In Praise of Defiance
The words (and images) on this page make plain my thinking going into the 2022 campaign season. Hint: It's not what you think.
WARNING: This isn’t a warm and fuzzy post. I have a few things to say (er, write). I hope you’ll indulge me. It’ll be worth it. Promise.
“You must be really happy you didn’t get an opponent.”
Though it’s been more than 60 days since my swearing in, I get this question at least once a week still, and in every case, the person asking it is surprised at my answer.
“Wellllllllllllll…. I’m actually disappointed. I wanted to punish someone, anyone who ran against me.”
That’s reality. I was fully—FULLY!—prepared to run and win. Handily.
Context matters
When I ran for office in 2019, I made it abundantly clear that never was I going to be a politician in the strictest sense of the word. I was elected to represent the (entire) community, and that’s what I’ve done. My strongly held views as a Southern-raised black conservative were not on the ballot, and even if they were, they had zero to do with my ability to lead. I said I would work to support the kids, families, and businesses of this community; I’ve done just that.
But that wasn’t always enough.
I’ll say here publicly what I’ve said both privately and publicly: Only time will tell if politics is in my long-term plans. (Now don’t get the idea that I’m leaving office or that I’ll never run again. I’m NOT saying that.)
What I’m saying is the scorched earth, the other side is evil, fight when you don’t need to fight, refuse to work together even though you have every incentive to, call or @ on social media your opponent’s employer every time they say something you don’t like brand of politics, pervasive even locally today, is not worth the risk long-term. What that means for me after May 2025, who knows? (I could certainly see myself running for office again—under a specific set of circumstances.) It’s less that I don’t have the stomach for it than it is that the risk might not be worth the reward.
Politics as a cost center
Even before I was elected, I saw the writing on the wall. At a party, an acquaintance sidled up to me and said, “You have liberal friends. Why? What could you possibly have to talk about?” I was taken aback.
What most people do not know about me, the person, is I don’t care about your politics; I care about who you are as a person. I know of many, many people who likely vote the same as me, but who I wouldn’t want to spend vacation with or hang out with. I also know lots of people for whom politics is our lone area of disagreement. What matters is that we have something outside of politics to talk about.
(As an aside: I’ve said for years that I’m not a consensus seeker or consensus thinker. In politics, for example, I’m not at all shy about saying that as a so-called black conservative, I don’t agree with all conservatives on a number of things. My conservatism is rooted in beliefs imbued in me as a black man who grew up in the rural South. I don’t give a damn if anyone agrees with those beliefs. I am who I am.)
When I was elected in 2019, I remember telling a close friend, “The middie ground is scorched earth.” I’m not sure I knew what that meant at the time, but I could feel that the ground had shifted under my feet. I was more aware than prepared. At first, that is. And only to a small degree. But it wouldn’t take long for me to realize my tenure would be more eventful than most:
2019 - Apartment vote
2020 - COVID-19, George Floyd protests, and CCAP
2021 - NBC podcasts and videos
By the end of 2021, I was fully aware of two things:
I was absolutely going to run for re-election, and
It was likely (hopefully) going to be more eventful than most.
I was (loaded for bear) prepared for a messy, contentious campaign. Hell, if I’m honest, I wanted it. Bad.
I’ve already shared that the one trait I never saw in my father, but that I inherited from him, according to my mom, was vindictiveness. You wrong me, my natural urge is to seek 10-fold retribution. Might seem petty to read those words, but here’s the rationale:
I work like hell to never, ever, ever wrong anyone. So, when people attempt to harm me, my reputation, or my career, my memory is long, even if my temper is nonexistent.
It should come as little surprise, then, that in early 2021, I purchased a domain—”I-got-receipts”—in preparation for annihilating any and all comers. I do HAVE receipts. My record spoke for itself.
I wanted a foe dumb enough to challenge me.
As the filing date neared, I was channeling Bane from The Dark Knight Rises: “Let’s not stand on ceremony here… .”
However, I never, ever, ever expected anyone would be dumb enough to run against me. That’s not arrogance, mind you; that’s reality.
After all, I’m the rare politician who has done exactly what he said he would do: support our kids, families and businesses unfailingly. Show me a single person who has done all three better than me in the last three years and I’ll step down from office. Seriously.
That’s what I was going to hang around the neck of the person foolish enough to challenge me.
At every forum where the challenger was to sit on the dais next to me, I was going to look at the audience, share the council’s achievements with me aboard, then share what I personally had accomplished. Afterward, things were going to get squirmy for my would-be challenger.
“What you have to ask yourself,” I was prepared to say, “Is why this person chose to enter this race against me. Think about that. Why would someone run against a well-liked incumbent? Is it because they think I haven’t done a good job and could do better? If so, they are sharing a minority opinion. Or, is it that I’m not under anyone’s thumb, as I refuse to be controlled, and he/she represents a small faction who don’t like what I’ve been doing and they want to undo my work in the community? And, you know, if that is the case, maybe he/she would tell us what, specifically, they could or would do better as a councilperson. I’m all ears.”
I had that noose ready; I was gladly going to use it. (Makes me tingly just thinking about it.)
I need an enemy
The Hawthorne effect describes how people alter their behavior when they know they are being watched. In my office, the wall in front of my desk is blank, but I imagine it containing an image of 12-year-old Ronell, who looks on and says, “Remember your promises to me.”
It’s a way of keeping me motivated, disciplined and focused. I do a similar thing when it comes to inspiring myself to work through challenging times: I imagine a villain on the wall looking at me, like Hannibal Lecter staring at Clarice Starling through the jail cell bars in The Silence of the Lambs. My imaginary enemy, however, is saying “You’ll never get what you want; I’m standing in your way.”
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that a kid who grew up in a tiny, backward, racist, rural Mississippi town is not going to cotton to the idea of anyone controlling his ability to be successful. No way. No how.
Defiance isn’t defensiveness
In the weeks leading up to the opening of the filing period, a friend of mine said, regarding decisions I made as a local elected official, “You’re defensive when [people ask about your record.]” I vehemently disagreed.
“I’m defiant.” I said. “Here’s my deal: If I wake up tomorrow and I’m not a councilman, my life does not change in any substantive way. I still have a great career, a beautiful wife, and two amazing daughters. That’s what matters to me. What I really, really care about cannot be taken away in an election. So, if someone wants my spot on the dais, they can have it, if they can take it. But I ain’t handing it over. I know that no one—and I mean no one—has spent more than 472 days (yes, I counted) of the last three years meeting with and supporting the people of this community—outside of my council responsibilities. If you show me someone who has worked harder than me in the ways I have prioritized supporting this community, hell, they deserve Place 4 for Southlake City Council more than I do.”
I didn’t see it as a personal affront that someone would run against me; I was, however, going to react in a nuclear fashion to the personal attacks that were sure to come my way as a means of chopping down the forest of goodwill I’ve engendered in the community.
My philosophy for re-election was simple and straightforward. I was going to spend $5,000 of my own money, do only a handful of events, and let the chips fall where they fell. I wasn’t going to campaign for a job I was already doing; I was going to simply remind people of three things:
What I said,
What I’ve done
What I planned to do
That’s it. No more. No less.
In the end, however, there were no opponents dumb enough to come out of the woodwork and get embarrassed running against me. (Oh, yeah. I was absolutely planning to embarrass them every chance I got.)
I’m proud to continue representing my community.