Mislaid by Nell Zink

In Mislaid, Nell Zink isn't just arbitrarily zealous or unconventional and she doesn't make decisions on issues of race or gender without a deep consideration of literary tradition. Her many allusions to literature aren't for nothin'. She reads like a succinct Franzen, like you shrunk Freedom and forced it to address race. But Mark Twain is also present, so is Kafka, Beat Poets galore, and there is a palpable but nevertheless covert southern gothic tone reminiscent of, no kidding, William Faulkner.

On the other hand, Mislaid is all about not fitting in (no surprise there). While Zink effortlessly riffs of similarities she doesn't fit in with her predecessors or contemporaries. One could argue this is similar to her characters, but they'd be missing something subtle. Zink offers a widely diverse but intimately (and obscurely) connected cast of characters who, finding they don’t fit in with the traditional conservative settings they were born into, try to flee to progressive havens; a profoundly gay women's college, a hippy commune on a squirrel sanctuary, a university and small town obsessed with affirmative action, an abandoned house in a black community, and even the black community itself. But rather than finding where they were supposed to be as wildly different than where they were born, there is still a deep sense of being an outsider no matter where the characters find themselves. That's because to Zink, fitting in has nothing to do with finding the right people to reside with because even in "progressive" institutions (which are still institutions) fitting in is still a matter of permission. The politics of race and gender are everywhere; the main character Peggy escapes conservative middle class Midwestern family to a radical women's college where she still can't fit in and ends up being stymied into marriage because she gets pregnant and the old as dirt tradition of placing the familial liability of a child squarely on the shoulders of the mother is ubiquitous in America in the 60s regardless of what hippy college you go to. Every character faces privileges and disadvantages because of their perceived race or gender; characters white as the driven snow identify as black in what I think has Twain written all over it. And there really is no escaping these power structures, white males still get away with murder (figuratively speaking of course, no spoilers here), women are forced to be submissive, and black people are perversely discriminated against in ways that remind each character that it isn't about fitting in, but being let in.

This is all very complicated, but the reason why Zink can accomplish so much in such a short book is because she is a master at pacing. She will move through plot at break-neck but remarkably believable speeds and remain cogent. At the same time she is able to slow down moments to excruciatingly suspenseful detail by detail breakdown. I bring this up because I feel, to an extent, it saves this novel from being flimsy and almost whimsically insensitive to its own sentiments. As an example, Peggy and her daughter run away and pretend to be black to escape a potentially abusive marriage. Society unthinkingly accepts them as being black despite their white skin and blond hair because being black in America is a construct created for you by the powers at be, it isn't really about skin color. This idea, coupled with the comical fact that society wholly accepts them as such without a literal second thought, could be too irreverent, cartoonish, and at worst offensive, to a pretty serious theme. But in a dash readers can see how dependent this is on who holds power in a situation. Like they are painfully reminded that Peggy is not white when Temple, an African American friend, chases her down a street to give her a hug in an alley. A fretful and vivid scene of a police officer who feared for Peg's safety out of prejudice basically stops and frisks Temple, kicking the contents of his pockets into a puddle and treating him like a dog. The scene, and many like it, are wrenching. Pulling you out of the flowing plot and smacking you. They demonstrate a necessary fragility to Zink's narrative and message. It reminds everyone, the characters and readers, that no matter what choices you make, their ridiculousness, or believability, or merit are determined for you by the merciless powers of tradition. It's a sobering realization in the midst of a silly and unbelievable short narrative, hello Kafka 2016.

Letter to Senator Stabenow: Endorse Bernie Sanders

Senator Stabenow,

As a young working Michigander I took great pride in voting for you to represent our state in the senate. 2012 was the first election I voted in post graduation. I was happy to vote for a Senator with a strong track record in working for Michigan families. Particularly as the son of a single working mother, also a teacher. But I was 60k in dept and terrified, which is why I greatly appreciate your #InTheRed campaign. I couldn't rely on my parents or lucrative scholarships to pay for my education, I graduated 60 thousand dollars #InTheRed as a result. Since graduating in 2012 I was able to land a job and pay down my debt by almost 40k, but I'm still 20k in! Because of this I support your #InTheRed campaign, but I also have a problem with your endorsement of Hillary Clinton as President.

Hillary Clinton is proposing a debt free college, but Bernie Sanders is proposing making college free. I have major doubts over Hillary Clinton's affordable college plan, mostly because it seems like a No Child Left Behind solution. It plans on providing grants and funding to states based on individual school's willingness and ability to lower tuition. I've blogged extensively about the inequality that could arise out of this plan: https://canberniesandersdoit.wordpress.com/2015/09/01/can-bernie-sanders-make-college-free/ 

For one, Republican led states may not reverse their pattern of divestment in higher education, so under the Clinton campaign schools in those states would not be able to lower costs for their students. Two, my smaller school, Oakland University, provided great opportunities to students who couldn't move to larger schools for whatever reason, oftentimes economic ones. Oakland University though, received the least funding of any school from the state of MI. So under Clinton's plan there is no guarantee that OU would be able to lower tuition costs and would remain unaffordable for the students who need affordable college most.  Bernie Sanders plan to get students out of the red is to provide free college to all students. Providing education to all through sweeping federal action is a far better method because it doesn't cause state by state and school by school competition. This means every student has an equal right to free education whether they are going to U of M or SVSU or OU or Harvard. No student who has the educational prowess to get into college should ever feel money is an obstacle. Clinton's plan is about affordability to SOME and Sanders is about free education for ALL.

Whomever is elected in 2016 will have to do something about rising student debt and higher education costs before things come crashing down. I know you know this. The problem cannot be boiled down to state divestment; the federal government is subsidizing students to go to college and collections agencies down to loan holding companies are profiting wildly. Many declare Bernie Sanders plan unrealistic or that it can't be done, but I believe with powerful allies like yourself, combined with passionate movements like #InTheRed, we can make college free for all students with college aspirations. That's why I believe you should endorse Bernie Sanders for president in the 2016 democratic primary. 

What Is Between the World and Ta-Nehisi Coates?

Between the World and Me has me asking two questions; what is between the world and Ta-Nehisi Coates and why he is sharing this intimate letter to his son with the entire planet.

Let's start with the latter. Coates has fiery and beautiful language with which he burns all over the board; he is autobiographical, philosophical, and journalistic all at once. He is obviously trying to avoid being just another voice in a sea of incredibly loud voices. Early in life, while on a quest for some unknowable and objective truth, he recognizes that everything published about black people and black struggle can be contradicting, confusing, both right and wrong. To avoid this trap in his letter to his son, Coates boils his message down to three essential rules; protect your Body, find your Mecca, and beware of the Dream. It could be that Coates is trying to impart his message to every black youth in America, which I think is an adorable sentiment but ultimately untrue. There is fierce and thought provoking social criticism underlying this book and by packaging it as a letter to the future generation he makes it twice as thought provoking. Here are some things that made me stop and think; "why were only our heroes non-violent? I speak not of the morality of nonviolence, but of the sense that blacks are in especial need of this morality"; "the sprawling carceral state, the random detention of black people, the torture of suspects - are the product of democratic will"; "should assaulting an officer of the state be a capital offense, rendered without trial, with the officer as judge and executioner?". After considering what all of these things mean to me, I'm also thinking about what they mean for generations after me, so Coates is literally making the reader, including, presumably, his son, think twice. About what exactly?

This is the first question I had; what is between the world and Coates? The thought provoking message to his son is just as much all over the board as his style of prose, so where does one begin? I suppose the better question is what isn't between the world and Coates. There are some really fascinating points about race and power, Coates elaborates well on Malcolm and Baldwin, but stops short of adopting either whole-heartedly. The result is pretty messy; you'll catch him referring to white people as 'people who think they are white' but you'll get almost no explanation as to why, any one who has read Coates's Reparation piece will recognize his continual reference to 'plunder' but won't be given a history lesson on what he means by it, and his continual comment on the black body, how its plunder and destruction is what allows people to continue to live the dream, is considered a harsh, immutable reality. This isn't to say that Coates is trying to get everyone on board with a flimsy assumption, but in order to see what Coates sees through his "eyes made in Baltimore" you have to agree that our entire reality was built on the destruction of other people. This is a brutal realization aside from it's accuracy, but it is also difficult to imagine readers will make this jump, or at any rate make it comfortably. The answer to what is between the world and Coates is simply; we should know, because we put it there (assuming of course you are not a reader of color). No, not me or you individually, but all that we are and continue to be -- down to our very own sons and daughters -- is still a result of power structures being built by racism. Once this is accepted, Coates becomes remarkably clear, but without this acceptance it isn't possible to fully understand this book. Coates isn't looking to open your mind, he is hoping you come with it already open so he can blow it.

Between the World and Me reads like a classic in the making. Coates has a remarkable and truly lovable writing style but he is also poignant, engaged in a conversation forming for a time well past when we are gone. There was definitely some cheese, like taking a paragraph out in the middle of talking about the brutal murder of his friend by the police to marvel at the invention of the internet to his son. This effectively fools no one and throws the pacing for a loop (as just one example). But what classic is without cheese? This does nothing to diminish the intimacy, the relatability, the deep and often dark places the book might take you. Toni Morrison is absolutely right, this is essential reading.