How race may still affect outcomes despite opportunities.

 

I had the pleasure last month to meet Jimmy Hatch for the second time in several years. He’s a decorated, wounded Navy Seal vet.**

He started Yale four years ago as a “nontraditional” student at age 52. He stood out on campus because of his age and definite real world prep as opposed to the often prep-school prep of his much younger young classmates.

Hatch came to the attention of a trio of Yale classmates who run a monthly zoom forum featuring interesting people to showcase. He stood out among his fellow Frosh Yalies in the threesome’s mind because he’d just written an essay on the so-called “snowflakes” populating colleges in the early 2020s.

Jimmy Hatch doesn’t see fellow Yalies as “Snowflakes”

Contrary to what many people might’ve guessed, Hatch defended young Yalies whom he found creative, strong, and up to the ” realities”  many Yale profs taught them to consider, even embrace.

As luck would have it (for this post at least) I became aware of a movie about another amazing Yale student, Robert Peace. The 2024 movie “Rob Peace”  is based on Jeff Hobbs’ “The short and tragic life of Robert Peace” (2014). In the much-lauded book, Hobbs chronicles  Peace’s life before Yale, during Yale, and after graduation.

Rob Peace’s brilliance and charm got him into Yale

The author Hobbs  and his subject, Peace, couldn’t have had upbringings any more different before they were assigned as roommates at Yale. (Despite that, they became good friends.)

Hobbs’ dad was a surgeon with relatives who also went to Yale.  Peace’s dad, Skeet,  a small-time hustler, went to prison for murder when Rob was just 8 years old.  He did teach his son sociability as he often took Rob on his “rounds” through Newark, NJ.

Rob’s mom was a hard-working food-service employee who sacrificed mightily to help her son realize his gifts and potential. Her efforts paid off when Yale took a chance on a kid who started out life in violent, red-bricked  East Orange, NJ. Turns out East Orange was also cocaine-bricked at the time.

Divergent paths of equally bright and sociable Rob Peace and Jimmy Hatch

What’s fascinating about Rob and Jimmy, is how differently two people who grabbed the merry-go-round gold ring to Yale turned out. The gold ring generally confers “privilege” on those who grab it

Rob

Rob was brilliant (molecular biophysics and biochemistry major) but straddled two worlds while studying and dealing weed (facility with numbers)
during and after Yale.  While he had post-grad aspirations, he couldn’t resist the pull of childhood and youth friends back into “the life” in Newak.

He was murdered for using and dealing drugs less than a decade after Yale, at age 30 in Newark.

Jimmy

Jimmy is likewise brilliant, but claims he’s no good at numbers. And while he says he had a decent childhood and youth, he was shuttled among
foster families after being “abandoned at birth”” (his words).

So far, Jimmy’s on track – with a book out about his life too – and hints of post grad positions and a thriving non-profit he runs to protect dogs who’ve ended their service in the military or with local police departments.

The Similarities

Both Rob and Jimmy seemed battle-tested and in love with books when they arrived at Yale. Both studied hard.

Rob wanted to Newark-proof himself by blending into the privileged world he charmed at Yale.

And just guessing here – Jimmy wants to PTSD-proof himself, given the injury he’s experienced and the suicidal ideation he’s dealt with – on the battlefield and back home.

The Differences

The difference between the two seems to boil down to race and age in my mind, though I’d love to hear other opinions. Leave a comment below. I’m persuadable.

Rob was too young – and too stigmatized by race – to resist Newark’s pull. Besides, his biochem education helped him deal drugs more lucratively.

Ultimately, Rob’s chronic use of marijuana and alcohol – endemic among Newark’s underprivileged – may explain his decision to not pursue the opportunities he’d made for him self after Yale, Jim Douglas in Streetroots seems to think so:

“Peace’s story raises questions about society’s efforts to help gifted young people from disadvantaged backgrounds “escape” their roots. He demonstrated the ability to swim against the current from a very young age and, by leaving home for an elite university, he also showed his willingness to step outside the only world he had known.

“But, in the end, perhaps key to understanding the choices he made after graduation, is the strong pull he felt from friends and family back home, his loyalty to the people he grew up with. And — perhaps — although the author [Jeff Hobbs] does not examine its relevance, the fact that Rob began frequent use of marijuana and drinking at age 13.”

Jimmy, on the other hand, resists the pull of his societally-sanctioned dark violent past as an American sniper and elite warrior.

All signs seem to indicate that as a very sociable white guy, he’s likely to continue to thrive and grow even wiser.

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** The coauthor of a book about Hatch, Christian D’Andrea, describes Jimmy before Yale this way:”After 150 counter-terror missions worldwide, Jimmy got shot trying to rescue [Taliban captive, Bowe] Bergdahl. So did a dog. The dog died, which hurt Jimmy more than the AK-47 bullet that punched through his leg. He despaired, and eventually put a gun in his mouth. Fighting his way out of the darkness was as intense as his wars overseas.”

 

 

My latest book, PRIVILEGED KILLERS, is a true story about a half-dozen Dark Triad people in my everyday life - narcissists, manipulators, and psychopaths. Three of 'em murdered people, and one came after my wife and me. Print and e-book versions of this (and CLEFT HEART) available at Amazon and elsewhere online. Also at your local bookstore.