Many of us describe ourselves as our jobs. We don’t say “I work as a baker,” but instead “I am a baker.” Or “I am an accountant/engineer/police officer/cook.” There is a lot of “is” in our work. It’s part of the modern construction of identity, a construction quite pronounced in the United States.

Cultures are different, and in some parts of the world people don’t talk as much about their work or define themselves as much by it. It doesn’t mean they don’t place value on it. One scenario: countries used to economic volatility, where many highly-qualified people don’t work in their field. I met PhDs in Cuba who guided tourists or sold cigars at the marketplace. They didn’t seem to define themselves by the work they did as much by their regional and national identity, their family structure, their travels (many had studied in communist countries around the world based on Cold War-era alliances), and to a certain degree by their education. They shared a lot of wry smiles between themselves about the twists and turns of fate. I found another ethos in France, where occupation is one way of describing yourself, but people put a lot of emphasis on aesthetics, personal politics, and community. Parisians claim their arrondissements as fiercely as New Yorkers claim their own neighborhoods.

Americans work longer hours than people in most industrialized nations, including Japan. Until this recent economic adjustment, a lot of people also preached various (religious, political and secular) varieties of prosperity gospels that implied, if not stated, that you were literally a better person if you earned more money. (Folks still preach that, but I suspect some of the believers are questioning the message or at least the narrowness/judgment with which some people delivered it.) Our current state of affairs begs the question: what happens to the “is”-ness of work when work no longer is? Or, at the very least, if it is no longer what it was?

Well, for some people, it brings denial. For others, grief. (See research cited in Don Peck’s recent article in the Atlantic showing that six months of joblessness delivers a psychic blow on par with a divorce.) Other experience freedom, even elation. Most of us have some mash-up of the above.

I’m certainly not immune to the lure of “is”-ness. For years I’ve defined myself as a journalist. I still am a journalist, but I have other things I do for joy, and for money. I try to mix joy and money, but sometimes work is just work.

I’ve learned to diversify my revenue streams more than at any time in my life. In 2009, I made money as a:
– novelist
– print journalist
– online journalist (text-based and video-based)
– radio host (staff and freelance)
– radio reporter/commentator
– digital media consultant
– speaker/lecturer (on topics of race and/or digital media, mainly; at venues including high schools, colleges, and businesses)

I don’t believe I made any money doing television in 2009, but I also did it as a guest and considered that “work”… more of an exposure/brand building type of work. I hired a lot of freelancers to help me execute various aspects of what I do, so in some ways I am helping keep our economy afloat.

I realize my position isn’t typical. Over the years, I made decisions, some of them well-thought out and others by luck and inspiration, that allow me to work as a freelancer. What I miss the most while freelancing is the social nature of work, so for that reason (and healthcare!) I’m planning to move in a more structured direction in 2010.

But this period of dis-engagement from a traditional job-based identity has been really amazing. It’s allowed me to move in a more entrepreneurial direction, and to realize that I desire certain things from work that not everyone needs. For example, in addition to paying the bills, I desire work that’s creative, builds community, and has elements of experimentation and playfulness. That kind of personal evaluation of the different roles work plays in my life is something I couldn’t have done when I was working in a traditional full-time job. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. And that was okay, at that time. This time of evaluation is perfect for what I need right now.

As I look around at my friends and colleagues, and at the country as a whole, I see a lot of people who are figuring out the difference between who they are and what they do. I think it’s really important to see yourself as someone who is, just purely is, without making your identity wholly dependent on whatever you do for money. It’s critical to take an audit of your skills and an audit of the job marketplace, and to realize that what you’ve done in the past is not necessarily what you will do or should do in the future. If you’ve been volunteering as a counselor at your church or organizing field trips at your child’s school, you have skills. If you’ve been running a family, you have skills. If you’ve been learning how to navigate social media for fun… well, there’s money in that too. I’m not trying to preach a neo-prosperity gospel that says there’s a job just around the corner. Sometimes you have to walk a few miles in the cold to reach that job. But it’s there. You can find it, or you can make it. And when you find it, or make it… you’ll still be you, not just your job.

A recent Republican National Committee fundraising document obtained by Politico blogger/reporter Ben Smith reveals a couple things.

1) The Republican Party doesn’t seem to respect its own donor base, calling them “ego driven” and able to be lured by “tschotches” or swag.

2) The Republican Party also seems comfortable with using childish graphics like the one above in an official presentation.

But while the Republicans are selling the idea of the Democrats as the Evil Empire, some traditional Democratic constituencies wish the party had the cojones of Storm Troopers. For example, The Hill starts an article on the latest jockeying over healthcare reform this way:

President Barack Obama will be more assertive with Congress after disappointing members in his first year with mixed signals during the healthcare debate, Democrats say.
Obama made a crucial mistake not rallying the party behind a detailed healthcare reform proposal earlier in the debate, Democrats in both chambers broadly acknowledge.

The Democrats still have a majority in Congress. We’ll see if and how they use it… which will then affect if and how the Republican Party can attack.

A new memoir by former Presidential candidate and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney includes this zinger:

The multiculturalism movement must be unmasked for the fraud it is. There are superior cultures, and ours is one of them.

Part of me wants to go oh, sigh, but another part figures if a man who actually got a decent number of votes in the Presidential Primaries wants to stake his claim on bashing multiculturalism, it’s worth a short reply.

Unlike European nations, America was never all-white, never monocultural. (European cultures are actually historically quite mixed among themselves… the Irish ending up in Spain and the Romans in Ireland, etc….but until recently less historically multi-racial.) So, it’s impossible to talk about America without talking about a multi-cultural America. You can ignore it. You can ignore the fact that the decision to institutionalize slavery provoked a Constitutional crisis, a war, and a slew of amendments. You can ignore the history of warfare against Native American tribes; the Chinese Exclusion Act; Bracero programs; and internment camps for Japanese Americans.

To the extent that we have clarified some of our positions on human rights in this country, it is often as a result of the crucible of multiculturalism. We are better off for having struggled… struggled with our own identity. It’s a Census year. We’ll get new numbers soon, but the current Census figures show a nation that is a third Latino and non-white; two-thirds non-Hispanic white. By the year 2042, according to the Census, America will have no racial/ethnic majority.

So, you can invent the past… a past where only white people did things, and where our Constitution did not have to evolve in order to embrace the humanity of all Americans. You can invent a future where multiculturalism is an enemy. But then, you’d be living in a world of your own invention… a lonely, colorless place indeed.

• Joyce Carol Oates (Don’t try to anticipate an “ideal reader” – there may be one, but he/she is reading someone else.)
• Will Self (Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.)
• & Zadie Smith (Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.)

The number one thing most of these folks say to do is to write… to be faithful to your craft, to be disciplined, to keep going even when it seems impossible.

Cheers to that.

It’s a line from China Mieville’s speculative fiction novel The Scar, but it could easily describe today’s politics.

President Obama has been described as a socialist and tool of banks and big business; a “racist…who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture” and someone who “hasn’t done much for their [i.e., African-Americans'] bottom line” because “so-called black leaders are much more interested in invitations to the White House…than in raising any kind of ruckus that might benefit people in real trouble.

Underlying much of the recent rhetoric is the race issue…yeah, that one, the one the President doesn’t seem to want to talk about. Some of the President’s opponents have not only asserted that he is a “racist,” but even proclaimed, ludicrously but persistently, that he is not an American citizen. (Others have brought guns to Presidential rallies, something worth mentioning only to banish the obvious thought.) In the State of the Union, the President was happy to talk about jobs (23 mentions), the economy (15 mentions), and energy (15 mentions). He did not utter the words “race,” or “racial,” and the only time he mentioned the word “Black” was in the phrase “Black Tuesday,” referring to the stock market crash of 1929.

In the Presidential race of 2008, President Obama did not truly address race head-on until the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy forced his hand… and then he delivered what is widely considered to be a brilliant, landmark speech. There has not been a corresponding moment yet in this Presidency. If there is one, it might (might) come if African-Americans urge the President to be accountable on economic equality. There has been one White House meeting on race, during the white-out of the Washington “snowpocalypse.” The players for the off-the-record event were the President, Ben Jealous of the NAACP, Marc Morial of the National Urban League, and Reverend Al Sharpton of the National Action Network. (Ninety-seven year old Dorothy Height of the National Council of Negro Women couldn’t make it because of the precipitation.)

The three invitees who were able to pass the clotted roads came out of the White House and faced the press (with, between them, one umbrella and one hat for shelter) and delivered soundbites as the snowflakes turned their dark garments pale. The event vibrated with the unspoken. Rev. Sharpton said: “We do not seek any special kind of edict … from the president because he’s African-American. We expect to be included in the process.” Yet among many African-American political junkies, the conversation was: why were these three organizations deemed to be the messengers representing black interests in the economy? Why not invite some black economists, for one? Economist Dr. Julianne Malveaux, the President of Bennett College, has been writing a series of columns deconstructing the truth behind the unemployment numbers. As she writes, having done some data analysis of the Labor Department’s own figures:

Our unemployment rate is not 9.7 percent, as the overall rate is. It is not the 16.7 percent that is officially reported. According to my own calculations, the black unemployment rate is at least 28.7 percent. Would such a rate be acceptable if “all” Americans were experiencing it?

That brings us to the Black President Trap, the one which has been lying, with serrated teeth, under the brush since before the President was elected. On the one hand, if the President is seen as appealing to African-American interests, he risks alienating white (and non-white, non-black) voters. On the other hand, if he fails to deal with the economic realities of African-Americans, he could set the stage for buyer’s remorse that prompts some people to sit out voting in the next Presidential election.

Let’s go back to the 2008 election and look at the numbers. The popular vote does not determine the Presidency, but it gives us one good metric of voting patterns. So, in 2008, then-Senator Obama got 69.5 million votes; Senator McCain 59.9 million votes. The electoral vote tally was 365 to 173.

What’s interesting is who voted in 2008 versus 2004. As the report by Project Vote put it:

Americans of color in 2008 increased by 21 percent from 2004, based on a review of exit polling and preliminary administrative data. Votes cast by Americans ages 18-29 increased by 9 percent. Votes cast by whites in 2008 declined slightly compared to 2004.

Far more African-Americans voted in this election (16.4 million) than the overall margin of victory (9.6 million)… closer than not to a two-to-one ratio. An estimated ninety-six percent of those black voters voted for Obama. A dispirited African-American electorate could seriously mess a black President’s re-election bid up.

When former Vice President Dick Cheney chortles that “President Obama is going to be a one-term President,” the first scenario that comes to my mind that could achieve that is an absence of black voters at the polls in 2012. Given the lack of credibility of the modern Republican Party in addressing African-American interests or speaking, tonally, to African-American sensibilities (and I think here of the delegates at the 1996 RNC booing General Colin Powell when he dared bring up affirmative action), I cannot envision widespread voting against President Obama if, as anticipated, he runs for re-election. I say “I cannot envision” because things regularly happen in politics that I cannot envision.

What I can envision is an America where, after years of persistent unemployment and a degradation of the quality of life in African-American communities, a lot of potential black voters in 2012 just stay home. Black voters staying home plus an uptick in non-black Americans voting Republican could produce a one-term presidency.

So, what to do? Well, the only defense against an impossible barrage of attacks from different vectors is to attack from different vectors. But the Obama administration has been caught in triage mode, trying to stanch the bleeding from wars and the economy and proposing but not yet executing new initiatives like healthcare. The administration needs to simultaneously act broadly, yet with a clarity of ethics and purpose.

Well, as my one of my friends likes to remind me, blogs are not books. So my next piece will tackle how to spring the “Black President Trap” without getting caught in it…

The list, in this case, was the Library of Congress’ 2009 list of films to be preserved, in its words, “for all time.” Only 25 films a year get this treatment via the National Film Preservation Act. 2009’s list included Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video, the original Muppet Movie, and Al Pacino starrer “Dog Day Afternoon.” Oh… there were two student films included in the list, and one of them was “Scratch and Crow, produced in 1995 by Helen Hill during her graduate studies at Cal Arts. (Image below.)

The Library of Congress calls “Scratch and Crow” “a poetic and spiritual homage to animals and the human soul.” They also note, “Consistent with the short films she made from age 11 until her death at 36, this animated short work is filled with vivid color and a light sense of humor.”

Helen Hill was shot to death three years ago in New Orleans, in her own home, while her husband Paul Galaiunas shielded their son with his body and sustained three gunshots himself. Their child was unhurt.

I went to college with Helen and Paul, who were fast in love by the time I graduated during their sophomore year. Although we did not stay in personal touch, when I heard about her death, it hurt me on many levels. Helen died while living in and loving the city of New Orleans with a passion. Paul — or Dr. Paul to many in their neighborhood — was an MD. Before Katrina, he ran The Little Doctor’s Neighbourhood Clinic, which provided free/sliding-scale care to local people. After Katrina, the clinic was shuttered and their home also damaged. Helen was so convinced they had to move back that she got her friends to help convince Paul. So the family did, and Paul went back to treating low-income patients at the Doctors of Charity clinic. Then, on January 4, 2007, at 5am, a man who had tried to break into a neighbor’s house fled police, entered Helen and Paul’s home, killed her, wounded him, and reinforced the fears of neighbors that crime would kill the life of the city where the waters didn’t succeed.

I asked Streible what made Helen’s films special. He said:

Helen Hill’s animated films bring together the inventiveness of “experimental” work and the accessibility of cartoons. Her films are also imbued with a spiritual quality that is rare in any art form. SCRATCH AND CROW, for all of its comic touches is also about birth, death, and resurrection. MOUSEHOLES, regarded as her masterpiece, is a moving autobiographical tale about her grandfather’s death, with his passing into heaven rendered from a childlike point of view. Helen’s low-budget philosophy of filmmaking helped convey the sincerity of the work. Helen’s films create a utopian view of the world, of people, of the possibilities of a better future.

Asked what made Helen special, Streible wrote:

Everyone who ever met her tended to later say something like “She was the best person I ever met.” She had an irrepressible and contagious cheerfulness. That cheer got expressed in her films, but also in the actions of her daily life. Whether it was writing handmade postcards to friends every single day or opening her home to neighborhood kids, her actions always conveyed love.

I couldn’t agree more. At a time when I, like so many of my college friends, was into goth music and self-enforced melancholy, Helen was stubbornly sunny in a way that was wise, guileless, and deeply spiritual. Helen reminds me, in some ways, of my grandmother, who has also passed. Both women had a boddhisattva-level commitment to living for and with others, and living with joy and humor.

So today, as the city of New Orleans continues to heal (and revels in both its Super Bowl victory and Mardi Gras), I salute Helen and the city she loved.

Streible told me that her husband Paul, another compassionate soul, is helping to finish her final film.

Today I let intuition lead me on a walk through downtown New York. After a story meeting, I went through SoHo to Chinatown and saw a $5 lunch buffet that actually had a lot of salads and healthy options. It was a pay first, tray later situation… by the time I got my tray, all the tables were occupied. I asked a man if I could share his table. He turned out to be a writer who read to me from his manuscript, and the voice and tone of the narrator were pitch perfect.

Call lunch a win for both willpower and the written word. But then, temptation… I love Chinese baked goods, but I’m trying to eat less white-flour goodies. But I had a really strong urge to get some, and, knowing myself, if I fight an urge too strongly, I usually end up eating way too much of something else I don’t even like. So I went into a bakery and bought four buns… four! Ridiculous, right? Well, I don’t know why I did it. But I just went with the flow.

Then I started north on the Bowery. I saw an impressive, graffitied building that I’d passed countless times but really noticed today, in part because two gentlemen were sitting on its steps. I took a snap from across the street to Twitpic, but it really wasn’t the right angle. So I went a little closer, and decided it was polite to ask permission.

“Can I take a picture?” I said.

“Sure, if I can play,” the man on the left said.

“Play what?”

“The flute.”

So he played, and I listened. First he unlatched his case and took the flute from its swaddling of blue velvet, and assembled the pieces. The tone of the instrument was a bit scratchy, the contrast of which underscored the longing sweetness of the song. I took the three pictures at the top of this blog post. I offered the bag of buns to the gentlemen. They received them. I thanked them for the gift of time.

My morning started by listening to an audiobook about intuition. I had a hunch the city would offer gifts today. The reality is: life offers gifts every single day. Some days, I’m just better at receiving them than others.

A pivot-point of the Oscar-nominated film “Up In the Air” is the line “Life is better with company.” What living in a city can teach you is how to live with the company of strangers. Moments of genuine connection with individuals you may never see again can be the joy of a day instead of the grit in the greens.

I ended the day in a bistro with friends as a musician played and snow flurries drifted past the window. The proprietor unexpectedly proffered flutes of champagne. It was a little more Carrie Bradshaw than the earlier part of my day, but both parts were sweet, and gifts, and welcomed.

“Finding the Value of Home in a Homeless Shelter”

“A Repeat Felon Chooses a Straight Life”

The next piece will be very different — about a family that built its own boat and circumnavigated the globe. That’s what I love about this series. The Value is about making decisions about how to navigate to success under tough circumstances, or to lead an extraordinary life without breaking the bank. And we’re always looking for ideas. When you have them, email me by going to the main page of the site and hitting “contact” on the top right… the emails come straight to me.