Welcome to 2025: Into the Future...

Some hopefully sensible words for a seemingly nonsensical now.

In early December, the Washington Post ran a profile on Harry Edwards. A sports sociologist, UC Berkeley professor, and political activist, Edwards has pioneered the study of sports through a sociology and politics, serving as an advisor to Muhammed Ali, the 1968 Olympics protestors, Colin Kaepernick, and other athletic rabble rousers, as well as sports teams committed to a bit more than making money. Edwards is a wise man, now battling cancer in his last years. In the Post profile, Edwards says,

I used to say that, “Blessed are those Black people who expect only the worst from America because they shall not be disappointed.” Even though it was stated more for eye-opening impact than substantive validity in every case, for the most part, I stand by that. America has never disappointed me.

Edwards’ observation is not borne of cynicism or crushed idealism. It is something Edwards learned from his experience living as a Black man in a country seeped with White supremacy. It is something Edwards learned growing up in East St. Louis, a city so depressed that John Carpenter used it to show ruin in Escape from New York. In his hometown, Edwards experienced poverty, racism, environmental exploitation, and government neglect – America’s four horsemen.

Born in 1942, Edwards came up during Jim Crow, dealt with segregation, and witnessed racial violence. He was involved in the Civil Rights Movement and opposition to the War on South East Asia. In 1968, he published The Revolt of the Black Athlete, a seminal study of sports, racism, and politics. He also publicly endorsed a Black boycott of the 1968 Olympics, creating the Olympic Project of Human Rights, which supported the Black Power salute protest of John Carlos and Tommie Smith.

Harry Edwards has seen and experienced a lot of stuff. He’s seen the “worst of America,” as well as its promise when people do stand up and fight back. He knows that our fight for change must be as eternal as the acts of survival we undertake every day we are alive. Even with persistence, our victories are not secure. He says, “There are no final victories. Even what looks like a victory can be reversed in the course of a single election.”

It is important to understand that when Edwards says that there are “no final victories,” he is explaining a universal dynamic, not something specific to individual fights for positive change. “What looks like a victory…” applies to all engaged in the fight, not just people who want to protect human rights and build a more equitable society. As fucked up as it was, I don’t think that anyone reading this saw the Supreme Court’s trashing of Roe as a “final victory” for the right-wing, as none of us believe that the ruling is our “final defeat.” It is fucked up but we will fight back. We will “win.” And at some point, we will “lose” again, and the fight will continue.

In 1942, Albert Camus published The Myth of Sisyphus, his treatise on absurdism. He uses Sisyphus’ endless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to have it roll down when the Greek nears the top, as a metaphor for our existence. We fight, we make progress, we struggle, we move ahead, we stumble, we fail, we fight again, we persist. There is no final victory, nor is there a final defeat. So, what’s the purpose? Camus writes, "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

We fight because that is what we do to give our lives meaning. We fight for something better for all of us when we want to share that meaning and experience something greater than ourselves. It is why we make music together, even when there are times when we’d much rather strangle the guitarist rather than hear him prattle on about crypto while playing out of tune. When everything is in a groove, the collective contentment the band feels as a group is far more powerful than the pride we feel about our individual performance, which is also important – the performance and the pride.

When Donald Trump triumphed in November, I had two immediate reactions. The first was “God dammit. Do we have to do this again?!” The second was, “Okay, get your head back in the game.” When Biden won in 2020, I first felt relief, which was followed by “Okay, get your head back in the game.” From 1990 on, my first reaction to a presidential, hell, every election is personal; the second, “Okay, get your head back in the game.”

As someone who writes about politics, “Okay, get your head back in the game” is essential, but its more than that. If I didn’t write on or was engaged in politics, “Okay, get your head back in the game” would still be my default, my mission, my purpose. The “game” is the moment. It is life. It is what is happening right now – the sun outside, the dog curled up on the couch, the slosh slosh slosh of the washing machine, the clack clack clack of the keyboard, the words that show up on this screen, the thoughts propelling the words, the events that inspire my thoughts, my engaging with events, with what is happening right now, pushing that boulder up a mountain, fighting for victories that will never hold and experiencing defeats that can never crush me, patiently and persistently moving forward. On to 2025. Into the future.

You all have a happy new year.