The Counterpublic Papers vol. 5 no. 15

February 09, 2020

Last Wednesday I was in Dallas for a day, giving three lectures at three community college satellite campuses on civil rights and the vote. Because I was pretty sure I’d be speaking to an audience that was not only racially mixed, but politically mixed, I knew that I didn’t want to spend much time talking about Trump. He’s the easy case for some of us, but for your average 18 or 19 year old Texas Republican who might be questioning their choices, it’s more likely that uttering the wrong phrase will lose them.

So a few days before I went to Texas I read a story about how a Bernie Sanders surrogate got into an argument with Jason Johnson an MSNBC pundit and a Baltimore professor about Michael Bloomberg. The surrogate called Bloomberg an oligarch, and Johnson (and indirectly, MSNBC producers) was so taken aback by the use of the term they ended up creating a segment on it. One of Jason’s claims was that both Sanders and Bloomberg were part of the 1% and that while we should critique the capitalist enterprise itself, we shouldn’t go as far as to critique individuals.

Ta-Nehisi Coates doesn’t write columns much anymore, given Capt. America on the one hand and novels like The Water Dancer on the other. But I think he was one of the first people I read to talk about the idea of having racism without racists. Seems to me that talking about capitalism without talking about actual capitalists is the same type of thing.

Now I happen to think the term oligarch fits Bloomberg pretty well. He’s used his wealth to buy political status, to change public policy (including here in Baltimore—when Johns Hopkins administrators wanted Hopkins to establish its own private police force Bloomberg went to Annapolis to lobby for it), to sanitize public policy (particularly on stop-and-frisk), and to alter public opinion. One could argue that what Bloomberg is doing has done isn’t against the law and as such can’t be compared to what’s going on in, say, Russia…but I’d suggest that this is in part because of the corrupting influence wealth as had on the law itself.

I realized Bloomberg, given his wealth, and given his status as a Democratic Party front-runner (I know, I know, not yet…but wait for it), would be the perfect way to talk about the vote and revolution.

And I began by deconstructing the “Sanders and Bloomberg are both part of the 1%” narrative.

There’s a website. Brainbashers. Has a link where you can calculate how old you are in months, days, and seconds. Here. If you’re older than 31.7 years old that number should be 1 billion or more. If it is, place a decimal between the first two numbers. Divide 60.9 by that number. If you’re younger than 31.7 years old, place a decimal before the first number. Divide 60.9 by that number.

(I didn’t do this with the kids—with the kids I had them take my own age, multiply that by 365, add 12.5 to get the leap days in, multiply that by 24, multiply that by 60, and then multiply that by 60.)

The resulting number is how many dollars Michael Bloomberg has for every second you’ve been alive. (For Jeff Bezos use 126.7, for Bill Gates use 110.)

Suggesting that Bernie Sanders—who is technically worth around the same amount someone his age needs to have saved in order to retire comfortably—is in the same category as Michael Bloomberg doesn’t make much sense does it?

Bloomberg is not only able to be considered a viable candidate even though he hasn’t participated in any primary, hasn’t participated in a single debate, speaks to how skewed our political system is.

Here’s another way to think about it. Because of the unique nature of American capitalism there aren’t that many black billionaires. With one exception—Bob Johnson—the ones we have come from the entertainment sector. Oprah Winfrey is the wealthiest African American at around 2.7 billion. Bloomberg could spend Winfrey’s entire net worth on the campaign and not bat an eye.

So I used Bloomberg and then Jeff Bezos to talk about the corrupting influence of wealth, and then use the Amazon HQ case to talk about how voting can reverse that tide.

Afterwards I had two or three Trump voters come talk to me afterwards. It was clear that I put the right questions in their head. We’ll see how they stick.

….

A few weeks ago Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven others died in a tragic helicopter accident. They were 12 seconds away from coming up above the clouds but just didn’t make it.

A number of us, and I write us with intention have been in grief since then.

Since his death, there’s been a debate about how to talk about Bryant’s 2003 sexual assault charge. I happen to believe that as complicated as the details of the case was, that Bryant was guilty. I don’t think he would have been found guilty, given how complicated the details were and how class, gender, and power function…yet and still.

Some think it “too soon”. Others think it’s an attempt to taint Bryant’s legacy.

When I thought about it a day or so after his death, I used the example of Ronald Reagan, who died on my birthday  sixteen years ago. I wrote a column for Africana.com the week after, basically arguing that he died years too late. I used that piece to argue that if we wanted the space to be able to critique a public figure like Reagan we have to allot the space to critique public figures like Bryant. But in hindsight that approach doesn’t really get at it. What I’d suggest now is that we need to do a much better job at holding complex ideas about humanity in our heads and hearts at the same time. And then do a much better job at creating space for conversation and critique. And then protecting those who attempt to do so. It’s never too soon to critique a public figure. Further, as long as major cities can toss tens of thousands of rape kits into warehouses never to be tested, it’s never too soon to broach the issue of sexual assault. Even as we grieve.

….

Now that Iowa is out of the way it should be clear that Biden was a fake candidate. I knew that Iowa would reveal that Biden had no clothes. But now that Sanders is the front-runner what I expect to see are any number of attempts to delegitimize his candidacy. These attempts do represent attempts to bolster the already weak central DNC tendency. But to an extent these attempts also represent attempts to protect the Democratic Party from the drubbing it received when Humphrey ran in 1968 and when McGovern ran in 1972.

Working on the dual assumptions that Sanders has a strong chance of being the candidate (full disclosure—I’m supporting Sanders) and that social media does a piss poor job of presenting an accurate picture of the political world…I think the two best things those of us who plan to vote in the primaries and in the general election can do is support the candidate of our preference in as many ways as possible so as to ensure the person coming out has been vetted as thoroughly as possible….and act as if we’re further behind than our social media network tells us we are. This should go double for Sanders supporters.

….

Pieces related to all of the above.

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I’m not one for hope, but given the events of the last few weeks we could use something. One of Detroit’s finest DJs used to be known for ending his night with the following statement: If you ever feel as if you’re at the end of your rope, tie a knot and keep hanging because there’s no one as bad as you.