When I was 12 or 13 years old, my father gave me some advice that became the compass for my journey through this American life. He said, “Michael, if you’re going to gamble, the first thing you have to do is learn to cheat. Not so you can cheat people, but so you’ll know when people are cheating you. Because there are no straight games; in every game, somebody’s cheating.” He would also say your objective is not to make the game straight (fair), but to beat the cheat.
I didn’t have the skill or the heart to be a professional gambler, but I would come to realize he knew that when he gave the advice. He was giving me a simple metaphor to explain what I would need to understand if I was going to make my way in America as a black man. Read more here.