It’s not like it’s so different other places. All politics is local, you know that saying? Anyway, people fight because the stakes are so low. If you had a proper city, you know, a working city, where landlords didn’t just walk away from whole blocks at a time, and the government wasn’t always going around declaring X property derelict and Y property uninhabitable—
You’re saying if people actually wanted to live here.
If people wanted to use the existing housing stock, and not knock everything down and build another ridiculous condo, or fill in the harbor so they can get a better view of the Domino’s sign—
If we had a taxable tax base, and not fifty percent of cash flow in the city in the underground economy—
If the government actually gave a shit, instead of just putting up Empowerment Zone this and School of Excellence that—
Well, I guess that about sums it up, Marshall says. Y’all can go home now. I’ll just sit down and make sure Kelly here gets all that down on paper. Ninety-five theses on the future of Baltimore.
That’s just boring as shit. No way The New Yorker’sgoing to print that. Am I right?
I don’t know what they’ll print, I say. I’ll just write what I hear, and they can sort it out, one way or another.
That’s a polite answer, Marshall says, but not a very convincing one. You’re saying you don’t have a slant?
Not this early in the game.
Well, you must have pitched them something.
I wanted to write about black entrepreneurs, I say, because most people don’t know they exist. The culture doesn’t seem to allow for them.
Which culture do you mean?
Mainstream culture.
Right, but that’s a tricky concept, isn’t it? Because you’re not just talking about numbers. Believe me. The numbers are on my side. People watch sports, the local news, maybe some talk radio, Rush, Howard Stern—
Tom Joyner, Paul says.
— but that’s not what you’re talking about. Even if you’re being as broad as possible, you’re still talking about the thinking person’s news.
What you saying, Lee says, cracking a smile, black people don’t think?
You’re talking about a minority to begin with, Paul continues, the people who think anything about black entrepreneurs, who even know for sure what the word entrepreneurs means.
Yeah, Marshall says, but it’s a powerful minority.
No doubt, Paul says. And that’s what The New Yorker is all about. Talking to the five percent of the population that makes decisions.
My dad read The New Yorker,Lee says. Every week. Read it in the library. Then later my mom started bringing it home from one of the houses she cleaned. We had a stack of them in the bathroom. It all started with the guy who wrote about Arthur Ashe, what was his name, McPhee? My dad loved that book about Arthur Ashe. Even made me read it.
It’s the exception that proves the rule.
No, Marshall says, it’s not that simple, Paul. In a democracy, in an open society, anyone can have an intellectual life. We forget that. Yeah, it doesn’t show up in the Nielsen ratings. Those people don’t do Nielsen ratings. They’re not in the focus groups. You know, when I was a kid, when they started busing over on Greenmount, every day I was the first one at the bus stop, and this white lady bus driver — I’m talking about six-thirty in the morning — would be sitting there drinking her coffee and reading Das Kapital. I’m not kidding. I never forgot it.
So is that like Huey P. Newton reading The Republic or what? Knowledge is power? Paul chortles, leans back in his padded chair, and nods gravely as the waitress sets an egg-salad sandwich in front of him. Listen, he says, biting the tip off his dill spear, I got a new one for you. Power is power, knowledge is, what do they call it? Edutainment.
Tell that to the kids at Dunbar.
No, Paul says, but look, I’m serious. You can talk all you want about the intellectual life, and you’re damn right, there’s thinking people everywhere, in every walk, but The New Yorker, I mean, pick it up, it’s like reading Playboy for the interviews, only in reverse, because the thing about The New Yorker is that the ads are the porn. You know those little tiny ads they have, like, for the desk that’s hand-carved by Shakers in Wisconsin, and costs five thousand dollars? It’s a lifestyle magazine for people who think they’re too good for a lifestyle magazine. That’s some subtle shit right there, but it’s the truth.
So what’s he supposed to do? Marshall asks. Write for USA Today? You think they print fifteen-thousand-word articles about the black middle class?
Kelly, Paul says, you know I’m not casting no aspersions, right? I’m just telling it like it is. We’re all in some kind of business. Shit, no, I think this article’s a great idea, it’s just, you know, don’t expect people to line up and start singing “Kumbaya.”
They’re waiting for me to say something: there’s a pocket of silence over the table, the vacuum of a conversation bubble popping, the lid lifted off a foaming pot. Martin, who’s said nothing, busies himself with dressing his chicken Caesar, adding extra pepper, flicking a stray crouton off the tablecloth.
I wish I’d brought my tape recorder, I say, lamely. This is all excellent. This is exactly what I was hoping for. An honest conversation.
Just quote me off the record, Lee says. Please. I mean it. I don’t need any more flak from Weinblatt — that’s my DA. Anyway, I’m not authorized. You’ve got to put an official in the district attorney’s office speaking on background. Don’t even call me an ADA, or he’ll start doing process of elimination.
Likewise for me, Paul says. I mean, you can use my name, just don’t put ESPN in there anywhere. They’ve got special search engines that find that stuff. If my name’s next to ESPN, I’m a company spokesperson. Which would mean my ass, in this case.
You see, Kelly, Marshall says, this is what you’re going to get. No offense, people, but look at us, right, prominent pillars of the community and whatnot, and we still don’t want to be identified as what we are. Successful Black People. You know what my coach at City College used to say? A black man goes downtown and buys a suit at Jos. A. Bank, and you know what it comes with? A bull’s-eye on the back.
Marshall, Martin says, finally, and every head turns to look at him. Marshall, he says, again, with a little dip of emphasis, let’s not do this.
Do what?
The whole victim thing.
I’m not, Marshall says. I’m making a factual observation. Read the statistics if you don’t believe me. Psychologically, black people are less likely to feel secure. Financially, black people are less likely to feel secure. Sociologically—
What I’m saying here is, let’s take that as understood, okay? Let’s treat that as the background. That’s what Kelly’s trying to do here.
Marshall laughs, an unexpectedly shrill, reedy laugh. I don’t know, he says, are we there yet? Can we really treat that as background? What, because of Obama?
No. Not because of Obama. Because it’s a much bigger world than it used to be. Because we have so much more power, globally, than we think we do.
This is what you’re going to hear from him, Lee says to me. Blackness as a brand. As a strategy. I think that shit is stark crazy, but what do I know? I’m just a lawyer.