History is going to love this corner of our country.

By now you know that the Washington State Attorney General sued the Federal Government of the United States… and won. "This is the first time this administration has been reined in," notes Governor Jay Inslee. Think about the power of that sentence. Seattle is now being described on national news outlets as "the epicenter of resistance to Trump's Agenda."

Which is to say, in the eyes of future generations: the leading edge. 

It's in times like these I'm reminded Seattle began as a frontier town. A place built by strong, willful men who understood that all great things are predicated on a maybe. Port cities are always a little wilder. Picture the prospectors and dreamers with their toughened steel resolve, who knew the meaning of calculated risk and did nothing but fail forward, bolstered by the fight, wrestling this metropolis into existence. 

When faced with overwhelming odds, theirs is the ethic that realizes a hope and a prayer. You assemble the resources necessary, with discipline and foreknowledge. Then you execute.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson leads that charge now. Trump signed his executive order on a Friday. Over the weekend, Ferguson and his staff were able to finalize a nine-count lawsuit against the President and file it by Monday. Ferguson's a former chess champion. Calculated risk, nimble execution. Noah Purcell, once a Franklin High School student, now a 37-year old Harvard Law graduate arguing the issues before the Ninth Circuit of Appeals. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, calling a spade a spade (see timeline of highlights below).

As for James L. Robart, allow me to take a moment. A Republican federal judge in Seattle appointed by George W. Bush in 2004, and confirmed in a unanimous 99-0 Senate vote, Robart epitomizes the notion that upholding the rule of law need not be a partisan issue. Decency and integrity should transcend the reductively binary nature of our political system. Robart was former president, now trustee, of Seattle Children's Home, a facility specializing in mental health rehabilitation and care. He was heavily involved with the Children's Home Society of Washington, which addresses disadvantaged families and their children. He does pro bono work for refugees, to the point he's become nationally known for it. Also, you've heard his words before. In a 2016 hearing, he recounted FBI data, saying, "Police shootings resulting in deaths involved 41 percent black people, despite being only 20 percent of the population living in those cities. Forty-one percent of the casualties, 20 percent people of the population." He paused before saying, "black lives matter." 

These are the giants of the modern age. 

When people in positions of power exercise their ability to help those they represent, the effects are incalculable. When they're not afraid to make wildly unpopular decisions or embark on potentially career-killing endeavors, they are motivated by something other than getting reelected. Something beyond. The studied, burnished glow of history lasts a lot longer than another term in office. We will one day forget these were ordinary human beings who put their pants on one leg at a time like everyone else. By then, rightly, we will describe them as taller than they were, deeper in voice; our memories will involve biblical metaphors and descriptions of rooms getting hotter, crowds hushing. These items will not be true in the literal sense, but they will be emotionally accurate. Ours is a time desperately in need of heroes. We've just found a few.

Ah, Seattle. Home to Amazon, Starbucks, Nordstrom, Google, Weyerhauser, Alaska Airlines, Costco, Microsoft, Expedia, Paccar and more. Twenty-first century American life gets to happen, in part, because of this city. And we're putting our foot down.

The city that stopped a nationwide ban that involved religious discrimination and violation of due process. Headquarters of the multinational luxury department store that dumped Ivanka Trump's clothing line. Whose Mayor uniquivocally identified the city's purpose as a sanctuary city and the lengths he is willing to go to sustain that. Whose Governor was unafraid to call a President's executive order "unjustifiable chaos and cruelty." Whose lawmakers are developing protocols for shielding sensitive data from the feds, data which could target its Muslim residents. Whose transit managers refused to stop access to a key protest site despite being told to do so.

Home to more than 100 businesses who vocally, enthusiastically lend support during and after these legal proceedings, including many of the above. Starbucks pledging to hire thousands of refugees in explicit response to the ban, and offering free legal advice to its affected employees. Seattle Schools explicitly stating it will never ask for documentation of its students, and will, instead of doing so on federal demand, refer such requests to its attorneys. Whose State Senator specifically thanked all protestors, lawyers, and others who made their voices heard during the Sea-Tac protests. Whose Governor Inslee told the Seattle Times, about the Trump Administration: “These people couldn’t run a two-car funeral. It is a train wreck. It can’t stand. We’re drawing the line here at Sea-Tac.”

And finally, whose state Attorney General, responding to an angry tweet from Trump ("SEE YOU IN COURT," etc), replied:

"We've seen him in court and we're two for two." 


---

You know the outline of the events, but let's take a moment to review exactly how monumental (can I just go ahead and say glorious?) this stuff really is. Here's a timeline with highlights I find compelling. (All the information mentioned above can be found in the links included in the following):

---

On Monday, January 27th, President Trump signs an executive order banning citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries (interestingly, none of them countries of origin for 9/11 terrorists; also, Muslim countries where Trump does business are left off the list), as well as permanently banning Syrian refugees. The order would give preference to Christian immigrants because they have "suffered more so." 

Protests spring up worldwide over the weekend, with a potent one at Sea-Tac involving the Port of Seattle attempting to minimize the protest size by demanding that Metro and Sound Transit halt rail service to Sea-Tac Airport. In a strong statement of their own, heads at Metro and ST revoke their acquiescence of this demand only 33 minutes after doing so, emphatically stating that citizens are allowed to the right to peaceful protest. Although Port of Seattle Police pepper-sprays the crowd, Seattle Police do not do so. 

That's Saturday. On Monday, the State of Washington, in the person of Attorney General Bob Ferguson, files a lawsuit against Donald J. Trump and his administration, on the grounds that his executive order is illegal on nine counts. 

Also on Monday, Trump fires acting US Attorney General Sally Yates after she refuses to enforce the ban, requiring all relevant staff to essentially ignore its existence, on the grounds that her "responsibility is to ensure that the position of the DoJ (Department of Justice) [is] legally defensible." 

Ferguson's lawsuit is designed to invalidate the ban nationwide. It isn't meant to chip away at minor provisions. The aim here is to demolish the ban conclusively. It's a politically and legally risky move– "daring," as the New York Times calls it. Bob Ferguson: "This is why you go to law school." 

Minnesota's AG joins the lawsuit on Thursday, which cites widespread and immediate irreparable harm to state residents, employers, schools, and the economy. Over 100,000 visas are revoked due to the ban. The lawsuit gets fast-tracked to a hearing the next day. 

Friday, Seattle. U.S. District Court Judge James L. Robart stuns the country by ordering an immediate national halt to enforcement of the ban. Robart's decision goes out Friday night; federal employees are prohibited from executing the ban's orders starting Saturday. 

Robart does not have to rule on the legality of the ban in his Friday evening decision, but only on these three factors: 1) are the plaintiffs (WA, MN) likely to succeed at a later date; 2) could WA and MN residents suffer irreparable harm if the ban is continued; and 3) is blocking the order in the public's interest. He didn't have to rule on the ban's legality, but he makes comments to that effect nonetheless. Check out this exchange:

Robart: "How many arrests have there been of foreign nationals from those seven countries since 9/11?"
"I don't know the specific details of attacks or planned attacks," replies Michelle Bennett, the representing Trump attorney. 
"The answer to that is none, as best I can tell." 
"The rationale was not only 9/11. It was to protect the United States from the potential for terrorism. The court doesn't get to look behind those determinations."
Robart: "[I'm] asked to look and determine if the executive order is rationally based. And rationally based, to some extent, means I have to find it grounded in fact instead of fiction."

Fact over fiction indeed.

On Saturday, the US Government makes an emergency request at a federal appeals court to resume the travel ban. It's denied. Trump goes haywire on Twitter, using the all caps function more than any teenager knows is appropriate. The DoJ's denied court filing contains language no less strong than Trump's Twitter accusation of Robarts as "a so-called judge," describing US courts in general as "particularly ill-equipped to second-guess the President's prospective judgment." It further emphasizes that courts cannot review the President's determination on which steps he takes to prevent terrorism. 

Monday sees attorneys general from sixteen states form a coalition as they file a brief against the ban, citing adverse effects on their respective states' interests. 

On February 9, Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco delivers "the latest and most stinging judicial rebuke" to Trump's Muslim ban, refusing to reinstate the ban. The three judges (appointed by Obama, Carter, and Bush II) roundly reject the appeal, steamrolling over the above DoJ assertion with the words, “There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy.” Further highlighting the illegality of the ban, the judge's decision proclaims: "the Government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated an attack on the United States…. Rather than present evidence to explain the need for the Executive Order, the Government has taken the position that we must not review its decision at all." Sucker punch: "We disagree, as explained above." Full 29-page ruling here; seven key takeaways summarizing the ruling here. 

For now, the DoJ isn't exactly rushing to take this to the Supreme Court, nor has it even said it will attempt to do so, perhaps finally grasping where it stands. 

On Monday the 13th, federal judge Leonie M. Brinkema, follows the Ninth Circuit ruling with a ruling of her own in Virginia, but goes further than previous rulings in addressing the gorilla in the room and calling a spade a spade, explicitly describing the ban as a First Amendment violation, linking it as a continuation of Trump's expressed anti-Muslim sentiments and 2015 plan to eliminate Muslim immigration, noting that the Administration has "not denied any of these statements or produced any evidence, beyond the text of the executive order itself, to support their contention that the executive order was primarily motivated by national security concerns." 

Travel ban legal timeline (CNN)
Bob Ferguson in his own words (NPR)

"But they ain't hardly gave him a chance yet!" 

I chuckled ruefully. At this point my use for such a perspective is limited. A chance? What should I expect from a man who's tolerant– downright enthusiastic– about sexual assault, subjugation of women and people of color, religious discrimination, violation of due process, women's bodily rights, who encourages assault toward women and minorities at his rallies, who in a few days has relegated most of the country to second-class citizens and turned the clock back on social progress several decades… a chance? I'm not even that nice, and I'm Nathan! I looked askance at Detroit Fred, the speaker of the above line. 

Conservative friends, understand that my frustration is not directed toward you. I do not want all my friends to think the same as me. The above to me are political issues only in the sense that they violate the Constitution. For me they transcend the political.

The net I lovingly cast about me includes a friend group wider than anyone else's I know. The attendees at my "first and last" birthday party last year included a hundred or two of my favorite actors, artists, engineers, nurses, authors, professors, cooks, city and county government employees, social justice workers, hairdressers, millionaires, students, playwrights, bus drivers, photographers, storytellers, architects, musicians, bankers, dishwashers, community organizers, poets, businessmen and women, filmmakers, administrators and homeless people. The only connection points linking them were that they knew me, and that they respected kindness. 

It's because of how much I care for these fine folks, my fellow human brethren, that the new presidency agitates me so. Detroit Fred's line of reasoning wasn't one I could take seriously. I consider him a friend, and at midnight, with no one else aboard, I chose to respond honestly. I wasn't interested in changing his mind, but couldn't lie about my own. The beauty of the day's protest forbade it. I said, "I think they done already got a sense of how he treat people. They don't want somebody with his attitudes runnin' the show."

Detroit Fred replied with something about how he's a smart businessman, Trump is, that his moves are shrewdly calculated. "Mind you, I'm not sayin' I love the guy."
"I think what they don't like is the racism, the sexism. Can't support somebody thinks like that bein' president."
"People don't, people don't–"
"I think a lotta folks think like he thinks, but they don't share it out loud. He does. He gives voice to how they think, and they go for it." 
"Hold up now, Nathan, listen to yoself. Listen to what you just said."
"Tell me, Mister Fred, say it. Tell me what's up."

Detroit Fred paused. He realized then, I think, the futility of sustaining a disputatious tone with me. Our cross-purposes were misaligned over too fine a point. Fred adopted a tone of understanding, asking which was worse: to harbor prejudicial attitudes in secret or in public. I said both were awful, and then it was time to change the subject. Life is too short, and regardless of his views I could learn something from this man. I'd not seen him in years, and he appeared somewhat worse for the wear; finally looking his age, about sixty, a long dark coat and beret, walking his umbrella like it was a cane, fashionably. He had a dignity in his step which not even homelessness could eradicate. 

"Detroit Fred, I'm glad to see you, man! I was thinkin' about you–"
Genuine surprise. "Were you??"
"I was. 'Cause something happens with this job which is, I won't see a certain face for a couple years, and then one of two things happens. I'll find out they died, or they'll come up to me and tell me they finally got a place. They'll come up out the blue and say, Nathan, I did it, I finally found a spot. That's hard to do. And that's one of my favorite things about this whole job, is those moments, when they tell me they're all right. But when it's the other one, I found out they've passed on, that just breaks my heart a little, you know? I lie awake at night thinkin' about these faces, man, wonderin' which one of the two things has happened to these folks I know. And I been wonderin' about you, Mister Fred, 'cause it's been a while! And now I see you still walkin' around, arms and legs hearing and vision, shoot! That ain't so bad."

He was thankful for the sentiment and expressed his wish to move down South.
"Where that good food is," I said. "They know how to cook up some cornbread down there."
"They know how to make a lotta things! I like Georgia. We lived in New Orleans for a while–"
"Red beans and rice, baby!"
"–ha, that's right! For me it's more just the beans though."
"Beans are good."

He explained with rapture the taste of his mother's beans, which he could recall effortlessly across the decades. I wish I had his exact words, because it was poetry. They grew up poor, and though meat was in short supply it hardly mattered, the way Mom simmered those beans. Forget the meatloaf; these were so good they themselves became the main course!

If his mother could see him now, I thought, see him a lifetime later and still so grateful, the boy she raised still in there, looking out through an older man's body, her goodness making it through the filters of time and vast distance, her memory easing off the shiver of a cold night in the far corner of the country. Yes, there was goodness in him I could learn from.     

He explained he'd lost all his luggage, stolen as he'd slept on the light rail. "A hunnerd fifty dollars of luggage, I was  gonna go back down south."
"That body knows what it needs, and if it needs to pull you down for a minute it'll pull you down."
"It sure will. It just didn't tell me what it needed, and I sho' wish it had!"
"I'm so sorry, Fred. I'm glad you're okay, but right after something like that happens its hard to see the bright side."
"Yeah."
"Hard to see the silver lining."
"So true. When I get my check next month, I'm puttin' it all back together again."
"There you go."

He asked me how it felt at the protest. He knew it was something I cared about, and he listened. "Okay, I could see it," he said. "I could dig that."

I asked him about the South, haunts he knew. Fred had family that linked him to Little Richard and Grover Washington, Jr. We chuckled at the combination. "Now that's a pairing right there!" He knew George Benson at one time, through Little Richard, and spoke of going to Benson's shows. He told of a moment backstage before Benson showed up, and while Fred was waiting by his lonesome, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar strolled in, also looking for Benson.

"Man, you have lived life, Fred. You know what I'm sayin'?"
"Thank you, Nathan!"
"You've seen some things, lived all these… you gotta write a book, man. 'Cause this is what life is, all these little moments. Hangin' backstage before your buddy shows up." 
The grizzle on his chin and cheek, creasing into a grin. "Thank you for sayin' that. That's, that's. Yeah, I've done all right."
"You sure have, man. Everything, from these folks you know but also back down to how good those beans tasted, you know? What more coul' we ask for?"
"Man, I'm so glad I stepped on your bus, got to talk to you. 'Cause I don't share like this with just anyone."
"Oh, yeah. Oh, no."
"You can really hear me. I can tell."
I put my hand on my heart as he stepped out. "Thank you Fred, it's an honor. I'm so happy I got to see you again."

I had done my job. He felt better as he got off my bus than when he'd gotten on. 

The cultures of bus driving here at Metro are many and wide. This job, so much more than others, is exactly what you choose to make of it, and with that amount of self-direction the options are bewildering– limitless, really. Settling for whatever everyone else seems to be doing can become the default, rather than the heady and slightly overwhelming task of deciding what you want your eight hours to look like. It's easier to just follow along. There are new bus drivers who pretend to be jaded, I think, because it's what the others are doing. Or who adopt positive attitudes because they see others doing the same. But they can also create their own perspective. It's very much a solo gig, and your perception dramatically shapes how that spent time feels.

Operators have always worked somewhere previously prior to coming to Metro, and the jobs they're coming from generally don't offer such freedom of construction, simply because most jobs don't really do that. Although there are rules to be followed here (rules far more critical than most occupational guidelines), there isn't a boss standing over your shoulder, deadlines to be met, or a nebulous sense of accomplishment. It's tactile. It requires initiative. Your contribution is obvious, and your choice of how you interact with the world has immediate ramifications. 

As with all jobs and life in general, a positive outlook here in busland requires considered and rigorous focus. Something in your life you don't like? Either get rid of it; change it; or rewire how you think about it so you like it. It's the third option that's typically most available in workplace environments, and it's certainly true out here on the road. So many conversations I have with my colleagues revolve around us working it out, figuring out how to frame it all, so we can stay sane. It's a never-ending conversation, the journey of discovering how to be happy, and it takes real work. I think it's worth every bit of effort.

I was slouching in the front forward-facing seats, yelling back and forth with my compatriot as he drove me home. He and I are both night operators by choice. We love this nutty stuff, and tonight we were talking about "The Fall" (explained here), and how to avoid leaning into a headspace where fare evasion becomes bothersome. Passengers can be divided into three categories: those who can pay bus fare, those who can't, and those who can but choose not to. It's this third group that's the subject of so much internal discussion. 

I was passing on a sentiment an administrator at Metro once shared with me: "the thing is, even if they have the money, if they're bumming rides, they're probably not doing too well."
"And you know, they're still paying!"
"Exactly, sales tax!"
"It's like, who cares?"
"I know!" I exclaimed, reflecting further. "I think I get into trouble when I take it as a disrespect thing. I can't let myself take it personally. Because they're not, that's not their intent, to personally disrespect this or that operator. They don't care about that. They're not thinking about that at all. We think they are, but they're not."
"They have bigger problems."
"Totally."
He said with a grin, "my goal in life is to not get shot. And I've noticed that you don't get shot when you say hi to people. So I say hi to everybody!"
"That's a great life philosophy! I'm gonna take that on myself!"
"I've said hi to every single person I've met. And none of them have shot me!"
We cackled. It was true. Customer service is a stronger weapon than any barrier or tool, and we knew it from experience. He continued, "I think I'm about eighty percent bulletproof. The other–"
"Oh, I think it's more than eighty percent! You got a good thing goin'!"
"There are days though."
I spoke my next thoughts aloud, though I think I was hashing out my own issues more than any he may have had. "I want to avoid two things: taking it personally, and having it affect my perspective on people at large. The challenge is we're seeing all this stuff with absolutely no context. We don't know what's goin' on. It's not about us."
"One person having a bad day shouldn't represent–"
"All of humanity–"
"–how you treat every person you pick up for the next month!"
"Exactly!"

Don't you love how much mileage a single sentence can bring? His final line was better than I thought it was going to be, and recalling it would help me get through an incident a few days later. I doubt my operator friend had any idea he was giving me the aid I needed. Just an offhanded sentence, tossed out in good company, another night on the way home.

"Bitchass niggers," he opined, with fervor. "What I look like? Scared uh me, huh? You got a phone? Phone, you got a phone?"

He was asking everyone, and nobody was going for it. Everyone had an excuse. They were about to get off. Their charger was out. He wasn't happy about it. "Step on it, Nate," one of my regulars whispered. 

"Can't believe it. Ah got an emergency and nobody wanna lemme use their phone. I look like Freddy Krueger up in here?"

He was long-faced, tall and healthy, hair tied back above a Helly Hanson jacket. No, he didn't look like Freddy Krueger. I called out to him, to distract him from the others.

"You want me to call somebody?"
"What?"
"You want me to call somebody? If you need a phone, I could call somebody?"
"Could I use it?"
"No, I mean the cops! You said it's an emergency, I could call the cops!"
"It is an emergency, I don't need to call the cops!"
"I could call supervisor, or the cops, that's the best I can offer."
"Try to call my girl so she could pick me up and make it to [unintelligible]."

There was a desolation in his tone which spoke louder than his words. He felt worthless and ignored. That was the true source of his anger, not the business about a phone. He looked around, incredulous. "Black man tryna ask for a simple phone." This wasn't a black-white race issue; we were south of Orcas. Everybody onboard at this point is either African or African-American. "Bunch of brothers up in here don't even give a shit, act like I'm Freddy Krueger or some shit, like I got a fuckin' Halloween mask on. Fuckin' Ghostface. Yeah, you too, I don't give a fuck! Ackin' up like I'm a rapist or somethin'?"

Sure, his current attitude wasn't doing him any favors, but we have the right to cry out in a room where no one listens. His dilemma involving his girlfriend may not have been an emergency, but the sociocultural dynamic he was currently being subjected to… that was absolutely a crisis, and an endemic one. His frustration was warranted. I felt for him. Initially I'd considered him merely a harassment to other passengers, but his exasperation reminded me of the words of another man, worth quoting in full: 

That's Barack Obama talking. Our boy on the route tonight was reliving the very same. Eventually he stalked up to me. I'd greeted him and given him a free transfer upon request as he entered, a small modicum of kindness which was more than anyone else had offered; I think at this point there just wasn't anyone else to talk to. 

I said, "I'm sorry they're not workin' with you, man."
"Naw, I'm just upset these muhfugguhs act like ah'm some ape when ah ask to use they phone. Fo' a split second. Piece uh shit muhfugguhs tell me my phone got turned off, my phone dead, my phone back home, bitchass mothafuckas say all that like I'm scary. Black man. To a black tall handsome young brother."
"You're an all right dude, I'm sorry they're givin' you that energy."
"I know'm just scary, you know me, bro. Black folk with a gun. Seven eight black folks on this bus won't… They gon' tell me they ups and downs. 'Bout why they won't let me use they phone. That's bullshit right there." He surveyed the crowd. "Got nowhere to go. Homies. Bums. I'm sorry, man."
"Oh, it's cool, man, it's all good." 
"Man, I'm so mad right now. If one of these mothafuckas got a phone right now they should let me use they phone. 'Specially they actual black. My people, niggas givin me stories and shit. Talkin' 'bout they phone this, they phone dead, they phone that. Must have a crack rock or something, or fuckin', a meth pipe or somethin', some black people…."
"I'm sorry man, I know you're an all right dude, I've seen you around."
"Yeah."
"You're okay."
"Muhfuggahs… I'm sorry. I'm jus' havin' a bad day, bro."
"No, I hear that, I hear that. It's good to vent it out, you know? Good to vent it out."
"Blockin' me out and shit, for no reason. Lookin' at me like aw, just because I'm a– fuck! Now I gotta walk right– naw, I can't ask you that, to let me off right here, cause tha's not your job and you're too cool of a bus driver for me to–"

I made the decision somewhere in the middle of the left turn, as we pulled into the last stop in Rainer Beach. Now, I'm not suggesting you do what I did next: I've got an unfair advantage. I'm a proud owner of the basically worthless (and legitimately awful) Samsung ZTE Zinger, a cell phone with a resale value of approximately $25; normally I carry Samsung's fabulous 2006 T309 flip phone instead, worth even less. I can appreciate resistance to lending expensive items to strangers, but in my case it's not particularly relevant.

"You're an all right dude, man. I do have a cell phone if you would like to use it."
"Aw, oh, oh, oh, oh. Man, are you serious?"
"I'm serious man, all I gotta do is pull over. Just couldn't do it while we was drivin' the route." 
"Man, you probably the coolest bus driver ah ever met. In all my twenty-seven years on this urf. You cool. I'm just disappointed in these people right here." 
"Folks are supposed to look out for each other!"
"That's right! Thank you!"

---

The Obama speech linked above is my second favorite YouTube video of all time. It marked his first real direct address on race, and his sober, measured consideration of the words I find mesmerizing. Whatever your political leanings, we have to concede we won't be hearing speeches this good for a while. 

For a quick historical grounding and context on basically every aspect of interaction in this scene, refer to my post below, Don't Be Scared of My Friends, Part I.

Perhaps you know of the famous (but not famous enough) loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment. It states that no person in the U.S. can be subjected to slavery unless they are a criminal. During the Reconstruction period following the Civil War and the liberation of slaves, the driving economic juggernaut of the American South was suddenly and instantly deprived of a workforce. They were deprived because of a law that had a loophole. Meanwhile, four million newly freed slaves without money, education, or credentials had no idea or means for how to proceed forward. 

Did we really think anything else was going to happen? Of course landowners and their associates took advantage of the loophole and began conducting mass arrests. Their own livelihoods were at stake. All you had to do was arrest these folks, and you had your labor force again. But how to apprehend innocent people, we might ask? By demonizing them. Not difficult in a society which didn't consider them human in the first place. The process of creating a link between black people (specifically black men, more attractive as laborers) and criminals began early. We talk today about disproportionate media portrayals in music and television, but the association runs far deeper. Fear is the easiest way to mobilize a nation, and although the statistics of rape have little to do with interracial crossover*, the decision to characterize the black male as a source of fear for white women was particularly effective in the family-oriented composition of the Antebellum South. An ugly myth was born then that, incredibly and despite massive cultural upheavals since, has lost none of its potency. 

Nixon's creation of the language of a "war on drugs," by now a ubiquitous term, marked the birth of addressing drugs in America as a criminal issue rather than a health issue– an awkward fit initially, but one we hardly think to question now. Only last year did the damning words of Nixon's high-level aide John Erlichman finally come out, in which he admitted that the decision to characterize black people and hippies as rampant drug users was a consciously engineered move intended to minimize the political movements of both. "We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities…. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

Although Nixon came up with the idea of linking blacks to drugs and drugs to crime, it was Reagan who actualized these notions into larger realities with accelerated programs and attention, and Clinton who militarized and greatly expanded the means for capture and incarceration in the mid-nineties. Clinton would later realize the error of his ways and publicly apologize, but the damage had been done by Three Strikes, Mandatory Minimums, and other policies. Felons have severely reduced opportunities in society for jobs and housing, stigmatized standing in society, and can't vote. Like slaves. 

The economic incentive to arrest black men hasn't disappeared so much as shifted. The cotton industry no longer needs them, but what about the prison-industrial complex? What about contracted prison labor (ever wonder what "made in the USA" means?), surveillance technology vendors, prison food service and hospital giants, immigration detention, attorneys, lobbies, probation organizations and more? In a profit-oriented society, getting rid of a workforce that doesn't need to be paid salary, benefits, medical, or vacations, while also generating revenue for multitudes of ancillary industries, would be a catastrophically bad financial move. Like freeing the slaves. I'm only scratching the surface here. 

Suffice it to say that the need to arrest people is critical for this industry to survive as is, and a century and a half of calculated demonizing of a certain race and gender group has led to that demographic being the folks who get the short end of all this. Have you ever wondered why there are now so few larger-than-life, internationally famous, educated black intellectuals like Dr. King, Huey Newton and Malcolm X? We stop asking that question when we remember that 1 in 3 black American men will go to jail, and that while black males comprise 6.5 percent of the country's population, they're 40.2 percent of the incarcerated population. Yes, slavery ended a long time ago. Or did it?

I'm not sure it's been communicated quite clearly enough exactly how hard it is to be black and male in America.

In our culture, it is difficult to be old, poor, sick, black, female, Muslim, or gay. All of us will be at least two of those at some point or another, but some people have to be most of those things. It isn't easy. The challenge of being black, however, is arduous in an especially public way, a self-reflexive and humiliating way. The history is there, writ silent and large. You get judged by what you remind people of, and what you remind people of has been crafted by others, decades and centuries ago. Forget the already debilitating potential of broken families, poverty and poor education. Those are easier to imagine. But being on the receiving end of fear and hate, for a lifetime, is its own special kind of torture, insidious, permeating in possibility to all action, all thought. 

You know my friend Leroy, and the story of how we met. He told me of a recent incident he experienced on the bus. Picture him now, decently dressed, clean sweatshirt and fitted jeans, well-spoken when he needs to be, composed and quiet for now. He got on and sat down in the middle of the artic coach, on the side-facing seats above the middle wheel. It's a lounge-like environment there, where the seats on either side of the aisle face each other. The moment Leroy sat down, a white woman with headphones a couple of seats away immediately got up and moved to the front of the bus. 

That's not a major incident. But when it happens to you regularly for the duration of your active life, it is. It gnaws at you, and the gnaw becomes part of you, the weight and frustration and doubt looming as a Sisyphean burden never lifted, only absorbed, percolating ever deeper. The final tragedy is when you believe those things about yourself, your own people. The more ubiquitous something is, the more invisible it becomes. Who's there to disagree with you, after all?

"The treason of the artist [is] a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain," Ursula K. Le Guin wrote. The evil we're discussing isn't exceptional or unique. It's humdrum, ordinary, common. Invisible.

Smile, as you smile at anyone. Nod, without fear. You have no idea the difference you're making.

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Further reading:

The black-as-criminal stereotype didn't dominate until the Reconstruction Era. Stereotypes pre-Civil War leaned instead toward slave-as-obedient/ignorant/docile. More from Dr. David Pilgrim, Sociology Prof at Ferris State: The Brute Caricature. 

The Seventies:
Report: Aide says Nixon's war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies (CNN)
A Brief History of the Drug War (Drug Policy Alliance). "Reader's Digest" runup of trajectories 1960-present.

The Eighties:
How Ronald Reagan's Drug War Fueled Americans' Addiction to Racist Ideas. Excerpt from Ibram Kendi's ambitious, National Book Award-winning 600-page tome, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. Excerpt contextualizes the Reagan Administration's choices during a time when drug crime was actually in decline, alarming an initially uninterested public, and conflating the "dangerous unemployed neighborhood" concept into the "dangerous black neighborhood."
'Just Say No': How Nancy Reagan Helped America Lose the War on Drugs
​
The Nineties:
Bill Clinton renounces his 1994 crime bill (The Hill)
Bill Clinton says he made mass incarceration issue worse (CNN)
20 Years Later, Parts Of Major Crime Bill Viewed As Terrible Mistake (NPR)

Prison Industrial Complex
Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex. Angela Davis' landmark 1998 article, where she first coined the term.
The Prison-Industrial Complex (The Atlantic). 1998 overview with case histories. 
And, your chance to read the #1 Amazon Bestseller in... criminal procedure & law! The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander.
(Oscar-nominated!) Documentary: 13th, by Ava DuVernay (Selma). 

Rape
*88 percent of rapes involve a victim and offender of the same race, and 7 out of 10 rape offenders know the victim. Bureau of Justice Statistics Executive Summary: An Analysis of Sex Offenses and Sexual Assault: An Analysis of Data on Rape and Sexual Assault.
More statistics on sexual violence here, courtesy of RAINN.
Resources: https://helpingsurvivors.org/