The Counterpublic Papers vol. 1 no. 19

Hey. You’re reading the graduation edition of The Counterpublic Papers. I’ve gone to two graduations already (including my oldest daughter’s college graduation), I’ve got one high school graduation coming, and then an eighth grade and a fifth grade graduation to go. I know black people love graduations and all, but by the end of next week or whenever the hell the last ceremony is I’ll probably be punch drunk. 

Quick thoughts.

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Tuesday I attended Hopkins’ annual pre-commencement dinner, an annual dinner celebrating the commencement speaker (Spike Lee) and the honorary degree recipients. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as the pre-commencement dinner…but when they end up choosing Spike Lee to deliver the commencement address they kind of had to make sure the pre-commencement dinner looks a little like Baltimore…which means they had to let the cat out of the bag. Hoping to go back next year when I imagine Hopkins will get back to its regularly scheduled programming. 

Besides the open bar, the best thing about the event was the opportunity to hear from the eight honorary degree recipients. I’m only going to focus on one of them (and it won’t be Spike…please if anyone reading this has any influence on commencement speeches in the future and you want to bring someone with a bit of insight don’t bring Spike Lee….productive film maker, not so productive commencement speaker)—Susan Baker. 

I’d never heard of Susan Baker before the event but if you’ve ever been saved by an airbag, ever used a child safety cap you’ve her to thank. These and countless other devices came from her academic interest in accidents. Studying correlations between, say, the severity of injuries sustained in a car accident and where the person sat in that car. And then using those correlations to create devices that lower the likelihood of injury. Of course it isn’t quite this simple—a number of institutions have to be in place in order to translate her ideas into devices and then another set of institutions have to be in place in order to standardize those devices and yet another set of institutions have to be in place to make those devices mandatory. Yet and still, ideas matter. In fact, as I type this, I’m realizing there’s another really simple idea that made Baker’s work possible.

The idea that schools like Hopkins should be open to men and women. 

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The pre-commencement dinner had one little design flaw. There were only two bathrooms. Which led to long lines. But because of those long lines I had a good conversation about the redline series we just finished up a couple of weeks ago and in talking about where we go with it I talked about middle age. I’ve written a little about middle age here—I think I’ve referred to my failing vision more than once (and to be honest it really isn’t failing vision, but more like “failing vision compared to when I had better than 20/20 vision”). 

But there’s another way to look at middle age that’s perhaps a bit more productive, and definitely more important politically speaking. 

Hitting middle age places you squarely in the gap. As a parent. As a co-worker. As a community member. You’re old enough to recognize what came before you, while young enough to prepare for the future, young enough in fact to be able to coax that future into being. Standing squarely in the gap gives middle aged men and women a certain type of responsibility in the present because they, perhaps more than anyone else, have the requisite sense of history needed to understand exactly when and where we are. (Still not over Prince’s death yet—Prince gave a BET interview a few years ago and when asked why he no longer plays “Erotic City” and “Head” at concerts he emphasized responsibility.) And that responsibility can take one of two forms.

In moments of retrenchment we have the responsibility to make sure the future contains at least as much possibility as the present. Looking back at the early eighties, when Reagan as slashing social programs left and right and hamstringing the ability of state and local governments to even think about raising taxes, one could argue that the best those folk could do was hold the line. 

In other moments? We have the responsibility to make sure the future contains more possibility than the present. Particularly in moments that appear to be…I guess expansionary is as good a word as any. 

It seems to me that we’re in one of those expansionary moments right now. It’s on us middle aged folks to use this moment appropriately. To fight for as expansive a future as we can. And although I’m loathe to argue that conversations in and of themselves do any work in this fight, I will say that if you’re going to have a conversation while waiting to pee, it might as well be a conversation that matters.

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I’ve had Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country on my shelf for a few weeks now. Because college graduations tend to be three and four hour affairs, I picked it up. In it, Ruff mashes up Lovecraftian elements (secret blue blood societies, arcane knowledge, scientific horror, inheritance) with Jim Crow era racism. I can’t do the story justice, but I’ll say this. Writers like Matt Ruff and Victor Lavalle (who’s also remixed Lovecraft in The Ballad of Black Tom) are doing to genre fiction (horror in this case) what I think Kamasi Washington is doing to jazz. 

I’ll quote from the end. (Spoiler alert—the protagonists win.)

So at this point the (black) protagonists end up laughing their asses off. And the (white) antagonist is, well clueless. And he asks them why they’re laughing at him. 

The standard “they’ll come for you” speech means nothing in this instance, for the simple reason that the black protagonists live in Jim Crow racist America. They’ve always had someone coming for them. (We’re not broken. The city is.) Simply acknowledging the reality of racism allows Ruff in this case to tell a far more powerful story than most working within the standard Lovecraftian oeuvre. And in telling this story likely gives some kid reading it with the idea of being a writer, more ideas about what types of stories she could write.  

And I’ll add one more thing.

Ruff isn’t black. But he’s expressed a remarkably sophisticated understanding of racial politics. Not just in Lovecraft Country but in his other fiction as well—I read Sewer Gas and Electric almost two decades ago. Up until very recently most novelistic and theatric depictions of the future contained no black people. 

(Take a movie like Minority Report featuring Tom Cruise. That movie was set in 2054 in Washington D.C. In Washington D.C. Didn’t have a single black person in it. How does that happen?)  

In Sewer, Gas and Electric Ruff actually explained it. (I forget what the explanation was, but it, like the book, was hilarious.) 

Because Ruff isn’t black, his work begs the question. What experience did he have, what encounter did he have, that caused him to write Lovecraft Country and Sewer, Gas, and Electric the way he did? 

From the acknowledgments:

James Turner helped found one of the oldest Africana departments in the country. And taught in the department for decades until he retired. Standing in the gap.

Ideas matter.

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From the inter webs. Take a look at this report by Elizabeth Kneebone. Fits really neatly with the work we’ve been doing on redlining—many of the metropolitan areas with the highest degree of concentrated poverty are also places with a history of redlining.  

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This Thursday I’ll be speaking at Bluestockings in NYC about the book. If you happen to be in the area or know folks who are, come through. There will likely be some drinking after. If you’re in Baltimore next Sunday, come to Bolton Hill. My friends are hosting…well..they’re calling it a barbecue, but calling it a barbecue is kind of like calling the Super Bowl a game. If you want details email me. (This event is more important to me than Christmas. Seriously.) 

As usual, share if you’re inclined. And tell folk about the newsletter as well, so I can be even more surprised when someone comes to me and says “I read this.”

Next week.