Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis
Chapter 7: On Pottersville
Ayad is a longtime acquaintance of Mike Jacobs, a Hollywood agent with considerable influence. Mike’s political stances often puzzle Ayad, who expects that Mike would vote Democrat and support Barack Obama because Mike, like Obama, is Black. Instead, Mike generally votes Republican, basing his decisions on the economic policies of that party.
Mike grew up poor in the deep South, and he is convinced that American society is designed so as to suppress Black citizens through handouts and dependence. Mike thinks it is imperative that Black Americans begin to rethink the way they think about themselves so that they can then change the country.
Mike and Ayad met just after Ayad received the Pulitzer Prize in 2013. At the time, Ayad had received numerous offers to work on scripts featuring pop-culture representations of “good” Muslims. Mike pointed out that Hollywood was just looking to “sell” Islam as if it were the “latest print of a rough fabric.” He suggested that Ayad not play along with this game because it was likely just a waste of his time.
Mike’s direct approach had been learned by watching his own father, Jerry, who was a lawyer. Jerry Jacobs had earned a clerkship working for Spottswood Robinson, who had been the first lawyer to argue Brown v. Board of Education, a foundational case that propelled changes in school segregation laws. Jerry eventually served as an Alabama House Representative.
Ayad recalls that before the Presidential election in 2016, Trump’s win felt impossible. He disregarded all typical rules of engagement, and his general demeanor was outlandish for a Presidential candidate. While many people believed that he would eventually commit some egregious error that would result in his defeat, his base of support continued to grow. It was Mike who told Ayad in May of 2016 that Trump would be the next president. Ayad laughed, but Mike insisted that it would happen.
Mike pointed back to Reagan-era policies as the source of Black economic difficulties. The laws passed during that period made it much easier for large companies to merge, the stated rationale being lower prices for consumers. These laws meant that many smaller businesses simply could not compete with large conglomerates. Mike said that this put a particular financial burden on small Black businesses. Increasingly, they were bought out by large, white-owned companies who then turned their backs on Black customers; they had no financial interests in the communities which they themselves did not live in. Jerry had tried to serve Black interests through his work in the Alabama House of Representatives, but Mike believed that his father’s mistake was viewing these challenges through a narrow lens of race. Instead, Mike believed that the issue was a question of locality. Dollars were quickly leaving the rural heart of America and gravitating towards prosperous urban areas on the coasts.
Six months before Trump was elected, Mike told Ayad that what had started in the 1980s had only continued to grow. Money had become the central focus of American values. The material god of economy had replaced all other values the country once held dear.
Mike couldn’t fathom a way that politics could solve this shift in values. To him, Democrats were self-serving politicians who had betrayed Black Americanss and the entire country. He pointed to the Clintons, with their ever-increasing net worth, to point out that political agendas were all the same—everyone involved wanted to get rich. He appreciated that Republicans were at least upfront about their agenda. Mike believed that because politicians had all aligned themselves on the side of self-enrichment, people...
(This entire section contains 1077 words.)
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were now poorer and felt more hopeless than perhaps ever before. People could no longer gather enough money to stock emergency expenses to last for a week, and they were all generally scared and angry. Trump had felt this sense of hopeless anger and had used it to propel himself to a presidential victory.
Over dessert, Mike told Ayad that he really hated paying taxes because he was certain that those same dollars would eventually be used against him as a Black man. Thus, he was compelled to vote Republican because they generally promised lower taxes. He did this despite believing that Republicans were intent on ruining the lives of Blacks. His logic was simple: “The more you have, the more you can do.” He insisted that the only way to make changes in America was by having more money to make those changes. Thus, people who voted for lower taxes allowed Mike the freedom to carefully invest his dollars in places that he felt could ignite much-needed change in America.
Back at home, Ayad watched It’s a Wonderful Life and noticed how much of the plot was dependent on economic conflicts. The movie ended just before dawn and as a new resolution was solidifying within Ayad; it was time for him to “start listening beyond [his] hopeful heart.”
Analysis
In this chapter, Mike Jacobs exposes some of the complexities of American politics. While Ayad wants to categorize Mike based on race and even social standing, Mike proves that people vote in complex and unpredictable ways. Mike certainly wants to advance the opportunities for Black Americans, but he is also critical of the Obama administration, noting that the victory was only “symbolic” and that Obama had created a country where Black people suffered economically instead of providing a means for them to prosper.
While Ayad had believed that Hillary Clinton’s victory over Donald Trump was certain, Mike criticized ways the Clintons had financially prospered because of their fame. Mike votes Republican not because he believes in the tenets of the Republican Party but because he believes that the economic policies they support will most directly benefit him personally. By keeping more of his own money, he is therefore able to invest those dollars directly into causes and efforts that assist the Black community; he has no hope that either political party has any interest in doing so.
Mike is thus symbolic of Americans who believe that the political system has failed them, who believe that their governmental representatives ultimately seek to better their own interests. Mike’s chagrin regarding America’s political structure reflects a growing sentiment that there are few politicians, regardless of political affiliation, who champion the causes of the middle and lower classes, creating a growing sense of national despondency and frustration.
