A Public Diary During the Coronavirus/COVID-19 Pandemic ~ Day 99
The sliver of the waxing crescent tonight
brought me more than just a sliver of hope
that we might rise up together for justice
and just like the moon’s growing illumination
may we fill the darkness and bring back the light
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It’s June 22, 2020 and this here is day 99 of this daily public pandemic diary. Summer is here in the Northern Hemisphere and with the temperatures rising, so is the climate for justice. This weekend was the solstice and brought a ‘ring of fire’ solar eclipse along with it. That means there was a new moon which is always a good time to set intentions and get ready for some manifestations to come about. A penumbral lunar eclipse is coming on this countries “independence day”, July 4th and from an astrological perspective, this three part eclipse dance we’re in portends some wild times we find ourselves in.
Our country has such a problematic past that when you examine it under a sociological telescope, it doesn’t look very pretty at all. Not something I can really feel much reason to be all patriotic about, that’s for sure. Did you know, when George Washington moved to Philadelphia, where the first US capitol was located, they didn’t allow slaves there for, from what I understand, longer than 6 months before they would have to be set free. In order to avoid this, our founding father and first president rotated some of his 100+ slaves from his home in Virginia so as to not have to give any of them up. Isn’t that some fucked up shit? And Jefferson, oh, the exquisite audacity to write those words ‘we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal’, that has never, ever been true in this country. And of course, it didn’t say all humans are created equal, either, women were second class citizens as well.
What I’m having a tough time chewing on though these days is that when I share articles and posts about this civil rights movement we’re in the midst of, I get some people that comment some outrageously unkind and thinly veiled (if at all) racist shit sometimes. A great deal lately. Folks are trying to still debate that systemic racism is even a thing. I don’t get that. What I don’t get more than that, or in addition to that is how on all the gods n’ goddesses green earth do these people think this way to such a point that they will take actual focused energy from their days to try and negate these positions? Even just to take the effort to try and justify a position against this uprising takes some serious skills of cognitive dissonance when it comes to trying to convince ones self that they are not being a supreme asshole in these moments. For what can it be besides hate that provokes this? Fear I suppose. But still. Fear doesn’t warrant hate.
I mean, what the fuck people? I’m trying to put myself in your shoes here. Pulling out my phone, opening Facebook, having an absent minded scroll, passing some time, then you come across one of my posts illuminating the injustices that are happening in this world and to be all, “oh, I’m gonna write some shit to negate this viewpoint because I’m so passionate about racism being bullshit and a thing of the past that I’m going to prove it with these stomped out word!”l Or I imagine it goes something like that. I don’t mean to be unkind, but maybe that perspective of them is? What though, makes these white dudes, oh, I should note that they are all white dudes who say this shit. I actually took that for granted I realized that I wasn’t being clear about that. Yeah, these are white dudes. Mostly people I grew up with in Middle America. Good, wholesome, midwestern white folks who were raised in cozy suburban settings with very little diversity. That was me as well mind you, we did not grow up with out some decent diversity growing up though it was easy enough if you wanted to stay in some tight groups that were mostly if not all white people hanging with white people.
I don’t know if it had anything to do with my parents or not but I’m glad I had a nice mixed bag of friends in my early youth days and while it still provided me with very little perspective into life outside of the whiteness that surrounded me, I appreciate that I didn’t have an exclusively white friend group. But I did have some super problematic friends who were pretty overtly racist. And the way we were raised to view women? I shake my head in sadness and shame about that. We came by that honestly I suppose but that doesn’t excuse any of it. ‘The change begins with me and I reflect it back to you, and you, and you, make the movement move’. That line from an old Medicine For The People song has been swirling through my head. A video of Nahko and Jeanna singing this outside on our front steps practicing it while my daughter and I danced was a video memory that popped up the other day from 9 or 10 years ago. So wild to think back to those times.
99 days in a row of writing and not just in the safe comfort and privacy of my journal but words vulnerably shared with the outside world for anyone who cares to read them. How about that. Maybe a handful of people will ever read them but I will admit, this has been a great exorcise and practice for me in both vulnerability, and simply being willing to provide a glimpse in to one persons perspective and lived experiences. I didn’t know what I was getting into when I started this all, I sure as shit had no idea on day 99 I’d be coming in from another night out walking the streets protesting for systemic, fundamental, institutional changes while a global pandemic continued on. But here I am and here we are.
Tonight I was amazed at the sight on NE Killingsworth and NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The street was blocked with hundreds of folks out again, maybe it was up to a thousand or more but it felt a bit smaller than nights before. Still a decent turn out and the good people of Rose City Justice: A Civil Rights Collective had everyones rapt attention as they spoke to this moment and called on us all to practice self care, breathing exercises, and loving our selves while challenging ourselves to be better people. It was powerful and beautiful. I was encouraged once again. I loved that they were calling upon each of us to be the change essentially. To be willing to hold ourselves accountable and not be the assholes we didn’t want to see in the world. If we said some nasty shit to someone the day before, look at that, confront them and apologize and find the peaceful common ground. Heal our broken bonds. Mend our broken bridges and all that good shit.
And that is precisely what we need to do. Each and everyone one of us. Break free from the programming and awful conditioning that lead us to this divisive place. Acknowledge that we are all in this together and find that common ground. Recognize that we have our differences but we have so many more similarities. And see that it is really only a very few among us, mainly a ruling elite, rich ass motherfuckers who have egregious amounts of wealth, absurd and beyond unnecessary levels of power through their finances and corporations and that they need to be put in check and all the capitalist, the real fucking fat cat rich assholes need to be humbled down post haste and with that, the course correction that we need can then be accomplished. Our future has no place for billionaires. Even millionaires when you get to a certain point it just becomes fucking stupid. Wealth and income inequality is what has contributed a great deal to all of this. Black Lives Matter is at the forefront for good reason right now and when we get to a place of healing and recognition for the unjust suffering that the Black community has suffered, we can then address and come to terms with the utterly true fact that capitalism and the class war that we’ve got both need to end.
And I think I’ll end right there. It’s nearly midnight and I’m getting ready to call it a night. Sleep sounds mighty fine to me. It’s a bit toasty again here so we’ll see how it goes with falling asleep. Speaking of toasty, we have ourselves a couple more of the hottest months on record and it passed 100 degrees in the Arctic the other day for the first time so, that’s cool, right? The climate crisis never took a break. Environmental breakdown has not slowed down. We are facing so many crises all at once that sometimes it is difficult to remember all the wild shit unraveling around us. And in spite of it all. I still manage to find some hope for humanity. What I’m seeing out on the streets right now is uplifting. Folks have had enough and I have, too. Let’s rise up together, shall we?
