Stakes is High: Life After the American Dream

Stakes is High: Life After the American Dream (2020) is a collection of essays by Mychal Denzel Smith. In this follow-up to his 2016 essay collection Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching, Smith confronts the notion of the American Dream, offering in its place a world without constant policing, a world where Black lives are not oppressed under systemic and institutionalized racism. Divided into four parts and bookended by a “Forethought” and an “Afterthought,” the collection is clear and incisive in focus yet broad in its implications. In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election and in the immediate context of the Covid-19 pandemic, Smith unapologetically lambasts everything from capitalism, the American criminal justice system, and the glorification and idealization of the American presidency. As a Black man living in America, his perspectives are not merely intellectual theories—they are the result of his lived experiences. Stakes is High is the winner of the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction.

Summary

Smith opens the collection with “The Forethought,” in which he vividly recalls his experience on November 8, 2016—the night Donald Trump was elected—as he prepared his remarks for election coverage on the Democracy Now!’ TV program. Smith, like so many millions of Americans, assumed it was just a matter of time before the election was called in favor of Hillary Clinton. Smith was prepared to explain how Clinton’s election was a symbol of progress, just as Barack Obama’s election had been, but that America still had a long way to go. Of course, Smith never shared these remarks, as Donald J. Trump was elected as the 45th president of the United States. Smith then recounts his actual remarks on election night, expressing that Trump’s election was not a fluke or outlier, but in fact a confirmation of American history repeating and imposing itself.

In “Part 1: Delusions,” Smith argues that the American Dream is a harmful myth, a story that willfully neglects to capture the true history of the United States. According to Smith, America “has only ever existed as a project of white supremacist heteropatriarchal capitalism” (54), which means that America is not truly a democracy, with equal social and economic opportunities for all. Believing the myth of the American Dream impedes the dismantling of oppressive systems and leads to inevitable outcomes, such as the Donald Trump presidency. Even the message and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. can be reframed as American exceptionalism, in a society where the American Dream remains its most powerful belief.

Smith then pivots to “Part 2: Justice,” in which he equates economic justice to social justice, refuting the notion that poverty is simply a mindset. Smith argues that capitalism is not an invitation for all to join the American project, but a means of exploitation, which primarily affects Black and Brown people. Smith compares American capitalism to the work of a pimp, who assumes “responsibility for those working for them only to the extent that it impinges on their ability to earn” (74). Out of this capitalistic society arises the need to control the working-class, which in turn leads to a stronger police presence in poor neighborhoods. Smith proposes a solution to this problem: Abolish the police.

In “Part 3: Accountability,” Smith portrays the American justice system as a primarily punitive means of responding to criminal wrongdoing. The main consequence of such a system removes the possibility for healing, whether for victims or for perpetrators. Smith references the specific cases of Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein, for instance, to emphasize that the justice system values restitution less than punishment, restoration less than prison.

“Part 4: Freedom” discusses the notion of what freedom actually means in America. Smith uses the example of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to make a run at the American presidency, in order to illustrate the paradox of technically having the freedom to do something (i.e., running for president) while living in a society where so many groups of people have been excluded from the promise of the American Dream. As Smith puts it, “Shirley Chisholm was never going to be elected president. Donald Trump was inevitable” (141). Smith also tells the story of Pleasant Lampkins, his great-great-great grandfather who was born a slave in 1836, and the parallels he experiences when reflecting on Pleasant’s life. Smith concludes this essay with a plea to make a choice for a new American story, one that does not require pretending that the grimmest parts of American history never existed, but that invites us all to participate in the dismantling of oppressive systems.

Finally, in “The Afterthought,” Smith reflects on the experience of writing this book, set within the context of the Trump presidency. Smith reveals that much of his writing process was framed by a profound depression, which he connects to a deep sense of fear, both of the global climate crisis that threatens humanity’s survival and of an America where Donald Trumps will always find a way to personify America’s true nature. Yet even through these fears, Smith ends the book with the acknowledgment that while change does not happen easily or quickly, it is nevertheless possible.