Blacks Save America From Boredom And Roy Moore

Roy Moore lost that election the other day. Roy Moore, failed Biblical law judge, Confederate enthusiast, and big fan of purity, narrowly lost to Democratic candidate, Doug Jones. It was a remarkable election for several reasons.

Doug (“Who?”) Jones managed to pull out the win in spite of himself. Was I the only one wondering why he was the best candidate the Democrats could come up with? The whole election was like one, big Alabama joke. (Question: what do you call two cherry-bombs and an old coffee can? Answer: an Alabama vasectomy.) I’m sure that Doug is a nice guy, but he’s on the low-energy side and campaigning in his house clothes was a strange tactic. Mr. Jones came out the winner largely because he received 96% of the black vote, and Reality-Based America is very appreciative for the save. There were choruses of “thanks, blacks!” from all over the country. That black vote was a lucky thing, too, because the same degree of “virtually ALL” evangelical Christian white voters cast their ballots unironically for Mr. Moore.

That Christian vote proved once again that talking a good game is much more important to evangelicals than actually being a good person.

We are one step closer to learning what level of incompetent, unethical, racist, immoral, borderline-criminal beliefs and behaviors it takes in a candidate to make American voters say, “oh HELL no.” Now at least we know where black American voters draw the line.

(Of course, I am happy that Mr. Moore lost. Very happy! Unfortunately, our celebrity culture will keep him in the public eye for years, like Sarah Palin, but at least he will not become a United States Senator. That august body has suffered enough brand deterioration already.)

And I’m happy that our black Alabama voters were at the forefront of this effort to snatch back some of our dignity. Sure I’m grateful, but it comes as no surprise, because I’m grateful to American blacks every day. My two cents on the matter is that it should not take a remarkable event like this to direct our awareness towards our black brothers and sisters. It was not suddenly today that we awoke in their debt. I, and we, have owed them a tremendous debt of gratitude every damn day for a long time now.

For what, you ask? That’s a stupid question, but okay. For starters, for the life that they bring to our shared culture; the grace with which they treat the whites among us in spite of all of the negativity that they continue to suffer at our hands; the patience with which they wait for the day when they will receive equal treatment from their own government; and the dignity with which they continue to make the best of a bad situation, in almost every situation. For being great neighbors, co-workers and friends.

I particularly appreciate the talent and enthusiasm that they bring to almost any workplace that is lucky enough to have hired them, for anything from cleaning hotel rooms to playing the outfield for the New York Yankees.  

What, are you one of these Internet Libertarian geniuses that wants to bring up “statistics?” You think maybe blacks are trouble? I am embarrassed on a daily basis by the unfounded, horribly racist allegations that run around our circus-like modern media environment about black neighborhoods, black families, thug-life, jailbirds, and often blacks in general, coming from lying right-wing pundits on “balanced” news programs, or memes that probably originated in the Ukraine or the Philippines, or just from that “friend-of-a-friend” weird old ConBot* Facebook friend of yours who gets his ideas from Fox News. If I were black, I doubt if I would have the emotional wherewithal to refrain from making matters worse.

And that’s the point! Most actual black Americans DO find the emotional wherewithal to do just that. Refrain from fighting back inappropriately; refrain from striking back at their oppressors; graciously take the high road. I appreciate this self-restraint, but mostly I am grateful for the enormous positive gifts that they have given to our culture. Having black Americans in the mix enriches us; the least we can do is be grateful.

Disclaimer: There is no need to drag out on every occasion the terrible history about how so many Africans have come to be in America in the first place. Even my verbosity has its limits. Of that, and other less than optimal aspects of the relationship, by me and by us, I am humbly aware. This is a day of gratitude, for shit-canning Roy Moore, and for everything else.

How great it would be if this wave of enthusiasm for voting could be sustained through the next couple of decades of voting cycles! We’ve had thirty years of low turn-outs and bad votes, maybe the pendulum will swing back to common sense and human decency. That and people actually voting. Maybe we could even get the Millennials on board. Getting reasonable Americans to stop NOT VOTING could change the face of the country.

It’s a stretch, but I suppose anything is possible.

*ConBot, a Conservative robot. I may have coined this phrase myself. 

Have You Eaten, Or Not Yet?

Or in America, "have you eaten?"  

Americans are often considerate and polite.  If people visited my house unannounced I would bring them a glass of water without mentioning it, maybe asking them if they’d like some ice in that.  Or maybe offering them a beer, depending on the situation.  But even if it was around the lunch hour I might not mention food.  I’d probably assume that they had that under control.  If I was in the middle of making something for myself, I’d offer them some.  Otherwise maybe, maybe not.  All cultures are different.

People in Thailand talk about food at every opportunity, and other people’s wellbeing is important to them.  So in almost every situation, Thais will ask, “have you eaten, or not yet?”  That’s the formula for such questions in Thai.  “Geen laow ruh yang?”  Or even, “dang an laow ruh yang.” (Are you married or not yet?) 

City people are urban in any culture, and in big cities you can’t worry too much about everybody else, while in smaller settings you can worry about nearly everybody.  In the Thai countryside, it was common for strangers to greet me and ask me to sit for a while and have some cool water if it was hot out.  (And it’s always hot out.)  In small town settings, if someone asked me if I’d eaten yet, and I said, no, they’d offer me some food or a snack of some kind.  It’s that kind of place. 

Those are all gentle things without too much drama in them.  Just folks being neighborly.  Sometimes the interaction becomes more urgent.

I recall when I was younger discovering that black Americans would sometimes ask upon greeting each other, “are you eatin’ regular?”  Maybe the formulation came from an earlier time, an evil time out in the countryside, the Jim Crow times.  Along with that question came, “where are you staying?”  Possible answer: “I’m outdoors right now.”  Maybe I heard these things in older, non-urban songs.  Those kinds of questions carry a poignancy that is almost unbearable. 

I don’t know where to draw the moral from all of this.  Maybe we should just take an opportunity to reflect and agree that we should all just be much nicer to one another.  We’re all we’ve got, after all.  If “we” won’t help “us,” who will?  

Scoobie's Discovery: Adventures In Race Relations

Discovery is that part of a law suit where the two sides exchange information and prepare their cases for trial.  There’s written discovery, that’s a big part of it.  Depositions are involved too, showing up in person and answering lawyers’ questions. 

Scoobie was a client of ours, a plaintiff in a personal injury case.  “Scoobie” is not his real name, he actually went by the nickname of another beloved television character.  He was a hard guy to get ahold of, and the office had had no success in getting in touch with him about the discovery process.  Without his cooperation, the case would be dismissed.  No one else involved wanted to deal with it.  Let it blow up, there’s no money in it.  He’ll screw up the case somehow, it might as well be now.  Besides, a jury would hate him.  That was the thinking. 

Scoobie was a young man with a poor education and no job, and no prospects. 

I said, I’ll take care of it, no problem, I’ll go get the family to help me find him.  The address was a large but inexpensive home in a new development in the Eastern Empire of Los Angeles, in San Bernardino County.  It was a large, loosely connected, extended family consisting of a matriarchal grandmother and lots of children, grandchildren and cousins, aged from grammar school to adult men and women, a real houseful.  It was an African-American family. 

I got to the address at about 10:00 a.m., unannounced, ready to devote all day to it.  A large, powerful man opened the door.  He was initially very suspicious.  I am never offended by this.  In fact, I recommend that all black Americans be suspicious of any white man that they don’t know, and most of the white women too.  Was I police?  A parole or probation officer?  From Children’s Services?  Once I had convinced him and another adult man that I worked for Scoobie and was trying to help him get some money that was coming to him they invited me in and introduced me to grandma.

She was sitting in a recreation room, in some kind of huge Barcalounger, and I never saw her get up.  There was seating for at least fifteen people, and many children and teenagers were present.  The TV was on.  She sized me up and quickly accepted me at my word, and then I was in.  A pair of young men materialized.  They were very interested in the proceedings.  We sat around discussing strategies for finding Scoobie, and since the young men traveled in the same circles as Scoobie they were full of ideas. 

They figured that I would never find Scoobie on my own, so they offered to come with me.  I was delighted because this seemed to offer a real chance of success.  They thought that there was a good chance that he was at the home of one of his girlfriends, and they knew where several of them lived.  Along the way we could just ask people for possible leads.  They were really enjoying themselves, it was like playing detective. 

 

Scoobie was at the home of the second girlfriend that we checked.  He was a husky, Geri-Curled twenty-five year old, with that devil-may-care, always cheerful attitude that I have noticed many times in young men in his milieu.  Having given up on education and the job scene, and fully expecting to go to prison someday or get shot, he was well adjusted to making the best of everything that was available to him.  He and the cousins spoke a semi-dialect that was not quite Black English, but not quite standard either.  They were easy to understand though, and they were smart guys so they understood me just fine.  Having gotten acquainted, we all went back to the family home. 

I had brought along the written discovery, so we set up at the dining room table and got started on that.  Along the way a lunch of fried fish was prepared for everyone in the house.  It was cooked by the big guy who had answered the door, he was about thirty-five years old and he didn’t say much.  It was served in a paper towel, to be eaten by hand.  Delicious, by the way.  I ran the situation down for Scoobie and he agreed to be more cooperative in the future.   We had a date for his deposition the following week, and he promised that he’d show up.  I made sure to get as many phone numbers as I could in case we had to look for him again. 

He did, in fact, show up at the lawyers’ office for the depo, and he was on time.  One hour early, as I had instructed him, so that we’d have time to prepare.  One of the girlfriends drove him.  I used the common lawyer’s technique in these depo preparations.  You don’t want to just feed the client lies to say at the depo, you can’t just feed them a script, but you want them to say certain things and avoid other things.  You don’t want them to actually say out loud truthful things that you would then have to tell them, please God, don’t say that.  So you say, here’s how these things go, and launch off into some hypotheticals, if this is what happened, it’s bad, if this is what happened, it’s good, if someone says something like this, they’ll probably win.  “Just tell them what happened.”  I always threw in a “if I kick you under the table, shut up.”  Many people just ignore you, but some bright lights internalize your hypo’s very quickly and do a great job of incorporating the good points into their answers.  Scoobie was one of the good ones. 

To win his case, we would have to show that the landlord at the apartments where he had fallen down the stairs had prior knowledge of the dangerous condition.  This is never easy.  I had mentioned this, but I never feed him a particular strategy.  At the perfect time, he dropped in that he had told the super at the apartments about a loose railing on several occasions, but the super had just blown him off.  I had no idea whether this was true or not, but he said it on his own initiative so my conscious was clear, and my actions were ethical according to the rules.  He described running up the stairs and the railing coming loose in his hand, causing him to fall backwards.

He totally aced the depo, and he showed that he would be a great witness for himself if the case went to trial.  Before we left the building after the depo, the lawyer called me into his office and we settled the case right there. 

This was treated as some kind of miracle of mine back at the office. 

These were typical events  in the life of a lawyer in Los Angeles, and another episode in the adventures of a simple man trying to figure out race relations in America.