Evel Knievel ran for president? It's not that crazy a premise. Think Donald Trump.

I have a decades-old memory of me swaying to music in a 1970s-style shopping mall and being sharply reprimanded by my mother, who felt that a Black person dancing in public was undignified and reinforced racist stereotypes. I was maybe eight years old. Too young to fully understand the implications of her admonishment, I hung my head from the weight of my mother’s shame projected onto my lanky little body. All I knew was that she believed that, for Black people, especially poor Black people like us, our survival and dignity hinged on presenting well in public. In the summer of 2020, an...