Here for It Or, How to Save Your Soul in America; Essays - R. Eric Thomas Page 0,6
it is hard to navigate. Who am I doing this for and do they want what I want?
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The Notes app is a blank slate that celebrities use to apologize publicly and which I use to shape the random asides in my brain into textual non sequiturs I hope to understand in the morning. On the night of the 2016 DNC, I write, “Michelle Obama is Usain Bolt–ing her way out of that White House,” referencing the intended effect of the First Lady’s powerful speech at the DNC hours earlier. You know the one. “I wake up every morning in a house built by slaves.” The one that I can’t even think about without automatically giving praise hands and letting out a low hum, church-style. The Declaration of Independence, remixed. That one.
I am lying awake filled with inspiration and a little bit of heartsickness and that good ole American low-level rage as I replay Mrs. Obama’s words, which convey both a fervent love for this country and a soul-shaking desire for it to be less terrible. And I am doing the thing that I do with things that I love, or am frustrated by, or don’t understand, or am infuriated by: I am making jokes.
Mrs. Obama is, rightfully I think, totally over the ugly presidential campaign and probably the presidency in general, but has been doing everything in her power to ensure that the next president is someone who will carry on her husband’s legacy of, at best, hope, and at worst, less terribleness. She has lip-synced for the country’s life and, hours later, I am still thinking about it. I will probably think about it forever. It feels, to me, consequential. Life-changing. Even though it is, ultimately, a campaign speech at a political pageant. It’s theater. The only way it could preach to the choir more is if there were an actual choir (suggestion for next time). And of course, it doesn’t end up winning her chosen candidate the election. So, what is the consequence, really? Or rather, who was she doing it for? I guess I believe she was doing it for me. For her. For the future.
In the moment, that’s enough. I don’t know if anyone is actually tracking the movement of the moral universe, but I’d wager that bend is a lot longer than any of us can bear. This is not to suggest that Dr. King’s famous quote is wrong. Rather, justice may be a lot farther than we think. I’m a Bend Truther.
And yet, we get out of bed, sometimes we give speeches, we have kids and/or dogs, we take those kid-dogs to Washington, DC, and we show them that place in stone where it says the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice as if that’s something they’ll see in their lifetime. Why? Hope. That’s the only thing I can come up with. We must all, even in some small way, be angling toward hope. And who am I to joke about that? Michelle Obama is trying to change the course of history and I’m making quips online. Who is this for? And what does it add?
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The comedic surprise I’m always trying to get to in the column is hope. A joke is built on a surprise. You might anticipate a punchline, you might see it coming from a mile away, but if you laugh it’s because there is some part of you that is surprised. I find that interesting because comedy is also made up of formulas. Jokes have structure and those structures have been in place for years. They’re probably hardwired into our brains or the way language is organized. The structures evolve and shift, of course, but the basic arithmetic of what makes us laugh remains the same. That’s the reason “Who’s On First?” still works and that’s the reason the latest meme works. That’s, really, the reason memes exist at all. Memes are open-source joke structure. A meme shows you how the joke works and then invites you to fill in your own details. Comedy on the internet, like everything else on the internet, can be democratic. But, because it’s comedy and because it’s the internet, it can also be a fucking trash fire.
My goal is not to add trash to the fire. I know it’s not a given, but I realized early on in the writing that the thing that interested me most was not punching down