I have been asked to comment on the recent NY Times piece: To Be Black at Stuyvesant High.  Below are my thoughts:

This is not say there are no benefits to going to a magnet school.  I think it nurtures the sleeping activist in all African-Americans.  There is a certain satisfaction in entering a hostile environment, making eye contact with everyone you see in the halls and affirming your right to exist.

Osama Bin Laden is dead.  Yes he deserved to die.  I hope he burns in hell.  I was elated when I heard the news.  However, when I logged onto facebook most of my ultra-liberal brethren were posting shit quoting Dr. King talking about how they personally took no joy in his death and how it was wrong to do so. I, for once, was outside the ultra-liberal mainstream.  SO three questions come to mind.  First, why do I and my liberal friends disagree? Second, who is right? Third, is this even tangentially related to anything having to do with being in debt?

The first thing that struck me about the Dr. King quote was that he was talking about enemies who directly and repeatedly wronged him and his family.  Most of my liberal friends do not have that relationship with Bin Laden.  They hadn’t lost anyone in the attacks and the ten-year war that followed did not affect their lives in any material way.  They’re liberal, but they’re not self-immolating to bring the troops home from Afghanistan.

Second, are they right?  Probably.  I am sure I should not be fantasizing about the first lonesome, hideous bottom-feeding sea creature that might stumble upon a delicious, stinking bag of white-wrapped flesh and manage to use some gruesome appendange to wrest it open.  I know that’s not right.  But I know something about having enemies, about waking up everyday knowing the person (people) responsible for your situation are waking up in relative comfort everyday snickering about what they did to you and hoping they can do it to others like you.

Now I am not saying they are DEFINITELY right.  I believe that killing him and recovering his body was the right (and only right) thing to do.  I also believe that the visceral reaction to the death of a monster is inextricably linked to the burning desire to sacrifice everything for one thing that is sacred.  That is why we risk sacrificing many lives to save one life.  Because a life is sacred.  We do not do this for vengeance, justice or to honor the dead.  We do this because it is who we are.

Hello, my name is Benito Mario.  I am a 31 year-old balding two-time graduate level ivy-league grad who is unemployed, living with his mother and has never held a full-time job for more than 18 months.  My two older brothers each earned their GEDs after age 35 and are millionaires.  They refuse to employ or speak to me because they feel our parents favored me due to my academic success.  They won’t come by the house if I’m there unless it’s Thanksgiving or Christmas.  My mother tolerates my presence in part out of stubborness towards them.  That’s my reality everyday when I wake up in the morning. Oh, and I have $200k in debt that I have no way of ever paying.

Now, here’s what I could have said

Hello my name is Benito Mario.  I’m a doctor (of the arts).  I stay on campus, I try to give something back to the kids you know? Do you like my hat? I’m a free spirit, I could NEVER do the 9-5 thing.  I mean, corporate America? Hello?? I’m the first in my family to go on to do post-graduate work, and if you’re going to do something you might as well do it all the way right?  I mean you can’t go ivy-league for undergrad and then settle for less afterwards right? My older brothers give me a lot of shit about the debt but come on, they are plumbers who never even graduated from high school.  They resent me because I was the favorite. In fact, I’m the only one who ever checks in on mom.

It’s tempting to go with the latter statement.  Heck, if you can keep your hat on it might even get you an invitation to come home with someone.  Their are two problems with the statement.  The first is you might start actually believing it.  The second is that if you busy yourself living a lie or creating a facade, you can’t do anything about the underlying problem – in this case the multi-billion dollar student debt industry.

The first problem isn’t that big a deal given the fact that you eventually die and that one only has but so many opportunities for happiness.  On balance, I am not prepared to say that if you put off shame at every opportunity and just lie to yourself you might not on average feel better over the course of your life than if you accept the grim reality of your situation, all the shame that goes with it, and from there move on to regain some level of dignity.  I chose the latter path and all I can say is if this is the better path then the paths must be pretty similar.  After all, I boldly declared in January that this would be my last year of debt.  Even opened up a bank account that I was confident would somehow have $200k in it by December.  Current balance: $0.  Well, it’s negative actually, as there are penalties for maintaining a zero balance but that is another story.

The second is the bigger problem. Now, it is true that one should be motivated by a sense of altruism to warn people about a trap they themselves fell victim to, even if it doesn’t help their situation…but I am a realist and I am going to appeal to a baser instinct: revenge.  After all, if you’re swallowed by a sea serpent, don’t you at least hope the bastard chokes? Even if he can’t eat any of the sailors still on the boat who are making fun of you because you can’t swim?

I know it’s tempting to forget the difference between an asshole and an enemy.  I also know low hanging fruit (sure Mr. Pretentious, go to law school, the BEST school, forget about that scholarship T-14 or nothing baby!) is attractive.  But the serpent counts on that.  So Embrace the shame.  And speak up about what happened to you.

Clarence Thomas is only the second African-American ever to sit on the Supreme Court.  He was nominated by the first President Bush when Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American ever to sit on the Supreme Court, retired.  I do not care for Clarence Thomas.  Neither do 98% of African-Americans – ever since he first caught Reagan’s eye for being willing to perpetuate lies about African-Americans and his systematic destruction of the EEOC.  Twenty years later, he sits alienated and alone on the court, under a self-imposed vow of silence.  After his wife accepted over $700,000 to lobby against President Obama’s groundbreaking Healthcare reform, Thomas stands poised to cast the deciding vote rendering a law unconstitutional, purely on political grounds, that will directly cause the death of hundreds of thousands of the poorest Americans.  Ladies and gentleman I give you Clarence Thomas, the first Student Debtor.

Clarence Thomas has all the symptoms.  Self-loathing, shame, a feeling that he should be making a heck of alot more than he should, a HUGE wealth gap between himself and alumnus who were better off going in financially AND FINALLY a deep-seated hatred for his alma mater.  I witnessed his rage once, as a child.  I made the mistake of asking him what it was like to follow in the footsteps of Thurgood Marshall.  It was an innocent enough question.  I did not know at the time he was specifically nominated to destroy that great legacy.  I had never seen hate like that in the eyes of a black man, I thought only KKK and cops were capable of that.

I do not know if Clarence Thomas had to borrow money to attend Yale Law School.  I do know he was dirt poor.  I do know that when he graduated he couldn’t get any of the jobs he thought he was entitled to, and thus began a rather undistinguished career in the government.  I’m sure Thomas didn’t intend to sit on the bench long.  After being a federal judge he would be guaranteed a corner office at a white shoe firm where his only job would be to drum up business with clients whom he happened to rule in favor of during his tenure on the bench.

A lot of judges do this – greed is greed.  But with a student debtor there is something more, a sense you’ve been behind your whole life, and the older you get the worse the feeling gets.  Thomas was probably a year, two years tops, from leaving the bench before all the evil happened.  The nomination.  The accusation – painful, not because it wasn’t true (all evidence would suggest that it is) but because it came from a BLACK woman.  He could understand if he’d treated a white woman as such, but he didn’t.  He was black and on the brink of receiving one of the highest honors in the land.  Where was the support of the black community?

Twenty years later he can see the crowning achievement of the first black President about to fall in his lap.  Obama.  The black community universally approves of Obama.  Nay, they worship him.  No, not quite, but they do love him.  And they will love him forever.  Just as Thomas will always be hated and scorned.

Often a talented student does the following analysis when picking a school: although it is not impossible to go to a lesser school and be successful, it is “more difficult” to do so from that lower starting point.  Thomas no doubt made this decision.  It would be “easier” or “more likely” that he would be successful going to a Yale Law as opposed to a Howard, Thurgood Marshall’s alma mater.  Makes sense…but that’s only because everything I’ve told you about Thomas, and the student debtor generally, doesn’t show up on paper.

Thomas and Justice Marshall were different in just about every way.  Justice Marshall almost universally had clerks from the Ivy League.  Including Justice Kagan.  Thomas on the other hand prefers clerks from non-Ivy league law schools.  Perhaps the grass is always greener.  Perhaps there is something deeper going on.

So I was letting a buddy crash on the couch while interviewing in Philly for a job.  He’s been out of work for about two years now, about nine months of which he’s been looking for work outside of the legal field.  His interview didn’t go well, as I knew it wouldn’t.  Even after two years of living on couches and eating Chef Boyardee, the kid is not quite over himself.  Anyway, he spent more time getting to the within-walking distance interview than he spent in it, and of course he comes back to the Princess and I going at it and I don’t always close the bedroom door in my own place when nobody else is around.

So he bangs on the door and get this says “show a little respect.”  I come out still at attention and ask if he has some sort of problem.  He then goes on to list several problems he has with me and when I tell him to get the hell out he laughs.  You know what he says? He says “you owe me.” Well, the police begged to differ.  But let’s examine what he meant by that.

Listen, I do not have some kind of cosmic duty to look out for every laid-off lawyer with six-figure debt because I still have what we all wanted when we signed up for this.  I am not saying I think I am better than him nor am I denying the very real possibility that luck is the only thing that separates what happened to him from what happened to me.  But here is what I am saying, luck and uncertainty are a part of life.  Most likely you’ve been on both sides of that equation.  When you’re on the losing side, winners don’t owe you a damn thing.  What, you think if a championship game is close the loser gets to have th trophy on their mantle for a month or two?  That’s not how this works. 

There is also this idea among ye poor and unemployed that you’re some kind of “soldier” and you took an unemployment “bullet” that allowed someone else to keep working. You think you’re like a Russian World War II soldier charging the German submachine with a broom stick.  Now you’re some kind of hero and the world owes you something.  Let’s examine this analogy a little bit closer shall we?  Ok, so, say that Russian soldier was never born.  The bullet that killed him would have slammed into one of his comrades wounding or killing him.  Now, say you were never born and one less person goes to law school your year and there are the same number of jobs for graduates.  Like the aborted child destined to be slightly mentally retarded and develop a coke habit young, non-existence harms no one and probably helps oneself.

This isn’t even a personal responsibility thing, it’s a reality thing.  Look, the fact that you put in 110% each day and got canned and I fill out my timesheet with all manner of lies and never go into the office doesn’t me in any way beholden to you.  If the firm overhears a conversation we’re having and finds out I’m taking their clients for a ride and I get put out on my ass believe me you won’t be getting a call from my next of kin blaming you for it.  Well you might, I wouldn’t be above throwing you under the bus to save face with my family, but I certainly wouldn’t believe it.  And that’s the worst thing about this whole phenomenon.  Even as my idiot buddy was being forcibly removed from my premises he still believed in his heart of hearts he had a right to be there.

One of things I like and respect about Benito was that he was never like that.  I do him the tiniest favor and he’s grateful for it.  I’ve never heard him use the phrase “it’s the least you could do.”  Believe me, you haven’t seen the least that I can do. 

Look, all this is is a natural coping mechanism for the shame of constantly being in need.  Instead of this crutch based on a lie realize the basic truth that everyone spends the majority of their life, particularly the beginning and the end, in need to some extent or another.  Their are no “self-made” millionaires.  Nobody has pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps.  Their are only assholes who think they have.  I know a  young guy who just became one of the youngest execs at his company who thinks he’s a self-made success because his parents never bought him a motorcycle.  He’s also a second generation immigrant whose village was recently annihilated in Afghanistan.  Does he owe his parents who emigrated to America and put him in a position for his smashing success? Maybe.  Does he owe the one-legged boy half his age who didn’t get a chance to leave the village?  No.  That’s not to say he doesn’t or shouldn’t care it just means that if he does he has character not normal human feeling.

I’ve always wanted to die during the holiday season.  A few days after Christmas, but definitely before the new year.  I suppose I’d feel sorry for those survived by me, but like most in debtor’s prison I am on the fast track to dying alone. For those of us who actually ask ourselves what we should believe versus what we do believe the mostly secular celebration that is connotes Christmas (not to be confused with the welcoming of the Christ child during the season of Advent that marks the beginning of the Christian liturgical year) merely provides a backdrop for life’s harder questions.  Regardless of where one falls on the spectrum of faith most would agree that things that are bad are worse during the holidays, and things that are good are better during the holidays.

I think this is the reason for the heightened suicides, drinking and…did I mention suicides? Seriously, imagine for a moment downing a bottle of pills with a nice glass of wine and looking at a beautiful Christmas tree, comfortable on the couch with a roaring fire, and watching that tree’s splendor increase expponentially until suddenly and before you even know it you are in the very glory of…sorry, I get carried away.  Particularly when I don’t have to be bothered making every little thing rhyme. 

We’re in debtor’s prison.  What is bad will now seem worse because of the holidays.  There’s no work to stay home from.  There is no money to give those we care about, particularly those who have stood by us as we struggle with this economy and this wacked out system of paying for higher education, decent gifts.  We feel guilty because we can’t look past our own misery and shame to those truly left behind, those for whom Christmas only means the beginning of the coldest three months of the year.  We feel guilty for hating all of the smiling, happy faced people.

As things are made worse for us so they are made better by those of us who never got pinched.  In addition to high salaries the working get promotions and Christmas bonuses.  Just friends become lovers, lovers become couples, couples become engaged.  Old cars become new.  Old toys are given away to make way for new ones.

The take home point I think is that for the next month and change the divide between “us” and “them” is wider than ever.  Two things.  First, realize and accept this fact.  People are going to be less sensitive and more like jerks, though that might be counterintuitive, than they usually are.  Expect to hear bonuses compared, options on new cars carefully mulled over, and stay-at-home moms complain about the nanny refusing to stand in line at Toys R Us, or worse, demanding overtime, thereby forcing them to by their child’s Christmas presents online and pay the extra shipping and handling, the cost of which is similar to your entire budget (gifts included) for the next month.  Second, don’t let any of these assholes make themselves feel like a Saint simply for buying you a $3 beer at some happy hour or tag along for some crappy holiday meal.  Your Christmas present to yourself needs to be dignity, and not having to spend all of January and February correcting this coming month’s abuse.

The holidays are here and it’s double or nothing.  Unless you never place that first bet.  If you need something to do I have a story for you.  Tell me if you think it’s true.

When you’ve been out of work a long time you can’t help but count the number of holiday seasons since you’ve been unemployed.  This will be my third. My first Thanksgiving of unemployment I was thankful for my family and the meeting of my basic needs but frustrated at what would essentially be a six week delay in job search progress. The second Thanksgiving of unemployment I was mostly distressed by my loans. By this point it was clear that whenever I got a job I wouldn’t be making what I made before and therefore my loans would consume all of my after tax income and possibly still fall short of the minimum monthly payment. That’s when I began to form the idea for this blog.

Now I am on my third unemployed debt-laden Thanksgiving. I have to tell you this unemployment/debt thing has gotten old. Everything I am thinking and feeling can basically be boiled down into one of the first two categories: angry at the time of year when my almost zero chance of landing a job actually becomes zero and resentment that my best case scenario of being offered a great job January 2 and starting January 15 would simply constitute a breath of fresh air after I’ve already drowned but my brain hasn’t shut off. Except, of course, it’s worse. Not new just worse.

Similar to the point I was making in the shame diary entry a human-being has a breaking point, and unless you proactively take steps to reconcile and deal with the negative forces you are doomed to madness.  If anything, I would say that the Third Thanksgiving of my stay in Debtor’s Prison represents the realization that to survive I have alot of training to do. Shame is like a weight and I have to either lift it or wait until it crushes me.

I am not trying to get all hippie-zen on you. Obviously I need a job and a sensible, legal way to get debt relief. But here is what I am saying: if I were to get a great job paying $250,000 tomorrow as an associate law professor and a year later had a best-selling novel to my name I would still wake-up every morning with the crippling fear and horrifying thought that my life could go back to what it is now. I will never know the sweet release of the fitful sleep of a man who got a regular job and rose through the ranks at a pace to keep up with starting and growing a family. I have that man’s contempt now as unemployed and I would have it in the hypothetical I outlined as a member of the “over class.”  All he wants me to be is what I can never be anymore than a man can become a child again.

I have not reconciled this internally and I need to. I can’t control how the man who sleeps looks upon me but I can stop craving his approval and stop hating him for withholding it. The first step is to realize I am the personification of his greatest fear and everything he does is really an attempt to rationalize why they are inside looking out and I am outside looking in.

Today the sleeping man wakes up just long enough to be thankful he is not me.

One of the worst sensations associated with being in Debtor’s Prison is the sensation of having been lied to. You relied on an implied social contract and gave up not just money and time, but countless experiences (concerts, sporting events, family functions, even and probably most foolishly opportunities for romance). Now our best case scenario is to work for people who made none of those sacrifices, living proof that many of us do get to have our cake and eat it too. You were lied to and everyone thinks you a fool because of it.

Speaking of lies, while it is not in me to talk about a public figure directly but the random influx of Sarah Palin themed quotes caused me to remember the whole “death panel” debate, I can’t help but sort of go there.  This debate was raging about the time I realized that the economy passed me by and my degrees were useless.

What happened to me, to us, is pretty horrible but I gained a valuable perspective today when I learned about a patient in Arizona who was denied a liver after being promised one. He’d already been prepped for surgery when Arizona state budget cuts caused the state to no longer cover such procedures. Because he didn’t have 200,000 the liver went to another patient. Heh, if only they’d given my degree to someone else instead of saddling me with these loans.  The story gets worse however.

So the governor of AZ, the same one who erroneously claimed illegal immigrants were decapitating people said that the cuts were necessary somehow because of Obamacare. See what she did just there?

Similarly law schools are adding an interesting phrase to their employment surveys that go something like this “after gaining   [x-type of] employment please fill out…” See? There it is again.

So recap: two lies. Death panels and higher education is the way to go. Then two late-game deceptive practices to perpetuate the lies that have already accomplished the horror they’ve been designed to accomplish. You already destroyed the public option. You already robbed me of my money, opportunity to gain marketable skills, honor and dignity.  Why keep lying? Why?

I’m not doing well folks. I’ve had a series of financial and career (or lack thereof) humiliations that are still so traumatically fresh I can’t even blog about them. They are also so outlandish that to describe them would likely lead to other specifics being known about my life that I want to keep private. So I turn to my shame diary. I won’t tell you what’s in it but I will tell you what it is, how to use it and how to tell if you need it.

A shame diary is exactly what it sounds like. You write about the specific events that compromise your dignity and self-respect as an educated person, possessor of marketable skills and the potential to learn them and as a human being.

You use the diary to bring into your conscious mind various occurrences and think logically about how to regain your dignity and self-respect by overcoming one obstacle at a time. Hypothetically, say you lose a job and get driven out of that industry that requires your specialized highly expensive degree.  You write about that, everything it cost you including time and the money you could have made if you had been working then you brainstorm what it would take to REALLY redeem yourself. Obviously simply getting that job or one like it back wouldn’t do it because what would be the compensation for the period of exile? You would need a better job at a better company.

I don’t think a shame diary can ever hurt but here is how you know you need it. Events that if isolated might cause little to moderate embarassment for yourself or cause you to envy another have the potential to manifest themselves as physical symptoms. Eventually you begin to have mental breakdowns every so often, manifesting themselves in blackouts or complete dissassociation with the catalyst for the break. In the aftermath everything in your life is a reminder of some failure at some point in your life. A classmate’s promotion or friend’s new baby reminds you of how you failed to make the high school football team, which reminds you of a bad assessment at your last job, which in turn reminds you of something you messed up on your first job which reminds you of how a girl you settled for dumped you by letting you catch her cheating. Basically it’s an involuntary brain dump of why you are worthless.

A shame diary let’s you draw these things out of your subconscious and into your conscious mind by essentially allowing you to “keep score.” By knowing when the score becomes more lopsided you can predict and mitigate breakdowns. By knowing how little small triumphs actually go to even things out you avoid the trap of thinking the score is settled or that you are “cured” or “fixed.”

We have the AIDS of debt. There is no cure, no bankruptcy. We don’t live through it. We live with it.

Roy Jones Jr. is a 16 year-old engineering protege who decided to attend The Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, an HBCU, over ivy-league institutions and since has suffered ridicule for his courageous, brilliant and right decision. He exemplified honor, discipline and pride throughout the ordeal and has responded admirably to his critics. It is high time someone commended this young man and help him up as an example of someone who has acted with audacity, pride and power.

The implication for this blog is obvious. Mr. Jones chose the school that offered him the best scholarship, education and experience. He demonstrated wisdom beyond the grasp of 18 and 19 year-oldsters, citing the quality of his specific program and his recognition that many of the schools that accepted him are prestigious in name only. Mr. Jones is not a clown or a performer. He is not here to amuse or impress you because you don’t have a job for him. You can’t afford his services. Mr. Jones has impressed Lockeed Martin. Perhaps you’ve heard of them – they are one of the many employers unimpressed with your over-academic pedigree and has yet to respond to your unsolicited job application.

So why all the hate? Let me tell you why. Mr. Jones scares the mediocre/marginally above average establishment that uses student debt and prestigious schools to weed out minorities and then hunt down and destroy the ones who are so bright that the system has to let them in the front door.  Why, if our best and brightest who happen to be black choose their own institutions free of daily exposure to virulent racism and prejudice that stunts their youthful minds from developing while simultaneously keeping themselves off our radar until they are strong enough to withstand our attacks then we are in serious danger of developing into a pluralistic society.

Detractors of Mr. Jones expected him to pay more money and travel further for an inferior education that he’ll have to earn amidst a student body and faculty that will credit affirmative action for his presence there – and make sure he knows it – only to plop the credential on a potential employer’s desk and find out his attitude is pretty much the same.  You’d like that wouldn’t you? Sorry. Mr. Jones is too smart for that. You’re just going to have to compete with him. Guess who my money is on?