The House Rules
Have you ever had the pleasure of joining in on a board game? Or a game of cards? At a game night at somebody’s house?
And perhaps it was a well known game. One you had confidence in your ability to play…you know like Monopoly or something.
Only to be given the run down of the rules of said game before being handed your game piece or being dealt your hand…
And you have not EVER heard of those rules before in your life?
Yea, those are the house rules.
And it literally does not matter that that’s not the rules stated on the instructions included in the box (that no one has ever read).
It does not matter that you’ve played it one way your entire life, or that your family does it different.
This is the game.
These are the rules.
You can sit on your high horse and play the game by the rules as you understand them, and perhaps you get lucky on occasion and it works out for you.
But more often than not, while you’re busy playing by the rules you wish you had…the others are winning by the rules that are.
One more time for the people in the back: while you are busy playing by the rules you WISH you had, the OTHERS are WINNING by the rules that ARE.
And that’s the way it is, until you host game night under your roof, under your rules.
It’s been a rough week.
I’m exhausted from oscillating between “it shouldn’t be like this”, and “but it is like this”.
Fatigued by witnessing more people angry about businesses being looted and vandalized than the fact that black people keep being murdered, literally in the streets.
Frustrated by my own anger and my increasingly inadequate methods of release and exasperated by fellow citizens rioting in the streets provoked by righteous cause utilizing ultimately unproductive tactics and finding themselves further infuriated by the lack of progress.
This is America. It’s time to play by the house rules.
Because we’re playing by rules we wish we had and getting nowhere because we are largely ignoring the rules that ARE.
It’s my recovery week. I’m between training blocks, and I don’t feel at all recovered. My body is as a clenched fist, ready to recieve the next blow, ready to throw one, teeth marks in my cheeks from gritting my teeth, sleeping in spurts, anxiety, headaches, hopelessness.
I just want a fucking drink when I need to be drinking water.
My anger surprises me. It crept up in my consciousness like a toddler crawling into its parents’ bed after bedtime.
I became aware of it, this anger, and although I greeted it and acknowledge it- it stayed. Staring at me from the corner daring me to do something about it.
I went to throw some weight around, hoping that moving would be enough.
It wasn’t.
My anger comes from a growing sense of helplessness.
What do we do? What can we even do?
We can’t demonstrate at football games or on the podium- we’ve been told it’s not the time or place.
Can’t protest or demonstrate on the streets- opportunists take advantage of these events to make protestors look bad by acting out their bad intentions and our society has no problem lumping them all together.
The pain is real. The frustration is real. The disenfranchisment is real.
But the disempowerment…
that’s the fucking lie.
It’s house rules.
And some of us are throwing tantrums because we don’t like said rules, instead of playing the damn game to win…so we can throw the next game night and decide what the rules are going to be.
This morning, I woke up feeling helpless still but less angry as I waited for my team meeting via Zoom to start. I decided to look up my voter registration.
I saw that I was in fact registered to get my ballots by mail, but that they were being sent to the wrong address.
I fixed that and noted the dates of the primaries, general, and special elections.
And then I saw a tab that said “elected officials,” out of curiousity: I clicked.
And the list that expanded before me surprised me. Because
I didn’t even know some of those positions were elected rather than appointed. and
If that was the case I was missing out on a say in who was apparently “representing” me and MY interests.
This is a problem. And I know for a fact I’m not alone in this.
After I reviewed all this information on the website and got my voter’s registration updated and in order I felt better. Because like I always say, the cure for worry is action.
And to be more direct. The cure for worry is purposeful action.
No one said it better than Malcolm X who, contrary to popular belief was not the minister of violence as some would have us believe.
He said this in his 1964 speech “The Ballot or the Bullet”
“We must, we must understand the politics of our community and we must know what politics is supposed to produce. We must know what part politics play in our lives. And until we become politically mature, we will always be misled, led astray, or deceived or maneuvered into supporting someone politically who doesn't have the good of our community at heart.”
But guess what, odds are most of us don’t even know who the fuck those people even are.
Barely bothering to show up and vote at the presidential election, the voter turnout for African-Americans at primaries, local, or special elections are embarassingly low.
Devastatingly low.
Not to even mention the sizeable number of black folk that believe the game is rigged and therefore don’t bother to vote.
You know what that’s like? That’s like you being at game night mad as hell that you lost after being explained the rules, and refusing to play by them.
That’s not woke, that’s dumb.
And yea, I’m writing angry. But I’m not setting shit on fire, and I’m not absolving myself of real action by spamming all of my tweets and posts for the next week with #blacklivesmatters. And then returning to business as usual.
This is the game. These are the rules.
Malcolm goes on to say in that same speech that “we will have to carry on a program, a political program, of reeducation – to open our people's eyes, make us become more politically conscious, politically mature. And then, we will – whenever we are ready to cast our ballot, that ballot will be cast for a man of the community, who has the good of the community at heart.”
Imagine that.
This is America. These are the rules. And I don’t know about you but it’s time to play to win.
Only 63.7% of African Americans are registered to vote at all. What happens if we get to 80%? 90%?
So ACTION STEP ONE: register to vote here.
ACTION STEP TWO: request your vote-by-mail ballots. I don’t know if COVID-19 has you concerned about what voting in person will be like when it’s time, but do yourself and your community a favor and go ahead and get your ballot sent to the house. You’ll still get your “I voted” sticker (before everyone else too I might add) and if you don’t want to do that look into in-person early voting. That information is here:
ACTION STEP THREE: note the deadlines. There will be deadlines for voter registration, early voting, and vote by mail. Know these and add an alert to your phone, one three days before and one one day before the deadline.
ACTION STEP FOUR: reconnaissance. It’s time to find out who is representing you AT HOME. We’re out here railing against the federal government and our home turf isn’t even in order. We’re out here throwing rocks at Target, as if when the dust settles Target will hobble it’s wounded ass to Washington and intercede on our behalf. You can download my own Strategic Engagement Tool here.
I get being mad. I get the temporary release that comes with breaking shit, and throwing blows, it’s why I box…I get it.
But when nothing changes, and it largely hasn’t for us…what’s the plan? We gonna burn some more shit? Again?
If it is, I’ll say it again. That’s dumb. Because this is America, and these are the rules. And now it’s time to play to win.
Allies, the aforementioned steps are your same action steps, in case you didn’t think I was speaking to you.
Because you can’t be #blacklivesmatters and then vote someone into office whose record says differently— even if their record doesn’t directly affect you.
Because we all know what overt racism and white supremacy looks like, and honestly although those people are loud as hell right now, there are more of us than there are of them…
The plague is the covert supremacy. Those little seemingly inconsequential things you let slide on the daily because you can. Because they are so entrenched in the threads of this American tapestry that it’s actually socially acceptable, and if not acceptable: at a minimum tolerable.
So that vote, which historically and statistically you use more than we do…is a critical part of this fight.
So go ahead take to the streets.
Raise your fists and raise your voice.
Exercise your right to protest, your right to peaceful assembly.
Just know that this is America.
And she has told us what the rules are.
It’s time to play to win.