There Will Be No Miracles Here

It's happened again. Just when I was musing about how wonderful it was that we'd gone a few weeks without a story about police abusing a black body, as if that was something to feel triumphant about in our new reality that is the United States. https://wapo.st/2V24Sct When I read this article in this morning's Washington Post I knew that I had to write about Casey Gerald now, even though I haven't finished his memoir.

Unlike Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose righteous anger is red hot, Casey Gerald keeps his on simmer, but don't doubt for a second that it isn't bubbling under the surface. I had the pleasure of hearing Casey speak about his memoir last summer at Book Expo in New York City and I appreciated the manner in which he opened my eyes to the plight of black men in the Ivy League. I knew it, of course, I've heard Don's grandchildren speak in often harrowing terms about their experiences, one at Stanford, the other at Harvard. They taught me that no matter how high the achievement or how low the fall, people of color will never be fully appreciated or accepted in the halls of academe. Casey Gerald makes this fact visceral.

A queer, black boy growing up in a rough section of Dallas, Casey became a football star as well as a star student. Yale came calling and off he went to a

surreal place for a young man who'd never been east of the Mississippi. And why football when all he ever wanted was to be a writer, a poet? Well, because his dad, Roderick Gerald had been "the man" back at Ohio State in 1977, the one who cinched the Orange Bowl win for the Buckeyes. Soon all we hear about Roderick is that he became a drug addict, was in and out of jail, so people feel justified in opining, "see, these black me can't compete, they can't take it."

What you won't discover in Roderick's wiki page is that he had broken his spine during a previous Ohio State game but his coach salivated over that Orange Bowl win. He would do anything to get it. He plied Roderick with cocaine to keep him on fire and pretty soon, sure, he was addicted. So, when Casey breaks his hand in a game prior to the big Yale/Harvard matchup, the surgeon says operate now or you'll never write, but the coach says just tape him up, he'll make it, Casey follows in his dad's footsteps. Readers, you will cringe.

I listened to the audio of this memoir which is read by Casey himself. He's the perfect messenger, his voice as smooth and mellow as a glass of cognac. He never feels sorry for himself even though there's plenty that would have brought a lesser man down. If it weren't for his sister Tashia, he might not be where he is today. Casey is especially poignant when speaking of his first love affair, a long distance romance with a young man who always kept Casey at a distance until the power structure of the relationship changed with Casey off to the Ivies, and the mysterious Red back at home in Texas.

Gerald is beautifully introspective, his self-awareness is extraordinary. He references the literature of the Bible, James Baldwin, and W.E.B. duBois throughout, not to show off but because his natural erudition cannot be contained. When he describes the "American dream" each sentence drips sarcasm, or maybe it's irony. Reviewers have said that he turns the idea on its head. Does its attainment result in happiness, contentment? Or is it the white American dream that's been driven into the psyche of these impressionable black minds. We know that young men like Casey Gerald have all the tools necessary to reach the mountaintop. That MBA from Harvard says it all. The question is, do they really want to be there?