Hillbilly Elegy

“C’mon, don’t you think blacks have it harder [than whites]?” my friend implored me as we approached the tee box on the 8^th hole on a spectacular Sunday afternoon on a golf course on the North Shore, one of Chicago’s wealthier suburbs.  My answer is always the same, “Some.”

A few months earlier, another friend, who is black, sent me an article written by a woman, decrying the existence of “white privilege,” which reads in part,

"We constantly see it play out in our criminal justice system, where white men receive significantly less prison time when compared with their African-American or Latino counterparts for the same offense.  We've seen it in the workplace where white men who have less qualifications than women or minority candidates get the job, the promotion, or the raise because of relationships and the "old boys network."  We've seen it in exclusive neighborhoods and high-end department stores where African-Americans are profiled, followed, and presumed to be criminals despite any kind of evidence or wrongdoing."

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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance is an excellent and appropriate answer to the notion of white privilege, although it is not written as one.  Vance writes an authentic and heartfelt memoir of his youth in Appalachia (then transplanted to Ohio).  His account is neither self-indulgent, nor overtly political.  It is highly personal and intimate, yet not bitter, angry or blaming.  Through his own family experience, he describes a segment of society that has chronically been left behind.

One can’t help but draw parallels between Vance’s experience growing up and that of so many blacks in the inner cities in America.  He was largely abandoned by his biological father.  His mother battled drug addiction her entire life.  He lived in a home in which there was a revolving door of men in and out of the home, so there was no constant father figure for him to rely on.  Verbal and physical violence permeated his childhood.  He was reared largely by his grandmother, who instilled values of education in him.  His family situation was chaotic, “One of the questions I loathed, and that adults always asked, was whether I had any brothers or sisters.  When you’re a kid, you can’t wave your hand, say, “It’s complicated, and move on.”  As he recounts the anecdotes of his childhood experiences, we are horrified by them, amazed that Vance was able to make it out (as with many lower class kids, using the military as a first rung).    In his story, poverty is embedded in his upbringing.  “Violence and chaos were an ever present part of the world that I grew up in,” says Vance.

And, like many blacks in urban America, the society which Vance was reared has been ravaged by the decline in manufacturing employment that sustained these communities. As manufacturing employment in Ohio succumbed to foreign competition and greater efficiencies, those jobs evaporated, leaving despair and hopelessness behind in their wake.   Now, drug overdoses in his former community is the leading cause of death.  Run-ins with the law are not uncommon.  (One of the best tweets circulated recently read, “You know you come from White Trash when you count more ankle monitors than Fitbits at your family picnic.”)

Hillbilly Elegy resonated with me on a personal level.  When my African-American friend raised the issue of “white privilege” with me, I bristled.   As someone that grew up in one of the blue collar, ethnic enclaves in Chicago, I felt I had more in common with black kids that went to public schools on the South Side than with white kids that grew up in Kenilworth and went to New Trier.   My 2^nd grade class picture shows a classroom of 52 kids (some with special needs) and one grumpy old nun wielding a ruler to keep order.   Every street corner in my neighborhood had a tavern and alcoholism and family discord abounded.   Poverty, while hidden, was not uncommon, along with domestic abuse.   To get ahead in life in my neighborhood, it was helpful to curry favor with either the local ward committeeman or parish priest.   One got you a good job if you got out the vote.  The other saved your soul.

Hillbilly Elegy widens the lens on relative social and economic disadvantage beyond race.  The relative proportions may be different, but there are plenty of whites that are similarly disadvantaged.   Regardless of race, growing up in a single parent , unstable, unsafe family is a tremendous obstacle to overcome.  After reading Vance’s book and read the anecdotes of his upbringing, you will come away with more empathy for those that come from lower class America and their struggles-- regardless of race. 

While some blacks have struggled to seek solutions through groups like BLM, others, like Charles Barkley and former Dallas police chief David Brown have advocated taking greater personal responsibility and ownership.   Barkley recently said, “Unfortunately, as I tell my white friends, we as black people, we’re never going to be successful, not because of you white people, but because of other black people.   When you’re black, you have to deal  with so much crap in your life from other black people.  “It’s a dirty, dark secret; I’m glad it’s coming out.  One of the reasons we’re not going to be successful as a whole because of other black people.  And for some reason we are brainwashed to thing, if you’re not a thug or an idiot, you’re not black enough.  If you go to school, and make good grades, speak intelligent and don’t break the law, you’re not a good black person.  And it’s a dirty, dark secret.”

Vance asks very similar questions about his own poor white culture in Hillbilly Elegy, “Are we tough enough to look ourselves in the mirror and admit that our conduct harm our children?  Public policy can help but there is no government that can fix these problems for us.”

Vance is blunt, open, and honest about his life and the echoes  of his youth that undoubtedly plague him still, “Upward mobility is never clean-cut, and the world I left always finds a way to reel me back in.”

Hillbilly Elegy puts flesh and life on the bones of Charles Murray's important book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 and raises questions about upward mobility and the American dream in a segment of society that has been stuck for generations, and shows us that these issues are not completely race based.  And he does so in a sincere voice and without an agenda.

Vance's book validates my answer as correct.   Do blacks have it harder?  Some.  Are whites privileged?  Some.  Many clearly are not.

It will likely be my choice for nonfiction book of the year.  

Choices

I come from a football family.   Most of three generations of us have played at least at the high school level, and many of us played at the college level.  Although none of us were gifted enough to play professional ball, the N.F.L. has been omnipresent in our homes for nearly half a century.  Many of the memories of my youth are tied up with the N.F.L. ---  the first Super Bowl, the Ice Bowl, the Jets upset of the Colts, and, of course, the '85 Bears.   There were the pantheon of greats that we all emulated--- from Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus, and Ray Nitschke to Walter Payton, Mike Singletary and Brian Urlacher.   There was Monday Night Football with Dandy Don Meredith, Howard Cosell Frank Gifford.  What would Thanksgiving Day be like without some team beating up on the historically hapless Lions before Thanksgiving dinner?

But all good things do come to an end and my love affair with the N.F.L. is officially over, or at least we're going to have a trial separation.  The N.F.L. has made a choice and so must I.  In addition to coming from a football family, I come from a community of many law enforcement officers.  My father was a Chicago police officer and many of my high school classmates were as well, and served this city honorably.

The dust-up started last year when the N.F.L. failed to discipline the St. Louis Rams for perpetuating the Michael Brown mythology with their "hands up, don't shoot," gesture.  And it's getting worse.  Colin Kaepernick of the 49ers has been all over the news with his decision to sit during the national anthem and where socks disparaging police that depict them as pigs.  Yes, we have a guy whose IQ is probably a just a hair above room temperature, makes an average salary of $19 million and claims to be "oppressed" (as an aside, he should try earning that kind of scratch playing soccer in Iran or baseball in Cuba).  Kaepernick, with the acquiescence of the N.F.L., has launched a two pronged publicity attack on civilized society--- demonstrating a disrespect for both the country and the law enforcement officers that provide the bulk of day to day protection of it.  The Santa Clara police reacted by threatening to boycott Monday night's game (although they appear to have backed off). Now, the Seattle Seahawks are threatening to join in on the protest on Sunday, which coincidentally falls September 11.

I have often thought of football as a place, where, for the most part, your background, circumstances, race and religion don't matter.  The only thing that matters is whether you can catch, throw, block, and tackle.  And the N.F.L. had heretofore had a great record in that regard.  Unlike baseball, there were no Negro leagues,  and coaches like Vince Lombardi stuck up for his black players when hotel owners wanted to discriminate and he pushed back against the N.F,L. when it raised issues about one of his players marrying a white girl.  Bill Walsh pioneered the minority coaches' fellowship program in an effort to get more black coaches better training and opportunities.

N.F.L. football is a place to escape from some of the realities of economic and political strife.  In 2008, when the world seemed like it was falling apart, football offered an escape hatch.  For a few hours, all that mattered was the outcome of the struggle on the gridiron-- a healthy diversion while your portfolio and home equity were in meltdown and a 2nd Great Depression seemed all but inevitable.  But now it seems that the N.F.L. has gotten into the grievance business, or at least is enabling it.

By simultaneously permitting Kaepernick to sit through the national anthem and denying the Dallas Cowboys the opportunity to voice their solidarity with the Dallas police department whose members were gunned down in cold blood, the N.F.L. is choosing sides.  

So this football season, I will choose sides as well.  I will not attend a single N.F.L. game this year, nor will I watch one on T.V.  There are plenty of college and high school games that I can watch.  I will also obtain a list of endorsements of Kaepernick's and I will not patronize these businesses.

If Kaepernick and the N.F.L. can make a statement, so can I.

What the West Needs

The world seems upside down, or at least the West is.   Europe is awash in a flood of Islamic refugees from the Middle East—a foreign culture which it cannot absorb without changing its own.  Great  Britain, partially as a result of the immigration policies of the EU, has decided to revoke membership in that club.  In America, the country’s first black president has presided over a decline in race relations to a level not seen since the 1960’s, a tepid economy,  and a Middle East policy that has abandoned the region to Russian influence and inverted  35 years of  policy toward Iran (including not paying ransom for hostages).    And instead of promoting democratic capitalism as his predecessors have done for decades, President Obama announced in South America that rather than adhere to a particular  ideological system, countries should go with “whatever works” (for whom? is always a key question).

And as Barack Obama’s presidency nears its expiration date, we are faced with two unpopular candidates to follow.  Hillary  Clinton is up to her eyeballs in scandals, with an apparent allergy to the truth.  On the Republican side, we have a real estate mogul and T.V. personality that has no experience in government, full of bombast, and given to hyperbole which he then backs away from.  He has taken a sledgehammer to two pillars of Republican orthodoxy—free trade and N.A.T.O.  Between the two, Trump appears to be more genuinely patriotic but the reality is that Clinton is most interested in raw power and self-enrichment, Trump in self-aggrandizement. 

This is a world in which our economy has not reached its long term trend line growth in 8 years, and we are being pressed by several adversaries simultaneously—Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, ISIS.  Our longtime allies are in the midst of their own stagnant growth and immigration crisis.

Not since 1930’s has been a crying need for steady, principled leadership. 

It is against this backdrop that I read Havel: A Life by Michael Zantofsky.

Vaclav Havel was the first president of Czechoslovakia in the post-Soviet era.  He was a most unlikely leader—a playwright, author, intellectual, and patriot, Havel was intimately acquainted with Czech culture…and the human condition.  He was imprisoned for his dissident activities on several occasions and participated in the Prague Spring, rebelling against Communism in 1968, and guided his nation out of the Eastern Bloc orbit during the Velvet Revolution of 1989. Under his aegis, the country was able to restructure its political and military apparatus, as well as the economy---all without major social unrest.  

What strikes me most about the remarkable accomplishments of Havel was his devotion to principles and to his nation, utterly without regard to his own ego and stature.  He was able to do so, I believe, because, like America’s Founders, he had a superb grounding in human nature and the nature of power.  His calling as a writer grounded him in these ideas.  Much of human history involves the story of individuals that overreach and grab for authoritarian power.  But sometimes history puts the perfect person in the perfect place at the perfect time, and Havel was that guiding person.  As Zantofsky explained:

In Havel, however, there was an added complexity, in that, unlike many of the greats and giants of history, he was totally free of any egomaniacal or narcissistic preoccupation with himself and his own needs.  He was the most considerate person one could find, always worrying about the welfare of others, always wary of trying to elevate himself or of exaggerating his own importance, or, especially, hurting others’ feelings.”

His character stands in stark contrast with our current president and the two contenders that would succeed him. 

Havel was a strong advocate for individuals to decide their own fate and take responsibility for their own destiny.  Having seen the failings of state control:

How many times have they pinned their hopes on some external power, which  they expected to solve all their problems for them, how many times have they been bitterly disappointed and forced to admit that no one would help them unless they helped themselves.

With state control, he also understood the lure of power and, like America’s Founders, mankind’s propensity to abuse power.  One quote in his presidency is poignant and incisive:

“Being in power makes me permanently suspicious of myself.”

One cannot even imagine Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump uttering such words.

Czechoslovakia experienced repercussions of both Nazism and Communism, and its citizens felt the iron boot of both.  He saw what happened to his country when the European powers crafted a deal to give up the Sudetenland to Hitler and allowed his country to fall within the Soviet orbit. 

“Personally, I am usually inclined to believe that evil should be opposed in its embryonic form before it has a chance to grow, and that human life, human freedom and human dignity are higher values than state sovereignty.  Perhaps this inclination gives me the right to open this undoubtedly serious and complicated question. Our own historical experience has taught us that evil must be confronted rather than appeased.

Havel’s posture is quite distinct from that of the current leader of the West, who has been embracing the Castros and turning himself into a pretzel for the mullahs in Iran and in both cases, he has gotten nothing but threats, contempt and disdain in return.  Havel, in contrast, had the courage to stand up for liberty and individual rights, and demonstrated that he was willing to risk his own liberty to advance those causes.

Havel understanding of culture and commitment to the voice of the people led him not to resist Slovakia’s split with the Czech Republic, he opposed their independence and resigned over it, but did not stand in the way of an independent Slovakia, taking the view that:

Rather than live for years in a non-functioning federation or in some kind of a pseudo-federation, which is only a burden and a source of complications, it is better to live in two independent countries.”

His statement gives us food for thought for our own dysfunctional republic.  It is pretty clear that we have two very different versions of how the country should be administered and what role government should play in our lives. And these competing views may ultimately not be reconcilable.  On one hand, there are those that “bitterly cling to their guns and religion,” and presumably would like government to more or less leave them alone.  On the other hand, there are those that would like government to take care of them and the management of resources---the strength of the Sanders candidacy suggests that this is not an insignificant group.  One sometimes wonders if a split is inevitable and sometimes it is only the fact that these groups are not geographic contiguous that holds the country together.

As with some other great lovers of freedom—Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, for instance,  Havel’s popularity waned over the years.  It is as though Providence puts leaders like this on the planet for a particular time and for a particular reason, and then the sun sets on them.  Havel had his own vices—he smoked, drank and was not always faithful to his wife.  But his principles and his own brand of leadership guided the Czech Republic through unsettling transitions.  He weathered these challenges and guided his nation through them because of his patriotism, his fidelity to principles of individual freedom and faith in his people to control their own destiny.

He also adhered to a personal philosophy very much like Martha Nussbaum’s neo-Stoicism:

“And I understood, with a new sense of urgency, that the only real source of a will to live is hope, hope as an inner certainty that even things that can appear to us as purely nonsensical can have their own deep meaning and that it is our task to look for it.  And I understood, maybe somewhat better than before, why human life ceases to be a life worth living without the love of those close to you.”

And this inner core sustained him through the turbulent and difficult transitions of the Czech Republic from an authoritarian centrally planned economy to a free capitalist one—without bloodshed.

A generation ago, the West was blessed with a number of principled, steady leaders that had the courage to push back against a tyrannical, expansive system.  Lech Walesa ignited the flames in the shipyards of Gdansk.  But he also had a moral, rhetorical, economic , and military support in a number of defenders of Western values---  Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Helmut Kohl, for instance, that stood up to the darkness of Communism.   Vaclav Havel rightfully deserves a place among those souls that rang the bell of freedom and never wavered.

Zantofsky summed up the life of Havel:

If most Europe today is safer than at any time in its history, it is not least  to the vision of statesmen like Bill Clinton, Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel.

The West is once again threatened—this time on multiple fronts, from multiple directions.  An assertive and adventuresome Russia has risen from the ashes.  Radical Islam cloaked in a refugee crisis threatens Europe and America.  China is asserting dominance l over the South China Sea.  Iran spreads is spreading its deadly tentacles across the Middle East.  A vastly underestimated ISIS directly and indirectly threatens the West with repeated terror attacks. 

And, as I assess Western leadership at the moment, we have none with a backbone, core principles, and intellectual grounding quite like Havel’s.