Michael Clayton vs. Jerome Kersey

14 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Sports, Work

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Basketball Skills, Bassey Ikpi, Colson Whitehead, George Clooney, Jerome Kersey, Kiese Laymon, Michael Clayton (2007), Portland Trail Blazers, Roxane Gay, Slashers, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Walter Mosley, Writing Approaches, Writing Styles

Then Blazer Jerome Kersey slashing his way to a lay-up past Laker Magic Johnson and Byron Scott, n.d., but likely pre-1991-92 season. (Mike Powell, Getty Images; https://www.blazersedge.com/2015/2/18/8066753/jerome-kersey-dead-portland-trail-blazers-legend)

A few years ago, I declared myself the writer equivalent of the fictional character Michael Clayton, whom George Clooney played in a movie of the same name in 2007. Like Clayton, who straddled the worlds of police officers, attorneys, and fixers, I found myself a misfit between academia and writing, journalism and writing, and professional writing. Despite whatever successes I have had in recent years (if one can call them that), I do not think this equation has changed. I still often find myself pounding on the walls of stone temples, a world of white folks who would just as soon spit on me and my manuscripts as they would ignore my queries. Such is the world in which I inhabit as one of the Black folx.

But I am not just Michael Clayton. I am also like the late Jerome Kersey (1962-2015) (may his body rest in peace while his spirit takes a moment to read me out — hopefully). At least as a writer. The six-seven small forward who came from a one-time Division II school and played the bulk of his career with the Portland Trail Blazers was one of the best slashers and one of the better defenders in the NBA in the late-1980s and in the 1990s. Kersey was especially adept at weak-side defense and playing passing lanes, great at finishing off of full-court fast breaks, and could beat defenders off of give-and-gos in the half-court set with ease. His J (if one could call it that) was serviceable at best. Anything outside 12-15 feet was a risky proposition, especially in close playoff games. But if you needed a weak-side rebound and put-away dunk, Kersey was the man.

In his prime, he was a necessary asset as part of the Blazers’ runs to the NBA Finals in 1990 and 1992, part of Clyde “The Glide” Drexler’s underrated band of brothers who entertained us. At least until they ran into teams that liked beating up on their opponents, like the Detroit Pistons in 1990 and MJ and the Chicago Bulls in 1992. When Drexler left in a mid-season trade to the Houston Rockets in 1995, obviously hungry for a ring, I knew Kersey’s days as a Blazer were numbered. They still had the great Cliff Robinson, so they would be a playoff team for years to come, but not a championship team.

I think I write the same way Kersey approached basketball. I am not someone who can take on a team one-on-three or one-on-five. I am a good passer, but the Chris Webber no-looks or LBJ pocket passes, okay, but nothing to wax braggadocious about, either. But if I get one step past a defender, good luck in keeping me from making a lay-up. Also, don’t leave me wide-open from three. I’ll make at least one for every three I take on my best days. I will fight for rebounds while taking elbows to my cheeks and jaw and eye socket, while knocking knees and shins, and will fall to the ground to get the ball.

That’s how I write. I am straightforward in my approach, hoping that my wit, my goofiness, and my knowledge bleed through. But I am also counterintuitive, and will take big ideas and try to break them down in ways no one else I know in the writing world is doing (that’s how I’ve managed to publish the pieces I have over the past six years, hitting the occasional 3). I write like I defend, as if my life depends on it, precisely because it does.

And yes, this leaves me vulnerable. In today’s NBA, even in Kersey’s NBA, one cannot just put their head down to the floor and drive to the basket without looking cross-court for an open teammate. Or, in case a defender plants themselves firmly to the wood, waiting to take an offensive foul or to block your shot. That’s where Kersey’s slash-to-the-hoop game often worked against him, especially once the injuries piled up, as his first step became slower.

So, I might not have the slow yet deliberate pick-apart-a-defense moves of an all-time great like Walt “Clyde” Frazier, or can staccato through defenses like the Celtics’ Jaylen Brown, Kawhi Leonard, or current Blazer Damian Lillard, the equivalent of the way poetry slammer and author Bassey Ikpi writes. Nor do I have the quantum-level precision of pouring in points, beating defenses off the dribble, or making turn-around jumpers like Bernard King once did and MJ did with cold-blooded lethality, the way Colson Whitehead and Kiese Laymon weigh every single word, every phrase, every sentence, and every paragraph. Nor do I have the ability to flash killer smiles while also killing you with my post-up game, the way Magic Johnson once did and future WNBA hall-of-famer Candice Parker still does, which is how I see Roxane Gay, Tressie McMillan Cottom, and Walter Mosley (most of the time) as writers.

Kersey had a 17-year NBA career, won a title with the San Antonio Spurs in 1999 (against my Knicks), and is in the top-3 or top-5 in most team statistics all-time as a result of his 11 years in Portland with the Blazers. Maybe I am not a hall-of-fame writer. But my writer game as Jerome Kersey might make me a long-hauler in this calling. Even if agents and editors, journalists and academicians still only see me as Michael Clayton.

Michael Clayton, My Writing, and 20 Years of Sinai-Wandering

16 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Academia, Boy @ The Window, Carnegie Mellon University, culture, Eclectic, Pittsburgh, Pop Culture, race, Religion, University of Pittsburgh, Work, Youth

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Academia, Academic Writing, CMU, Dan Resnick, Falsehoods, Gene Clayton, George Clooney, Lies, Michael Clayton, Michael Clayton (2007), Mythology, Pitt, Politics of Academia, Publish-or-Perish, Richard J. Altenbaugh, Scholarship, Sean Cullen, Unwritten Rules, Writing, Writing Career

George Clooney and Sean Cullen in Michael Clayton (2007), March 15, 2017. (http://bbc.co.uk).

My favorite scene from Michael Clayton (2007) is when the title character’s brother Gene (played by Sean Cullen) confronts Michael (played by George Clooney) about the past seventeen years of his career as a fixer.

You got these cops thinking you’re a lawyer. You got these lawyers thinking you’re a cop. You got everybody fooled, don’t you? Everybody but you. You know exactly what you are.

About a year and a half ago, I figured I could insert the words “writer” and “scholar” in those lines, with twenty years of my career(s) for context, and maybe some of the meaning would be correct. I am a writer’s version of Michael Clayton. I’ve got academicians thinking I’m a unscholarly writer, and journalists and editors who think I’ve only written for scholarly audiences. What a mess!

Last year, after receiving a rejection for a version of my article about American narcissism, American racism, and why real conversations on race (whether through Clinton’s Race Initiative or via Ferguson) are all but impossible, I decided no more. I will not seek to submit another scholarly piece to a peer-reviewed scholarly journal ever again. And if asked, unless it’s something I truly feel passionate about, I will say no.

Do not think of this as sour grapes. I have published two full-length journal articles in my career, not to mention a bunch of the standard book reviews, and an op-ed for Teachers College Record in the past. Technically, I am 3-for-11 in publishing academic articles over the past two decades, not great, but hardly abysmal.

My issue is with the elitism and implicit bias that is rampant in the publish-or-perish world of academia. While some folks could argue it is the same in publishing in general, it really isn’t. The unwritten rules in publishing, if not followed, may well still lead to published articles, even if a person is starving and homeless in between. In academic publishing, not following the rules leads to ostracism, and a career dead before it ever begins.

Keep in mind, no scholarly journal pays authors for their articles. It takes about two years to go from submission to publication in most history and education journals. If twenty people read your article, that’s icing on a protein-powder cake. If you aren’t in the tenure-stream, though, it really doesn’t matter how many articles you publish, because it doesn’t provide job stability or security. As a former nonprofit administrator, it scared most of my supervisors whenever and wherever I published, so no benefits there either. For those in tenure-stream positions, it does matter, no matter how crappy the research or how densely unreadable the writing.

After twenty years in the publishing struggle, it’s time to face the truth. I simply wasn’t good enough to publish in academic journals. I’m not talking about my writing ability or research skills. I’m pointing out my eclectic career path, my lack of tenure at an elite university, with few to vouch for me when I was younger and an up-and-comer. My interdisciplinary research on race, on multiculturalism, on education, meant that I was a misfit from day one. Heck, I know for sure in at least one case, a journal editor held my race and age against me.

Sinai Desert, where Moses, the Israelites (and I) wandered for a generation, Egypt, March 9, 2010. (Tommy from Arad via Wikipedia). Released to public domain via CC-BY-SA 2.0.

I know most of the academic writing rat-race is a system of exploitation based in part on fears of joblessness, loss of prestige, and elitism based on class, race, gender, and whether one teaches at an elite university or at a community college. It is based on an academician’s ability to blame themselves and themselves alone for their failings, and not the oppressive publishing system itself. Kind of like the poor blaming themselves for their poverty. Or Whites and Blacks blaming other Blacks for a degenerative culture instead of looking at systemic racism as the real culprit for racial inequality. Academia is very much in and of this wider world of social injustice and oppression, no matter how university presidents attempt to spin it.

Truly, I find the idea of a cold, objective, dispassionate, dense writing style as more serious and scholarly than any other form to be high-grade bullshit. It’s what folks in academia tell each other. Just like many a journalist and editor is a frustrated writer looking for creative and book manuscript-length outlets, many a writer in academia believes their writing (and as often as not, their research) to be much more than it is.

But the biggest issue for me was my elitist and naive attempt to straddle the fence between academic publishing and writing for wider audiences. This living in two worlds began for me during my heady days, my grad school years at both the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon. Some of my history professors, like Paula Baker, Kate Lynch, and Joe Trotter, all tried with a considerable amount of frustration to get me to write in more scholarly tones. Others seemed to be fine with my writing style. I had a tone that was too “journalistic,” according to my racial paternalistic professor Dan Resnick, who meant it as an insult.

Between 1997 and 2002, I churned out eight full-length pieces (in the 20-35-page-range) on multiculturalism and Black education/history meant for peer-reviewed scholarly journals, four of them between February and December 1997 alone. None of them were ever published. One, an admittedly ambitious state-of-the-subfield piece on multicultural education and its history in American education, elicited a response from the History of Education Quarterly’s editor-in-chief. He was my one-time professor during my first year of graduate school at Pitt, Dick Altenbaugh. Him and his managing editor met with me for nearly an hour and a half in March 1998.

Some of the meeting was about the deficiencies in my article and in my argument. But most of the time was about my writing style, my ambitiousness, and quite frankly, my age and race. I wrote about some of this in Fear of a “Black” America. Apparently, at twenty-eight, I needed to be in my mid-40s to write a grand essay on multicultural education. Allegedly, I needed long-retired (and in one case, dying) White scholars to support my arguments, no matter what evidence I brought to bear. I needed, most of all, to stop being so ambitious about my work, and stick to more objective, run-of-mill, 181-variations-on-a-theme topics in the education field. Like what Karl Marx or John Dewey would have to say about ability grouping.

I gave up on academic publishing in 2002, at least on the topic of Black education/history and multiculturalism. I tried to write articles on everything from social justice movements to the fallacies of the liberal-conservative construct, on education, poverty and mythology of American social mobility, even on intersectionality. Only, I had worked so hard to make myself more of a scholarly writer. So much so that I now had to relearn how to write for more than fifteen people, and really, to write for myself. It took about a year to drop the 40, 50, and 60-word compound sentences, the use of inappropriately complex language, and the mask of dispassionate objectivity in my writing. Ironically, this was also when I published my first scholarly piece, on multicultural conservatism and Derrick Bell’s “Rules of Racial Standing,” in 2003. I also published my first solo op-ed, in the Washington Post, around the same time.

By this time, I saw myself as a recovering academic. I also had some unfinished personal business, around how I got to my mid-thirties, to this place in my life where I had “made it,” sort of, but I hadn’t escaped my past. This was where the story of Boy @ The Window took over, and why I have a memoir and nearly ten years of blog posts.

But because of my nonprofit work on college access and retention, two professors invited me and my team to submit a piece for publication in their journal. It was a four-person piece with me as the primary author (I wrote about 90 percent of it, so there’s that). The original invite was in June 2007, and the article came out in mid-October 2009. I had stopped working for the Academy for Educational Development, and found writing the article like a strait-jacket and a time-gobbler.

Michael Clayton (George Clooney) and a horse, a moment of truth, screen shot and crop, 2007. (http://chud.com).

After Boy @ The Window in 2013, I decided to write articles for a broader audience again. This time, I made the decision to take my memoir-writing experiences and apply them to my writing. I started writing about K-12 and corporate education reform, the problems in higher education, about racism in the Obama era, about poverty and its connections to race, gender, and current issues. And over the past two years, I’ve published more and reached more people than I could ever have done with an award-winning article in the Journal of American History.

So academia, you win. I give up.