a few moments from court today….

I think that’s a pretty nice story.

And part of me thinks the message of that story is so straight-forward that all we REALLY need to do is tell people that story.

But 20 years of experience on the internet tells me that re-telling that story will make absolutely no difference to the judge, or the hard-working, “self-made,” white male voters. It’s hopeless. All we have is the possibility of eventually turning enough people out to vote that we just make things work better.

I have a story. Not about me. I have heard stories like this my whole life. It sorta fits here.

Melissa was a tough kid with a heavy accent from poor rural New Hampshire. She called herself New Hampshire trailer trash. Her father was a philandering alcoholic truck driver and her mother was bipolar. She dropped out of school when she could and started working to support herself and her mom. Various jobs and she excelled at all of them. Eventually she drifted into zookeeping and was good at it. One of my best friends, a guy I have known since 4th grade, dropped out of high school to become a zoo keeper and recently retired after being in charge of the elephants at the Columbus, Ohio zoo, which is a prestigious one. He told me that zookeepers are a distinct subculture. Melissa fit that. But she had dreams of “making it.” So she lost her accent and put on a fake New England general accent, got a GED, went to college part-time, then got into law school. Top 10 in her class with high visibility, bourgeois name-brand internships, published in her second year.

Before she finished law school she was up for a Federal judge internship. For those who know law, that is just short of a Supreme Court internship. Turns out she got down to 1 of 2 finalists. And did not get it. That’s okay, but then her advisor in law school did what you never do—she told M. why she didn’t get it.

The judge said that both candidates were very deserving but that in the end, he picked the other because he could never understand why someone would choose the path of getting a GED instead of completing school.

The instant I heard that, I knew immediately that that judge had lived an entitled life that kept him in insulated circles and he knew absolutely nothing about life outside those gated confines. I mean I know people who got GEDs and I know why and I see it as a sign of character to fight back into the credential market that way. NO ONE I know anyway got a GED because they “make bad choices.” Everyone I know who has gotten a GED did it because they didn’t HAVE many choices.

M. heard this and was bitter. She got a very well-healed corporate law job in a Washington DC law firm so well known there is a book about it—and there’s a book about it without it ever having done anything scandalous or wrong. It was just such a well regarded top corporate firm that there was enough interest in it to generate a book.

M. has told me stories about working there. Mostly she just does well–she has been listed among the top lawyers in her particular sub-field in the country. But some of the stories reflect her outsider, alienated status. One thing she has said a few times is how often colleagues tell her that she is proof anyone can make it. She says that every time she hears that, she is superficially polite, but actually inwardly thinks “you entitled bastard.” (Her words.) Because she worked out there from 16 to 30 and she knows how many could NOT make it, because the obstacles are too hard and too many. She doesn’t mean an alcoholic father–that was his problem. But she has friends all over the place who struggled to just reach middle class normal with so much in their way. And to her, all the people telling her that she is proof anyone can make it are just demonstrating their own blindness to what it means to grow up poor. I say, tell them, and she says, they have no idea and they cannot hear it. I would just be making them uncomfortable and they can’t hear it because they don’t have the inner wiring to hear it.

I almost thought it was you in the orange jumpsuit. Then I realized you were a lawyer. I wonder if we need a lawyer, if you give us a discount? Just wondering.