Stakes is High: Life After the American Dream

By placing himself directly into the 2016 election coverage, Smith provides the reader with a firsthand account of a Black American’s visceral experience of Trump’s election victory. Smith was not merely a casual observer, but a participant in the public, broadcast discourse of the presidential election, asked to provide commentary on whichever outcome transpired, along with its subsequent implications. Yet, as a Black American, in the context of Baltimore and Ferguson for instance, the Trump campaign was not representative only of a political ideology, of the American binary between Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and progressives.

The significance of the Trump campaign, according to Smith’s own election night comments, was that America had “now elected a man who ran an explicitly racist campaign” (5). More notably, this election followed the eight-year presidency of America’s first Black president, which highlighted the juxtaposition in an undeniable manner. The backlash to Obama was not merely political, if hypothetically he had been succeeded by a mild-mannered Republican. The Trump campaign had spoken the language of White America, unfiltered. As Smith puts it, Trump “spoke the language they had longed for—no longer coded in its hostility, but forthright in its provocation” (9). This was not an inexplicable phenomenon, but a confirmation of America’s worst tendencies.

Smith also draws attention to the ironies and hypocrisies of White liberals, who “hardly even acknowledge that we have cause for concern until one of us throws a trash can through a window, or flips over a car, or lights a gas station on fire” (8). White liberals in essence regulate Black indignation and subsequent rage, calling for less anger, less “riots,” when in reality their own attempts at change have been tepid at best. Smith is thoroughly unimpressed with White liberals who vowed to leave America in the event of a Trump presidency, noting that “it must be nice to know there is a place you can go where you will be free” (7). The mythical America, where hard work and determination alone lift you out of the direst circumstances, provides dissonance for White liberal folks, which causes them—perhaps for the first time—to question what kind of country the United States truly is.

As Smith moves to his denunciation of gentrification, fueled again by White liberals, he once again notes the lack of awareness of the needs and humanity of the Black communities that are being overrun by new businesses and the inevitable rises in rent and cost of living. This serves as a transition into an anecdotal story about a woman with a “Make America Great Again” hat on the train. At this point, Smith drifts into his imagination, wondering what this woman believes (and doesn’t). He speculates that for her, she is nostalgic of an America where she felt safe, protected, the kind of America that Black people have only had the luxury of dreaming about throughout the entire course of American history. Yet, even as Smith acknowledges the glaring divide that exists between these vastly different American experiences, he imagines “letting go of our myths and fashioning new selves based around principles we have thus far found difficult to live up to” (17).

Smith invites the possibility of a future where social and economic mobility are possible for all.