The mayor, the king and the long way home: an American odyssey

Long before I became mayor of Ithaca, I was a kid growing up in a family that sometimes relied on food stamps and occasionally did not have a permanent home. I was raised by my mother and grandparents, and I learned early that the distance between security and hardship is often much shorter than politicians pretend.

Years later, at 24, I became Ithaca’s youngest mayor and its first mayor of color. It was an improbable journey — not quite 10 years at sea, but with enough political monsters and budgetary whirlpools to qualify as an odyssey.

So I have always felt a certain kinship with Odysseus. He was king of Ithaca. I was mayor of Ithaca. He had to contend with Poseidon; I had to contend with potholes. He faced the wrath of the gods. I faced three-hour Common Council meetings, which occasionally felt like the same thing.

Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is spectacular filmmaking. His direction gives Homer’s ancient story an extraordinary scale without losing its human stakes. The sea is immense, the dangers are thrilling and the hero is commanding — but Nolan never allows grandeur to become moral simplicity. This is not merely a story about a powerful man triumphing over monsters. It is a story about the monsters that power can create within us.

That is why the film matters politically.

Culture shapes our politics before politics ever reaches the ballot box. Stories teach us what courage looks like, who deserves to be seen, whether strength means domination or restraint and whether leaders should be worshipped or held accountable.

I understood this instinctively........

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