have thus far signed up for (or been signed up for) my newsletter. As I said a few weeks back, it is an inherently egotistical pursuit, but hopefully that doesn’t mean that I’m the only one getting value from the exercise.
All of that is a primer for what has been on my mind this past week: Do I continue to write about race in my newsletter?
A few weeks back, the desire to write about race was genuine, but it was entirely motivated by the news. I had avoided the subject for the previous six months of writing, and then George Floyd was killed, braver people than myself decided they’d had enough, and I jumped into the fray once I saw that the water was warm. I felt insincere, like I imagine some friends and readers of this newsletter felt taking part in conversations about race across a variety of media in the past few weeks.
In the days following, I read and listened to some great stuff – the most ironic of which was a Ta-Nehisi Coates interview in which he described himself as “the guy who white people read to show they know something.” I shared some of what I came across in this forum. Still, as I told one friend who responded to the newsletter, I felt “disingenuous… like such a hypocrite” for writing about race. I had spent two weeks redirecting my energy to learning about race but I had spent the previous 27 years avoiding the subject.
So week three came around, and I asked myself: Do I keep writing about race? Anyone who is on social media knows that this calculus is playing out for a lot of people. Some are continuing to share resources, stats, painful memes and artwork in support of Black equity. Others have returned, as the above friend put it, to “beaches/dogs/cocktails/good times.” If you staked your anti racism flag in the ground three weeks ago (as I did here), are you obligated to continue hoisting it every morning until something has changed?
I’m writing this mostly on Friday, at the end of a long week of outdoor bonding with my dad. I read the news sparingly, between canoe trips, day hikes and grilled dinners. On Monday or Tuesday, I checked my phone to see that Rayshard Brooks had been killed outside a Wendy’s in Atlanta. No one texted me about it, or sent me a link to an emerging story. That is not the social circle I am in. I can remove myself from these issues by simply shutting off my phone. The ease with which I can flit in and out of this conversation is a factor here.
So I think that the question is a bit more nuanced than I’ve made it out to be. And I think at a minimum, I need to be present in the conversation.
I am thinking about race more – as disingenuous and virtue-signaling as that sounds. So I think I need to write about what I see, when I see it. To do otherwise would now be the disingenuous move. I have, in some shape or another, thrown my hat into the ring, and if I did so when it was socially expedient to do so, I need to keep it up when it gets more difficult.
Example: This scene from Inside Man, in which the movie’s only black kid plays a video game where, in his words, “you get points for doin’ dirt. Jackin’ cars, sellin’ crack.” Watch the scene. You don’t need to see the whole movie, like I did this week, to wonder why the scene was included at all. It is completely irrelevant character development for the most minor of characters, and yet it reinforces that black kids love crime. Worst of all, the Youtube comments are all positive! “Best scene in the whole movie,” “this scene is pure gold,” etc… It’s a red pill/blue pill situation. Once you see it you can’t unsee it. I would not want my ten year old son to search for himself in movies and find only that stereotype reflected back.
So beyond the fun and games of this week, which I will write about at some point, I am still thinking a lot of about how racism plays out across so many parts of my life. I read Seattle’s Chaotic ‘Autonomous Zone’ in the WSJ, and my first thought was some version of “and that’s why we need law and order.” Then I watched Jon Oliver’s Police segment on Last Week Tonight and felt dirty for ever having that reaction.
This is a messy process. Far, far messier for the people who can’t just turn off their phones and ignore it. Far messier for the people whose lives are at stake. But for myself, and my “team,” it is a messy process in itself to accept, without rebuttal, that I am the problem. That my choice to ignore inequity until it is no longer convenient to do so hurts people. I had seen Inside Man before. I never noticed the scene. If I did, I most likely laughed at how tone deaf Hollywood was. Didn’t reflect on the impact that those images, repeated over and over, have on other human beings.
And the messiest part? I’m scared of being found out. Called out for that thing I said or the action/inaction I took in the past. It pales in comparison to the actual risks that people are taking in this moment, but like I said at the beginning, if I’m working through something, I think it’s valuable to share it.
I don’t have any personal writing to link below, but I would implore anybody who read through to the end to watch Jon Oliver, because he never fails to expose the ridiculousness of this country for people (me) who have been choosing to ignore it.
Email me at [email protected], and if you like what you read, please forward along!
– Emmett
Recent Posts:
Extremely “unproductive” week spending quality time with my dad… Check back next Sunday!
What I’m Reading:
Taming the Mammoth: Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think – Tim Urban
‘They Just Dumped Him Like Trash’: Nursing Homes Evict Vulnerable Residents – New York Times
What I’m Listening To:
How to Teach Your Children About Money with The Budgetnista – Bigger Pockets Money Podcast