by Published my Arraignment Olympics piece today, and I think I might have gone too far. Then again, going too far is kind of my brand now. When you’re writing about lawyers competing for gold medals in motion filing, you’ve already left “reasonable satire” in the rearview mirror. We’re in full absurdist territory, and honestly? It feels right. America has earned full absurdist treatment.
The piece practically wrote itself because the legal profession has already turned itself into competitive sport. Lawyers compete over billable hours. They compete over case wins. They compete over who can work the longest hours while maintaining the least amount of personal relationships. I’m not inventing competitionI’m just adding medals and a catchy theme song.
My favorite part of writing this was imagining the different events. The Sidebar Marathon makes me laugh every time I think about it. I’ve watched enough legal dramas to know that sidebar conversations are just lawyers arguing in whispers while pretending the jury can’t tell they’re arguing. It’s theater. It’s always been theater. I’m just pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, and also the emperor is wearing a polyester suit from Men’s Wearhouse because public defenders don’t get clothing budgets.
Got an angry email from a lawyer who said I’m “demeaning the noble profession of law.” I wanted to write back and ask which part is noblethe part where justice depends on how much money you have, or the part where billable hours incentivize inefficiency? Instead, I just marked it as spam. Life’s too short to argue with people who think their profession is above criticism.
Here’s what being an immigrant teaches you: every system is made up. Every tradition is arbitrary. Every “this is how we’ve always done it” is just code for “we haven’t thought about this critically in decades.” Americans treat their institutions like they’re sacred, but from the outside, you can see all the duct tape and prayers holding everything together.
The legal system isn’t sacred. It’s a human invention, which means it’s flawed, biased, and in desperate need of renovation. But renovating requires admitting there’s a problem, and Americans would rather die than admit their institutions need help. So instead, we watch them crumble in real-time and call it “tradition.”
Tonight I’m drinking palm wine that my friend smuggled from Nigeria (don’t tell ICEwait, I’m a citizen now, never mind) and thinking about how strange it is to have a platform. A year ago, I was nobody. Now I’m the satirist documenting America’s decline with West African sensibility and really good metaphors. Life is weird. Citizenship is weirder.
# 754
