If 60 minutes ever wanted to interview me, and they wanted a 30-second sound-bite or some sort of prompt to understand what gets me going in the morning, I think I would say the following:
“First, I have a Harvard degree and a PhD after my name.”
“Second, I am no longer gainfully employed, nor am I institutionally affiliated.”
“Third, I have a mental health diagnosis and an arrest record.”
I am sure that the third point would raise eyebrows. Not that the viewers could not necessarily relate to it themselves, nor not relate it to others they may know.
It is just that you do not connect the third point to the other two: a highly educated individual with the professional autonomy of a CEO but who, in the same breath, was once a crazed criminal?
But if Destiny calls, then She tells me to train my research sights, with the career mobility I have, on the intersection of mental illness and gun violence.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once singled out two classes of individuals that should not bear arms: the mental defectives and violent felons. I could not agree more.
Respectfully,
J.J.
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