Public Service Announcement: I Am The Man That I Hoped I Would Be When I Was A Child.
“Fellow Americans, it is with the utmost pride and sincerity
That I present this recording, as a living testament and recollection of history in the makin’ durin’ our generation” — Public Service Announcement: by Jay-Z
When I was a child, I was indoctrinated with the the whitewashed feats of MLK. Narratives that censored his revolutionary love and avoided the existence of his “Beloved Community.” We were only provided with a impotent rendering of this mighty man, in order to trap us in “The Dream.” Even still, I was inspired by this well-dressed and slightly portly black man who was marching for justice. He bravely strode towards police, fully aware that these white policemen were going to pummel him and his supporters with clubs, boots, and fists. He waded towards snarling canines, whose handlers were curious about what their trained police dogs would do to human flesh, after they gave the order to attack these harbingers of equality. Contrary to my primal directive for self-preservation, I knew I would have marched-shoulder-to-shoulder with him and others who believed in the promise of America. Undeterred by my parents’ reasonable concerns for my safety and my prospects for a better future than theirs, I would have risked incarceration, police brutality, and even death to usher in a future worthy of my daughter. I would have marched, that is what I told myself all of these years.
When it was our time to read the Diary of Anne Frank in elementary school, I knew I would have hidden her family, because it was the moral thing to do. Even then I was aware of unjust laws that are enacted to humiliate and degrade individuals, should not be followed. Laws that are devoid of justice and compassion do not deserve our adherence or respect. The laws that dominated Europe in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s (and the laws that have defaced America) were enacted to establish and maintain white supremacy. As a third-grader I knew the laws that were inflicted upon the Jews and nonwhites of Europe were not inspired by God or divine providence, but were the progeny of contemptable, callous, cowards and must be resisted. I would have hidden this girl and her family, cognizant that the penalty for such an act was immediate execution. I was willing to pay the price. When I was 19 I got to visit the room where her family was concealed. It was tiny, suffocating almost. This opportunity to witness the confines of Anne’s temporary sanctuary, reinforced that my 8-year-old self was correct: I would have hidden her and her family.
I would never have been a slaveowner. I rather starve to death than participate in such an abhorrent and morally bankrupt vocation. To own slaves is your central identity then and now. I recognize, that owning slaves was an aspirational goal. Owning slaves meant that you owned land and thus, you were wealthy and able to vote. Owning slaves meant you were white, and had all of the privileges and protections that whiteness bestowed. When I think of slaveowners my sense of smell is overwhelmed by a putrid and fetid odor of rotting human flesh that envelops all that it comes in contact with. Anything in its vicinity is spoiled by this noxious blanket of foulness. The slaver would rape, in some cases their own child, in order to satiate their overriding compulsion that was powered by lust and greed. Their lechery was quenched only by defiling the bodies of black girls and women. This sexual/power gratification for the slaver also had the benefit of producing more black bodies that could be sold for profit or raised for production. Chattel slavery was evil. It was evil then and the slavers knew it, and it is evil now. There is no way that I would introduce my soul to eternal damnation for transitory wealth. I would have been an abolitionist. I would have hidden runaway slaves. I would have contributed financially or with my pen or my voice, most likely a combination of all three. I knew slavery was wrong as a child. Perhaps, this belief was informed by being the American Descendant of Slaves, but the repugnance of the stench of the American chattel slavery industry clogs all justification for participating in such a financially lucrative but spiritually damning artifice.
Growing up I knew what type of man I believed I would be. However, life sets in. Getting a job. Earning a living. Finding the love of your life. Having a family and raising children, sometimes sends people onto the path of least resistance.
Accordingly, I silently endured the whitelash against Obama’s presidency. As white people slowly lost their mind as they witnessed the decoupling of whiteness and its value. Obama’s accession, in their eyes, meant the decline of whiteness. Unremarkable, unaccomplished, and uninspiring lives were the context that many white people begrudgingly watched this black man surmount impediments that were supposed to be unscalable by a black man. Obama surpassed everything that the world believed was achievable by a man with his skin color. Obama contradicted what we all had been taught: implicitly through portrayals of black men in cinema and on the news, and explicitly through years of pulverizing oppression. White Americans had seen the value of their homes plummet. They had watched their 401Ks nose dive. Now Obama was the physical manifestation of the depletion of the utility of their last viable asset: whiteness. Every accolade he collected was a vivid reminder, to some, that the perceived importance of their skin color was declining. Each address, speech, or soundbite was a refutation in all the gaslighting we had been subjected to since the birth of this nation.
I bit my tongue as white people disparaged Obama, his wife, and his family until I could no longer tolerate the taste of my blood in my mouth. Acquittances were downgraded to vaguely-familiar. Friendships were demoted to acquaintanceships or linked to a specific immutable place in time as in: I went to high school with them or we met at college. Their unrepressed hate stirred me from my slumber, from The Dream I awoke and I did not recognize this strange new land.
Obama’s existence had unleashed something that we, as a nation, had try to ignore and tamp down. Obama’s attainment of the Presidency was an insult to many white people and those who were adjacent to whiteness. Now a white woman was about to follow the first black president, so white people and those aspiring for whiteness elected Donald J. Trump to become the first white president.
I knew he was unfit to be the President as soon as he gave the speech after descending, to the masses, on the escalator. His comments about Mexicans being rapist was disqualifying to me, but not to legions of white folk and those seeking whiteness. After he won I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he would govern from the center. I even gave him the benefit of the doubt after he delivered one of the most bizarre and dystopian inauguration addresses in our complex shared history.
It was the next day, when he stood in front of the Memorial Wall of Stars at the CIA headquarters, and complained loudly and foolishly about the size of the crowd at his inauguration, I was done. He is/was a menace. He is/was an existential threat to our young Republic. He had to be opposed. I was his op and he was mine.
“Allow me to re-introduce myself” — Public Service Announcement: by Jay-Z
My name is Garrick Arvin McFadden, Esq., and I use to be a candidate for the Democrats’ nomination to United States House of Representatives. After my defeat in the 2018 primary, I was asked to recruit candidates and create a single-shot strategy to flip a seat in our Arizona state legislature in 2020. Then I was recruited to be the co-chair of black engagement committee for the fifth largest county in the United States of America. Next, I was asked to run for a vacant Vice-Chair position for the Arizona Democratic Party. Then I decided to run to be an elected Biden delegate for the Democratic National Committee Conference.
In 2020, we flipped the seat. The candidate that I was responsible for recruiting resonated with the voters and worked her tail off to remove a harmful man from the Arizona state legislature. A man who was on the steps of the Capitol during the insurrection. A man who counted votes for the “Fraudit” that took place in Arizona. His treason was rewarded by Trump, with an endorsement for his uncontested run, in a new legislative district, for Arizona State Senate in 2022. Right now forces are marshalling to contest his run, but the people in Arizona will be subjected to his incompetence for at least two-years.
In my position as the co-chair of the black engagement committee, we recruited more black people to become elected Precinct Committeeman (“PC” [we call it a committeeperson to be more inclusive]) than in any point in the history of the Arizona Democratic Party. In many state parties this is the lowest elected position, please contact your local party about becoming a PC. PCs are the vanguard of our democracy. It is arguably one of the most important positions in our Republic, and most people do not even know it exist. Our targeted recruitment of black people to become elected PCs allowed us to build a stronger base and get better penetration into the community.
I was unanimously elected to serve as a Vice-Chair for the Arizona Democratic Party. The Chair of the Party met with me and handed me my mission: to increase black voter turn-out in the state of Arizona. Black people were expected to vote at 55%, black voters turned out at 69% and for comparison white voters turned out at 67%. That was 70,000 votes that the other side did not see coming. That was approximately 65,000 votes for Democrats that the other-side did not see coming. We had the largest turnout of black voters in Arizona’s history.
I won my election to serve as the Joe Biden delegate for my congressional district. Just my luck, this was the first year that the DNCC was a virtual conference. Nonetheless, Joe Biden won Arizona and Donald J. Trump lost. I had vanquished my op, or so I thought.
“I’m like, Che Guevara with bling on, I’m complex/
I never claimed to have wings on/
Nigga I get mine, by any means on whenever there’s a drought/ Get your umbrellas out because, that’s when I brainstorm/ You can blame Shawn, but I ain’t invent the game/I just rolled the dice, tryin’ to get some change” — Public Service Announcement: by Jay-Z
After, my defeat in 2018 I dedicated myself to learning everything I did not know and everything that that I did not know, I did not know. The first thing I did after my defeat was I made a list of all of the things I did well, it was about 17 things, and all the things I did poorly, it was over 87 things. I started to correct that. I started to learn. I met with people. I attended political trainings. I was trained by Stacey Abrams crew. I was trained by Elizabeth Warren’s squad. I was trained by the Arena. I read books on politics and on race. I broke-bread with each of my opponents from that primary. If I was going to help my community, I needed to serve my community, I needed live in my community. I had to subject myself to each slight and obstacle that my position in life had allowed me to circumvent. I needed to get proximate to the problems that face those of us who are not propertied or powerful. That meant humbling myself and opening myself up to the mess that many Americans find themselves mired in. I had to accept that no one was coming to save us. Call it a god-complex or narcissistic tendencies, I call it reality.
I had to mold myself into a weapon. This transformation was unsettling (one day I will share my reading list with y’all). A weapon is an inanimate object. It is a tool used to destroy or intimidate. It lacks a soul and its only function is to harm either by defending or going on offense. We, the Democrats in Arizona, had been playing defense for too long. We literally have some of the most vile figures in elected office: from Paul Gosar to Andy Biggs; Wendy Rogers to Mark Finchem. We have been hell-bent on trying to protect the status quo, which means we cannot make progress to solve the concerns of our communities. We live in a desert and we are running out of water. In Phoenix we have the deadliest police force in America. Housing is becoming more scarce and expensive with each passing day. Incomes are not keeping pace with the increase in the cost of living. We have to protect our trans children and our undocumented neighbors.
I have lived in Arizona for 18-years and never once have I been concerned about the border. This arbitrary line has never been any more than an afterthought of mine or my family. This has never been a pressing or immediate cause of consternation from any member of my community. The border is a vehicle for Republicans to keep their base angry. Instead of cowering, the Republican rank-and-file respond with action and disregard what all of the data says. They ignore everything that does not correlate or confirm this rage, which has been imbued in them. These seeds of hate, despair, and white racial grievance are planted each off-year, nourished by a right-wing propaganda machine and the most abhorrent lies, only to be harvested each November. Then this savage cycle is then repeated in perpetuity.
I have watched my classmates devolve into fearful, raged-possessed adults, whose childhood imprint I strain to recognize. Yet, I know who I am. I’ve seen my peers from college abandon the precepts of the education that we received in favor of information that contorts to fit their meager and flimsy world-view. Yet, I know who I am. When the head of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association sent his supporters to swarm me on social media, I responded with a ferocity and intellect that deflated any dreams of besting me. After observing me embarrass the police associations ’s most dedicated and ardent supporters for three hours, he challenged me to pull-up to their headquarters. Y’all know I put my best armor on: navy blue suit, white French cuff shirt, silver cufflinks, orange striped tie, navy socks, and black wingtips, and hit a protest at the ICE office, then drove to the HQ, bumping some NWA. I know who I am.
I am proud of the man that I have become, and that I am becoming. I am weary, but that is being black in America. My goal is to build broad and deep black political power, first in my state and then elsewhere. I long for the day that this country can reckon with its complex history and I see a study on reparations being the perfect vehicle for this overdue discussion. I am going to prime my audience with conversations centered around race, politics, law, and our shared history.
I just wanted to reintroduce myself: my name is Garrick Arvin McFadden, Esq, but you can call me GAME.
