He was the better writer today

*

A few days ago, my favorite college football team, The Iowa Hawkeyes, was crushed by the University of Michigan Wolverines, 26–0 in the Big Ten Championship game.

The Hawks had the ball many times and could not score. Michigan put six scores — two touchdowns and four field goals — on the board.

“They were the better team today,” said one of the Hawkeyes. (source)

My favorite ex-American President, Jimmy Carter, was crushed by Ronald Reagan in 1980, with 49 electoral votes to 489.

Reagan was the better candidate that day.

Today, the University of Michigan is ranked #1. (source)

Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign is considered one of the best presidential campaigns in American history. (source)

My Hawkeyes are not too shabby, with a 10–3 record and a #17 ranking.

Jimmy Carter, 99, is considered by many to be the “greatest American former president.” (source)

Yet both were soundly defeated, in public, by a superior opponent.

Good, but not great.

What does it feel like to be paired with someone playing the game at a different level?

Like the Hawkeyes, I’ve had a good writing year, making do with limited talent.

The stars somehow aligned, and I made it to the championship game against James Baldwin and The Fire Next Time.

Prognosticators said I didn’t have a chance.

They were right.

Game Recap

You’ve seen me play all year.

You saw me today.

The statistics were not pretty. Seven punts, three fumbles, no touchdown, and no field goals.

Not even a halfway-decent metaphor.

James was better at everything.

The official scorebook tells the tale of his six tallies.

Touchdown

This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here, and the root of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born and faced the future that you face because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being.

Field goal

Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one’s sense of reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man’s world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundation.

Touchdown

The glorification of one race and the debasement of another — or others — always has been and always will be a recipe for murder. There is no way around this. If one is permitted to treat any group of people with special disfavor because of their race or the color of their skin, there is no limit to what one will force them to endure, and, since the entire race has been mysteriously indicted, no reason not attempt to destroy it root and branch. This is precisely what the Nazis attempted.

Field goal

It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death — ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.

Field goal

The only thing white people have that black people need, or should want, is power — and no one holds power forever.

Field goal

If we — and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others — do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, an achieve our country, and change the history of the world.

Post Game Reflection

After a few days of overcoming my disappointment with this defeat, I will look at the game tape and try to learn something from the best.

But this I know now.

Mr. Baldwin could do everything.

He could put his personal experience into words that cut to the core of anyone who has ever been invisible.

He exposed my weaknesses, my lies, and my fears in a way that made me feel naked. Many of my teammates felt the same way.

But some of them resented him. I saw it in their eyes. They wanted nothing to do with his message. One said, “How dare he be better than us.”

By the end of the game, even they were deflated.

What did Baldwin teach me?

Not that I could write like him. That’s not possible or important.

However, after watching him at work in one game, I can begin to model his approach to life.

An honest and careful examination of life, including my relationship with myself and others.*

He taught me one final thing.

What it’s like to be that other human being peering at me from the other side.

It’s funny.

By the end of the game, as we walked off the field after shaking hands, I felt we were on the same team — no longer opponents.

*This insight came from Nicholas Buccola’s terrific book The Fire Is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America.