Today was a day of change for me. I made some major—some have even said “radical” life alterations today.In a desperate pursuit of this myth that the ultimate aspiration of my community is the darkest contradiction of all—for me to gain the most institutional degrees I could procure in higher ed and by proxy, earn as many dollars as I could….because SOCIETY would flourish for it. Well, here’s the rub…

To carry the same lies forward, generation after generation, so that our collective sense of the American experiment is better and more comforting than it ought to be—this is where mythology has its cost, and a cost not only to the United States but to the world as a whole.

We have been observant, as the state of our nation now makes us seem. Or at least, we don’t count ourselves as part of the game but everyone assumes they’re playing—the enormity of the mortgage security scandal and the Wall Street pyramid schemes that wrecked the world economy were too shameless and absurd for even our fevered imaginations.

We saw that there were elements in our culture that were parasitic and self-aggrandizing, that the greed and rapaciousness of a society that exalted profit and free markets to the exclusion of any other social framework would be burdened by such a level of greed. Why do you think the man would rather produce Kesha than Jill Scott? Weezy versus Brother Ali. Drake versus Masta Ace. And no, it’s not all about the thoughts that uproot below our belts, but rather the stomach that our leaders lost a long time ago for truth—-if they had a stomach for truth, they wouldn’t own mirrors. Think about it.

We understand that throughout our global culture , there is a growing inability to recognize our problems like my girl catches my eye boogers in the morning. But forgive us, we have no idea that greed has become policy until the rogue elements are carried out by corrupted systems and their peons. We had a good argument, as far as we knew; but in the beginning we don’t know things so good.

In America, we like to tell ourselves, those who are not clever or visionary, who don’t build better mousetraps, have a place held for them nonetheless. The myth holds that those who are neither slick nor off the chain, yet willing to get up every day and work their asses off and come home and stay committed to their families, their communities and every other institution they are asked to serve—these people have a portion for them as well. They might not drive a Lexus, or eat out every weekend; their children might not be candidates for early admission at $#^%; and come Sunday, they might not see Vernon Davis catch that TD pass on a wide-screen. But they will have a place, and they will not be betrayed.

In the world I see, it is no longer possible to describe this as a myth. It is no longer possible even to remain polite on the subject. It is, in a word, a lie.

In the back of my mind, is a man looking upon the flooding colony like an ant without an oar, wishing just the once, I were a snake instead. And there lies the rub.