We Fight until We Win?
Look at one of the most recent comments. The title of this blog is a phrase that always used to fire me up for success. Now it just seems antiquated, even when my father relates it to my fight for vindication. 
Who do you think of when you see this pictured t-shirt? Ali? President Obama? Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson?
The lead attorney for my appeal, Ron Machen, was officially tapped by President Obama to fill the role of D.C.’s U.S. Attorney. (See Here: Machen tapped U.S. Attorney for D.C.) The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces is likely my last shot at vindication as Machen’s departure will leave one brilliant, knowledgeable and personable attorney, Daniel Volchok, as my lone representative from Wilmer Hale, L.L.P.
It has been nearly a month and a half since I stood before the judges and I don’t expect any word any time soon. I don’t get anxious and I surely don’t worry. I have learned, in the past four years, that fighting for a particular goal, scratching and clawing to get there, isn’t always the best solution. I want to practice law. I want to envision and engineer the social landscape of the future. At the same time, I know that I would much rather be a successful human being (Christian, father, husband, etc) than to kill myself trying to overcome a formidable obstacle (being licensed) and burning myself out. In the end, social change is about influence and the employment of vast resources.
Education is a key to unlocking the potential in an individual but it is just one possible ingredient for success. In these four years, I have learned that resources, influence and well-being are just as important. In my post-collegiate career, I have worked alongside of two older, highly-educated black men. Both had their Master’s degrees. Both felt that they could change the world with their education and neither are. This beg’s the question, is education really important? Especially as a black man. We live in a world of monster.com and craigslist.com and in this world, people really believe that they have a shot at meaningful employment and a path to greatness. Rather, the free enterprise isn’t so free. Whether you are of an aristocratic pedigree or a beneficiary of affirmative action, it is more about interpersonal connections and circumstance than education. I wonder if they learned this before or after they graduated with their master’s degrees?
I want my graduate education, and I plan on earning it, but it won’t change my life. I am aware of that. Highly-educated black men are like German-engineered super cars without the Autobahn to test their limits. So the true question is, should we really fight until we win? Lose our minds, families and our optimism? More often than not, black men fight until they lose.
This may seem like a solemn message but I have been doing a lot of reading lately. Malcolm Gladwell’s books (Outliers, Tipping Point, Blink), 50 Cent’s The 50th Law (which is rather genius) and other books of the sort. Some black men make it. Obama, Machen, Holder, Bob Johnson, Cornel West, and Jack White (See: On Being a Black Lawyer). Education is metamorphosis. It is possible that education does more harm than good for the ambitious black man and the people who look up to them. How deadening is it to see a highly-educated black man doing a job that anyone can do. It is the story of the 20th century and it hasnt gotten much better. I am just going to work hard, sleep little, practice much and carve my own path. Because many of the “German-engineered super cars” that I have known, never find their Autobahn. I rather take my own road.
Web, after reading \”We Fight until We Win\”, I was left with one question. What is your definition towards education and its influences on changing the world?
I ask this question because I have worked with you in the past and I have my Master degree. We also have one common goal in completing law school.
Brother, believe it or not you changed the world when you received your B.S. degree. Especially in your situation! You will change the world again once you receive your graduated or law degrees.
Maybe, not on the level of an Obama, MLK, or Malcolm. However, I believe it’s the small changes that make the major changes happen. Just think an Obama would not be if it wasn’t for a vote by an ordinary $20,000-40,000 yearly income individual.
I\’m changing the world with education in just becoming the first member of my entire family to receive a Masters degree. I will change the world once I receive my PhD and law degree. We also change the world because many have died for us to obtain the tools of information. That’s changed enough for me; anything extra is just cherries-on-top.
However, I agree with you and knew before I decided to get an education that resources, influence and well-being are just as important as an education. I had a choice to make hundreds of thousands-of- dollars for sure and possible millions by getting my head beat in as a professional boxer. However, I chose to use my brain toward another region in my life and do not regret it at all.
Web, you are special because you have a challenge before you that many people will never face. I am excited for you because you are being shaped for a higher cause. You’re just still trying to understand it all. Nevertheless, you can be a Malcolm, Obama, or MLK in your own area if you stay focus and discipline on the true origin. Love you man!
Comment by William Holyfield | December 29, 2009
Holyfield,
Your encouragement was worth a million dollars. I am so happy to see that you disagreed with my assertion because you have preservered through a lot of discouragement to be where you are. From the outset, you have always understood my personality and my quirks. I just want to win, so badly. All I was saying was that sometimes, it may be better to change the definition of victory or lower the expectation.
Your question is a good one. People don’t understand how difficult it is to thrust oneself into the post-undergraduate, corporate life, only to look around and find no one that can appreciate what it took for you to get there. For me, finishing my education was awful. I slept three hours a day for a year it seemed and for what? What am I doing with it? You of all people know.
Let’s say I go to law school and I graduate and get the job that pays me $130K while paying of 80K in loans. I look at top-tier black lawyers, who are as rare as Haley’s Comet. I think to myself, they have done so much to put themselves in elite positions. By the time they get to that point, the drive that I have now “too change the world” flees from them. They are exhausted. They are paying back loans and trying to catch up on bills and family time. It goes from changing THE world to changing THEIR world for the better. That is all that they have the energy to do.
Then you look at Obama. He is the outright exception. He did everything that the typical successful black man does but instead of leveling out, he continues to ascend. He makes it to the top and he brings all the tools necessary to change the world. But then everyone hates him for it. People that look up to him lose life-long friends because they support a vision of an altered future for all people. The vision is too lofty, too liberal, to idealistic everyone says. People like me hold on to that vision, regardless, defending him in the meanwhile until it nearly becomes too much to handle. (I had a friend of 14 years walk out of my house and refuse to talk to me ever again because I have a framed Obama Rolling Stone Cover over my desk).
We see Obama as our pinnacle, like we saw MLK, X and many others. Then we see the result, death or a life-long fight against prostration. They wanted to change the world, in some ways, the did. In the process, they ended up leaving those that loved them and greatly hindering (or even shortening) their lives.
So I guess that I am suffering from a bout of pessimism. See, I am willing and able to do the work. I WANT the pressure. I know that I have potential and I don’t really care about the consequence of speaking out and standing up for the less fortunate. I try to do everything right. I am being a great father, husband and professional but when it is all said and done, I’ve been sprinting uphill since December 2005. And I can’t even change my own world.
How did they do it? How did you do it?
W.M.Smith
Comment by Lindsey | December 29, 2009
Brothers;
It is not pessimism but realism. Example:
A year ago, I gave a presentation for the firm on the impact of asbestos cancer and its effect on military service men during WWII at a Naval renuion in Buffalo, New York last year. When I was being introduced by the chairman, with my name, credentials, etc., there was an applause and when I walked up to the podium under the spot light—there was, by the audience, a pause. I did not picture what they envision me to be. After the presentation I was greeted by an overwhemingly majority of elderly white service men and wives on their appreciation for my speech. One even said to me, “You don’t talk like them, I am not sure what you are? What are you?” I said, “When I was 9 years old, I was asked that question by another child and I was not sure what to say, so, I went and asked my mother. My mother said, ‘You are an American’. So, that is what I am, an American.” He smiled shook my hand and proceeded to the desert bar to converse with his Naval buddies.
I used one of my milder experience to explore the expanded question: Why change the world?
When I was younger, I came to learn of the Freedman’s Bureau experiment. Its legacy today is the existence of HBCUs. But in that venture, there was 3 common goals: 1) education; 2) health care; and 3) gainful employment for free Africans. An added bonus was the attempt at reuniting families due to interstate forced migration of African slaves. The method did not last long in large part because Congress switch to a Democratic controlled majority. It was this Congress that enacted states rights in control again via Jim Crow.
Many years later, MLK did a move that was sure genius. He led the masses of blacks to switch to the Democratic Party! The result was a democratic contolled congress in 1964 and 1965 that enshrined the Voters Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act and the death to Jim Crow.
Today as we write, the issues are still the same: 1) Health care; 2) gainful employment (economy); and 3) education —not just for free Africans of 1865 but for all living in the US in 2009.
We are all benefactors and victims of the government we are under like all peoples under various governments.
In the late 1960s Harry Belafonte and MLK had a sobering discussion. MLK came to realize that he integrated his people into a burning house.
Indeed how true it is: “What is crooked cannot be made straight”.
Why advance the system with one’s talents and abilities? Why be a flash in the pan? Why be part of change in a system that is destined to fall?
From the Egyptians, Assyrians, Medo Persians, Babylonians, Greece, Rome, Anglo Ameerican and all seats of goverments in between thru history one thing is certain and proven true:
Man has survied every government concieved. Man has outlived every government to date with the exception of democracy so far only because we are not done yet.
Why change the world? Our “world”, history has proven the pattern, will change tommorrow.
There is a sophistry and romanticism with notions of grandeur but in reality it is only pain, sorrow and regret.
Webster made an powerful and elegant statement. Why obtain spend $80,0000 for school to get a $130,000 job? Have we decieved ourselves into believing that education, position, status, income, standard of living, influence, friends we keep and circles we are in makes up for that nagging, loathing lack of self esteem inside us? In short, do we do what we do because our self esteem is dependent upon how the world and others view us or what we achieve?
Comment by Christan Gobert | December 30, 2009
WEB, go back and read the response you wrote to me! Read it until you realizes that you’re already winning! I know you want more and I feel your desire. Believe me; I feel your desire within my soul. I had to leave the law firm just for the reasons you mentioned in “We Fight until We Win”. I was slowly dying there and I had to escape to move again. I love Mark’s visions for HIS firm and hope to work with Mark and the group again on another level. Web, I don’t mean as an asbestos attorney either (smiling).
So, I feel you, however, I look at you…still young with a beautiful family. How strong is that Web? For real! Think about what I am asking you to see and stay focused on. To keep a family together after all you have been through. Many men (old & young) still lose at that task alone over and over and over again.
Let’s not talk about the blood & sweat on that piece of paper (B.S.)! Millions of people still take education for granted. Web, you are not a victim….you’re just in a WAR and many battles have happen and exhaustion takes over from time-to-time. A natural event, that’s all! We all have our own war and battles.
We as men will become exhausted throughout our life because we are in a rebuilding stage. Rebuilding, from our hard working ancestors who did not prepare their minds to past on to us the right information needed for the society we now face. I look around and many men; especially black men are suffering and the wives, and girlfriends have taken our role as the providers. Its ok, because men like you, me, and others are on a quest to regain our position and gain the tools to past down a more correct set of values to our young ones
So, you asked how did they do it of how did I do it?
Web, there is no clear cut answer because we are men in different WARS, however, I can tell you this. Law is in my blood from the legal end to the criminal justice end. I love law for the same reasons I hate it at times. Powerful, Control, and Respect! Law school has been a challenge since 2003 and not at one time have I believed it was not going to happen. If it takes me 20 years I will still obtain this goal because it will never leave my body. To break it down, this is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life. That’s how I do it! Because, I have no choice even if I WANT TO STOP AND YOU DON’T EITHER.
W. Q. Holyfield
Comment by willholy1 | December 30, 2009