Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream

... I was waiting for Mychal Denzel Smith to either reflect or credit De La Soul with the title. Yet, in Stakes Is High, Life After the American Dream, he makes the term his without diminishing it ... or relinquishing it.In 1996, De La said ..."A skin not equal ... A meteor has more right than my people."A few days earlier, Breonna's killers walked away, unscathed.In 2020, a wall has more right than black people.But I digress. Smith's role is "to write words and hope they land where they are useful." Stakes is High is not a clarion call however. It is, "at its core, a desperate plea for community ... to shake loose the dread."He knows he cannot do this alone.According to Smith, "where America has f'd up is by telling the myth as history - pretending that who we want to be is who we have always been - then building a proud and belligerent identity out of the myth.American myths obscure a shameful past and protect the powerful.""When you come from a mythologized place, as I do," Sarah Broom writes in her award winning memoir, The Yellow House, "who are you in that story?"Of the inevitability of Donald Trump, Smith writes that he "is the inevitable result of holding tight to the American Dream ... the end result of allowing the delusion about our history, of uninterrogated whiteness and masculinity, of making freedom synonymous with capitalist accumulation, of unearned arrogance and untethered individual ambition."All the things that create American culture, whether they are acknowledged or not.Nevertheless, Smith doesn't want to leave the reader with a doomed outlook. He wants you to regain a sense of possibility.But he also reminds us of A Tribe Called Quest's last album, and the first track, "The Space Program," which goes "There ain't a space program for n-words, yeah, you stuck here, n-word."Smith concludes "No one ever said it would be simple, only that it is possible."... you know them stakes is high.You stuck here, n-word.

This young man has a talent for hitting home on some of the important issues our country struggles with today. Race and poverty are looked at through a clever and thought-provoking lens, and I found myself having to ask some uncomfortable but necessary questions about my own biases. I learned that I have a lot to learn. I highly recommend this book.

This was a page turner for me. It was well written and explained the myth of the American Dream. This book was written with honesty and compassion. I am looking forward to reading his future works.

The stakes are indeed high! And time is running short. Mychal Denzel Smith is writing herewith a sense of urgency. “There is a future that is not as grim as our past. But it is a future that depends on a bravery this country has never exhibited. It requires excess honesty and a radical retelling of who America has been. It will mean letting go of our myths and fashioning new selves based around principles we have thus far found difficult to live up to. We will have to relinquish old dreams and replace them with ones that meet the challenges we now face. We will have to do it quickly.” After this quote from the forethought, Mr. Smith takes us through four parts; Delusions, Justice, Accountability, and Freedom. Each part is essentially an extended essay written in searing prose that is intended to singe the consciousness. If America is to survive as a civilized democracy, then change must happen yesterday according to Mr. Smith. Stop with the myth making! Abolish the police! I’m sure he’s in for major pushback on that one. But hear him out on what that could look like. The statement itself, without context sounds incendiary, but that is of course why one reads, to gain a deeper understanding, right?So, all in all, Mr. Smith is challenging “Americans” to decide what kind of country you want to live in. There is no soft shoe, it’s tough love and digestion of these challenges may be tough for most, but you will be a more informed person for sure, from having read Mr. Smith’s ideas. Go get it!