We've All Been Hoodwinked

You may not know it, but you've been taken for a ride

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I’ve written before about how seemingly random events influence my writing. The inspiration often comes from where I least expect it.

Take last weekend, for example.

In our home, we designate Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as movie nights. The curriculum at my kid’s respective schools vis-à-vis Black history is sorely lacking, so I’ve used our sequestration to drop a little knowledge on my teenagers. Instead of forcing them to listen to my impromptu lectures, I found the right movie to be an excellent stand-in.

This brings me to Malcolm X.

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Whenever I hear the word ‘hoodwinked,’ I think of Malcolm X. Not the real Malcolm X, but Spike Lee’s version of the slain activist in the movie by the same name.

As I watched Malcolm X with the family last weekend, I couldn’t wait for my favorite scene. Standing before a large crowd of Harlemites, Malcolm X, played by Denzel Washington, preaches against the systemic racism of the 1960s.

That’s where he gets to my favorite part of the film. Now I don’t know if Malcolm X said it this way, but I don’t care. Denzel’s version of Malcolm X is a thing of beauty:

“Oh, I say, and I say it again, you been had! You been took! You been hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led astray! Run amok!”

As I watched the film, I thought about how little has changed since the 60s. Sure, we’ve made progress. It’s hard to believe, but we’re still dealing with some of the same issues. Unlike in Malcolm X’s time, we Black folks can live, work, and eat where we want (for the most part). Some of us (like me) can even work on Wall Street. But even in the last bastion of capitalism, minorities still get the short end of the stick. For example, this is from CNBC this month:

“Despite an increasing number of minority-owned firms on the cover of prospectuses, their fees on average over the last five years are meager — about 12 cents on the dollar — when compared with other smaller firms that tend to have similar “passive” roles…” ~CNBC analysis

The fact is, we’ve tolerated a Hall of Fame level of bullshit, especially from both political parties, albeit to differing degrees. Trickle-down economics and middle-of-the-road politics convinced us to wait our turn, while most of the benefits repeatedly accrued to those who needed them the least. For years, we’ve bought into the idea that the government is so broken and so inept that it can’t do the basics. Ironically, most of the folks delivering the ‘broken government’ message get their paychecks from the very government they claim to despise.

At some point, Democrats caved, deciding on the ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’ approach that gave us Bill Clinton (full disclosure: I voted for him, twice). The next thing you know, the word ‘liberal’ was pejorative, and the Party got busy trying to out-GOP the GOP. When Clinton left office, we had a balanced budget  (we also had a crime bill responsible for the mass incarceration of millions of Black Americans).

By the time Barack Obama made it to the White House, we were in the throes of the housing crisis left behind by George W. Bush. When I think of the mountain Obama had to climb to get anything done, this moment during the 2011 GOP debates stands out:

To fully grasp the degree of bad faith displayed here, consider the Republican’s original strategy a few months before the presidential debates, via The Washington Post:

By the end of the debt-ceiling negotiations, the Obama administration had agreed to a deal that would reduce the deficit by $2.4 trillion, with $2 trillion of the total coming from spending cuts and $400 billion coming from tax increases. Taxes, in other words, would be about 17 percent of the final deal. Republicans rejected it. But as little as four months ago, it was the Republican ideal…

…So when the GOP’s economic policy team sat down to make the strongest case they could for growth-inducing deficit reduction, they recommended a mix an 85:15 mix, not a 100:0 mix. And then, when the Obama administration agreed to an 83:17 mix, the Republican leadership walked out of the room and demanded that taxes be excluded from the deal altogether.

Remember, these are the same people that just ran up a $1 trillion deficit — before the pandemic happened. So, in the context of a pandemic, racial turmoil, and a wrecked economy, how have the last fifty years of policy worked out for us? Are we that much better off than we were in the 60s?

Consider our public schools. Cuts to education have undone the progress envisioned by Brown vs. Board of Education. In the last 27 years, the number of schools with 0–10% percent white enrollment has tripled. The Trump administration consistently nominates federal judges such as Wendy Vitter, who refused to confirm support for Brown during her confirmation hearing.

In 2013 — for the first time — low-income students comprised the majority of the schoolchildren attending the country’s public schools. The majority of children in 21 states qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

Then there is the American health care system. More than 52 million filed for unemployment insurance since the end of March, leaving 5.4 million uninsured. The only way for most workers to access health insurance is through their employer. Many businesses, however, keep workers’ hours just low enough to avoid providing health insurance benefits. Even if you’re lucky enough to have insurance at your job, a big chunk of the premium will come out of your already substandard wages.

It all makes me wonder, have we progressed? And if not, must we share in the blame? The failure of our public school and healthcare systems is common knowledge. We see systemic racism every day. We know what to expect from Washington. Why weren’t we protesting in the streets long ago?

Why did it take a global crisis to open our eyes?

We've accepted stagnate wages, the lack of decent social safety nets, the systemic racism. We've tacitly accepted a certain amount of racism and inequality, at least until it became too obvious to ignore. We were so busy simply hanging on we failed to notice how wrong things are. Now, we all walk a tightrope of uncertainty, waiting for help that probably won’t arrive soon enough, wondering how the heck we got here.

Which brings me back to Malcolm X.

Less than a year before his assassination, Malcolm X made a pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest city in Islam. It was there that he had the epiphany that changed his worldview. He realized many of the Nation of Islam’s teachings were wrong. He emerged from his pilgrimage a changed man.

In a way, that’s where we are now. We’ve been on our own pilgrimage of sorts. We’ve had to face some hard truths over the last six months. Circumstances have shown us how little we respect those we now consider essential. We’ve seen how little our society values Black and brown lives. It is not a pretty picture.

As I watched Spike Lee’s movie, it dawned on me. Malcolm X was right. We’ve been hoodwinked. We’ve been taken, led astray. Run amok. In the end, will we, like Malcolm X, have our epiphany?

Only time will tell.

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