TPC – What Does It Mean to be Free?

Plus, more debate fallout, the great English escape, and what I'm watching this weekend.

On being you… and the Freedom to be Free

Two weeks ago, we celebrated Juneteenth. Today, millions across the United States will celebrate the Fourth of July. Whether you’re into celebrating the day is not the point, so miss me with the hotep stuff. I got a story to tell.

Juneteenth commemorates the day on which the last major army of the Confederacy was taken charge by the U.S. Army after the Civil War. Though General Robert E. Lee surrendered in early April 1865, it wasn’t until Major General Gordan Granger arrived and announced that all slaves were now free that the enslaved people in Galveston became aware of their freedom.

It wasn’t as if June 19 was the date an amendment to the constitution or a new law was passed granting formerly enslaved people their freedom. Nearly two and a half years earlier, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are and henceforward shall be free.

The Great Emancipator, as Lincoln is often referred to, wasn’t a bastion of equality for Blacks and Whites. For a time, he was a separatist, believing that Black people should be sent back to their native land of Africa, even though they shouldn’t be enslaved. For Lincoln, though slavery was a moral issue, equality among the races was profoundly unfathomable. That is, until the Union’s war effort looked perilous, the North needed more soldiers to help fight the cause and preserve the Union. The soil of every northern and midwestern state in this country rings hollow with the blood, tears, and bones of Black men whose names the universe will never echo again, but they were there. They fought for their freedom and, even in many of their deaths, secured such for their heirs.

At several points over the last decade, I found myself wrapped in a cloak of bondage and despair, heavily influenced emotionally, mentally, psychologically, and spiritually not by my own beliefs, convictions, and transgressions but by those of others and the carelessness they exhibited towards my own well-being.

Whether their behavior was nefarious or subconscious is far from the point. Outcomes and actions almost always speak louder than words, and while I would try my darndest to create a false reality based on what was said, the behavior seldom backed it up. I wasn’t a slave (I don’t throw that term around loosely). Still, I sure as hell wasn’t free – free to pursue my passions, free to create and enforce my boundaries, free to love as hard and deep and passionate as I’d like to, free to make mistakes and be forgiven for them, free to receive the same amount of grace I offer unto others, free to dream big, do even bigger, and know that something or someone is on the other side to catch me.

Freedom is what I’ve been pursuing, what I’ve been longing for. It seemed to be elusive until it wasn’t. In hindsight, maturity has shown me that I was free the whole time. I didn’t know it, or, more aptly, didn’t want to know it.

Our Christian nationalist steeped politics has some famous catchlines, one of the more popular being ‘Freedom Isn’t Free.’ Most of the time, we use that to display a faux care of veterans that extends only so far as standing and singing a song before a football game or wearing red, white, and blue while drinking Coors Light. In actuality, freedom, for both a country and individual, comes at a cost, in so far as it requires one to self-assess, create and enforce boundaries, and learn to understand what’s non-negotiable for them and what isn’t, and what type of opportunities and affection are most important for life. The United States has decided a hyper-militaristic state that prioritizes the individual's plight over the collective's well-being is paramount. It is what it is.

What’s most important to you? How do you want to live your life? Where do your priorities land right now? Do you feel free? If so, why? If not, why not?

What does freedom mean to you?

One of my favorite scenes from Snowfall (I have hundreds of them, by the way) is early in season one. Mel and Franklin are in the convenience store where Franklin works, and as they proceed to checkout, Mel asks Franklin what his goal is. Franklin responds, matter of factly, “freedom, to be free from it all.”

Ultimately, Franklin gets what he longed for, just not in the way we would traditionally consider a quality outcome. Yet therein lies the essence of freedom.

Freedom and what it means to be free as a human being can’t be quantified by anyone else. No one can decide your definition of freedom or manipulate you into believing that one particular pathway is better. In a sense, we all want to be free, yet the pillars of that freedom vary in vastness as diverse as the American landscape itself.

In the same way, this country we call home is an experiment, so is our pursuit of individual freedom. Don’t be afraid to make changes or tweaks along the way, admit mistakes and wrongs yet not wallow in them, and love so hard that it hurts, even though you’re afraid that it won’t be reciprocated. That, my friends, is what I’d consider freedom.

My exaltation today is to undertake an approach that has worked for me in my pursuit of freedom. That being, embrace the willingness to be who you are, love who you are, love others for who they are, and know that things may not always work out, and that’s okay, because that’s the potential cost of individual freedom. And if you don’t give it a try at the fear or expense of failure, you’ll never set yourself up to fully experience the bliss of success, joy, and true companionship.

So I say do it, do it all because you freely love yourself, and know that no matter what obstacles come your way, everything will eventually be alright. You’ll be just fine, navigating a world of people stuck in the bondage of their self-doubt, heartache, or lack of courage. Yeah, I’d say that’s freedom.  

What’s it like to be free, yet not know it? What’s your state of mind when freedom has been granted, yet its application is contingent on winning a war?

I used to say that I couldn’t imagine fighting for my freedom. I couldn’t imagine finding out I was free from toiling in bondage for months and didn’t know it. I thought I’d react hastily, overwhelmed with anger and regret, unable to reconcile the time lost and the pain endured. I’ve since found out that my pursuit to be free was a battle and then some. The years passed in my challenge to see myself the same way many others did. I was free, but I had to work to embrace it, know it, feel it, love it, and protect my sense of freedom by any means necessary.

Mission accomplished, my friends. I’ll take a shot to that. And I pray the same for you.

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On politics… and The Great American Debacle

You might have heard that the two major party presidential candidates, Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump, held a nationally televised debate Thursday night.

It was an unmitigated disaster.

On the one hand, the former president spewed lies like a funnel cake vendor spraying whipped cream at a summer festival. He was incoherent and boisterous and greatly exaggerated his golf game. He also showed no remorse for his role in the January 6th riot at the Capitol and, to no one's surprise, refused to accept the election results— ^{unless, of course,} he wins.

Yet even with an abysmal performance from the former president, the current president was historically bad.

I’m a nerd if you didn’t know this. During a long workday of tedious administrative tasks, I sometimes put on old political speeches, news coverage, and debates. I have seen every single presidential debate since they started in 1960. It pains me to say this, but Biden’s performance last week was unequivocally the worst I have seen.

We’ve seen poor debates before. Obama’s debate performance in the initial contest against Mitt Romney in 2012 significantly altered the race for weeks afterward. Ronald Reagan’s re-election bid hit temporary bumps after his disastrous performance in 1984’s first debate. George H.W. Bush was so disinterested and aggrieved by Bill Clinton’s mere presence on the same stage as him that he kept looking at his watch.

However, Obama, Reagan, and Bush never seemed to stumble when putting complete sentences together. They never seemed to lack cognitive ability. They didn’t remind us of our rapidly aging grandparents.

Biden’s greatest strength in his quest to slay the Trump dragon once more is also his greatest weakness – we’ve seen him before, a lot.

Sixteen years ago, when announced as Obama’s running mate, Biden was spry and energetic. He had been in the public eye for some thirty years, having launched his own bid for the presidency several times.

He’s always been known for his gaffes, but they were relatable blunders, the kind you were used to engaging with alongside your inappropriate uncle or grandfather. You know, the uncle or grandpa who didn’t move quite as fast as he did a decade ago but still went to work every day, ran around with the grandkids, fixed everything in the house, and always knew just what to say or how to hug your aunt or grandma to keep her from going off on everybody.

Father time, as they say, is undefeated, and Biden, like the uncles and grandpas we’ve all seen slowly lose their cognitive abilities, came off like someone who couldn’t remember the difference between a Phillips screwdriver and a flathead. To say his debate performance was alarming would be a massive understatement.

Given those truths, you would think the path forward would be seamless and unifying, yet the hard truth is that there are no other paths forward. Biden is the nominee. That’s not changing, and whether we like it or not, we’re getting either him or Trump as president.

Everyone has an opinion about what Biden and the Democrats should do moving forward, but all those opinions are moot. The sitting president isn’t, and should not, get out of the race this late in the game. There are roughly four months until Election Day and less than ten weeks before the party’s convention. Biden dropping out of the race now would be a cataclysmic catastrophe, the level of which his putrid debate performance couldn’t comprehend.

In general, campaigns are incredibly nuanced strategic operations that take enormous time, money, resources, people, software, and operations to build and execute. I would know. I’ve run and worked on several dozens of them. To ask anyone, including California Governor Gavin Newsome or my personal 2028 favorite, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, to get into the race now would be wholly unfair, deeply irresponsible, and downright impossible. You can’t raise the money and build the systems, processes, and operations necessary for a presidential run in anything less than a year.

There are two people on the planet who could enter the race right now and beat Donald Trump in November. One is barred by the Constitution from running. The other has a first name that rhymes with Pichelle, and she has no interest in being an elected official. (Hint: they both have the same last name; it starts with an O.) The pipe dream of a Democratic alternative must end.

Last week’s debate had the opportunity to reassure many Americans that the sitting president, though not as sharp or energetic as we all once remember him, still has the essential abilities to lead our country and the world through uniquely challenging and troubling times.

Despite a legislative record that rivals only Lyndon B. Johnson, Biden failed to do that. And while the D.C. insider response is to ignore that as negative mass media messaging, being able to communicate what you’ve done for the American people and what you intend on doing during a second term is the most foundational aspect of a presidential campaign. Failure to deliver on that, it would seem, is a recipe for disaster.

If democracy is truly on the ballot in November, Thursday’s debate performance is an example of just how much Biden and his inner circle care about it. Go back and watch a few clips, and you be the judge.

It’s a long march to November.

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Weekend Musings

Sports – The great English escape of international football may have occurred last weekend when England’s soccer team somehow managed to avoid an explosive early exit from the European Championship through some Houdini-like magic from the best footballer on the planet.

Down a goal with mere seconds left in the match, England pressed forward, most fans and players resigning themselves to the reality that they were about to be knocked out of arguably the second most prestigious football tournament in the world by a team ranked below fifty in the FIFA rankings. Then, well, Heyyyyy Juuudddeee…

A sigh of relief came, momentum shifted, Harry Kane banged a header into the back of the net a minute into extra time, and all was temporarily right in the world. This is what it’s like to root for English football now. I’ve accepted it.

England faces Switzerland in the quarterfinals of the European championship on Saturday, and if they play like they did last week, they are surely taking a charter flight back to Heathrow on Sunday morning.

At this point, the performances are what they are. England manager Gareth Southgate is limited tactically, though a mastermind at player relationships and management. All of these guys like and trust one another, even if they have no tactical understanding of how to adapt or play with one another. Managing the egos of the highest-paid football players in the world is not a side job of being a manager. It’s the sheer belief they have in one another that made last Saturday’s come-from-behind victory even possible. It is an essential aspect of the role. But so, too, is bringing some tactical acumen to the job. If they need a percentage, player management is fifty, and tactics are the other fifty. Southgate is brilliant at one and porous at the other. That’s not changing at this point.

England may still win this tournament very well. If they do, it’ll be because of individual moments of brilliance from a core set of players, not because their manager put them in the right spots. Great teams often beat great individual players, but sometimes, being more talented than everyone else is enough to climb the ladder. Here’s to hoping my Three Lions can find enough individual talent in the bag to finally bring it home.

Film – Donald Sutherland, the actor whose career spans over four decades and includes numerous accolades and awards, died two weeks ago. He was 88 years old.

I’m aware of the broad age spectrum of readers of this newsletter. We’ve got people who know Sutherland, from his role in The Hunger Games franchise to folks who were first introduced to him in The Dirty Dozen or M*A*S*H.

I don’t recall the first time I saw Sutherland in a film, but I remember the movie that resonated most.

Ordinary People is one of the most impactful films of my life. For reasons I’ll explain in-depth one day, it was one of the final pushes I needed to get my life together and confront my own trauma and pain head-on. Sutherland plays a pivotal role in the film alongside the woman everyone knows is my favorite, Mary Tyler Moore.

I know nothing about Sutherland’s personal life. I don’t know if Sutherland is a decent human being, if he sacrificially loved his wives, if he was a decent father to his children, or if he was nasty to production crews on set. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t. Someone once said art imitates life, and Sutherland was part of a stunning piece of art that played a massive role in me deciding long ago that life, no matter how rough it got, was still worth living. To me, that’s enough to give him some flowers, even if it’s in a sparsely read newsletter.

Hopefully, I will have some time to give Ordinary People a view.

TV— The Bear is back. It's the best show of the decade so far. You know how I feel about it. Binge-watch it.

And yes, I want Carmi and Syd to end up together. Fingers crossed!

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