weapons of massdistraction

Over the past month I’ve started and abandoned several posts, since George Floyd was murdered within walking distance of my home. I have been directing that energy elsewhere (to petitions, fundraisers, amplifying other voices, etc). But yesterday was Juneteenth. I have been aware of its significance for years though I didn’t learn about the holiday in school. And I’ve never seen the mainstream media or social media run with it so much. Growing up in an immigrant family, I was aware of racism and discrimination at an early age. I’m a light-skinned Arab. I learned to navigate white spaces and brush off the routine anti-Middle Eastern micro-aggressions. Black Americans have always born the brunt of this country’s bigotry. Not just because of our shitty society. Even as a kid I looked to government. It seemed to me these inequalities were all by design. I read Abbie Hoffman and Malcolm X and about the Black Panthers and took the bus to see Do the Right Thing in a nearly empty movie theater in my hometown. I became an activist as a teenager. Every year I skipped school to join MLK Day marches (before it was a school holiday in my district), wrote letters on behalf of prisoners of conscience for Amnesty International, attended Anti-Racist Action meetings, and joined Communities United Against Police Brutality protests. But, I’ll admit, I’ve spiraled into hopelessness more and more into my adulthood. Inequality has only increased and I became convinced nothing will change, especially after Trump’s election. I’ve long believed in a Universal Basic Income and healthcare for all (not tied to employment) and in restorative justice and demilitarizing and defunding the police. I never thought society would catch up with these idea. Thankfully, scholars like Ibram X. Kendi are becoming more widely known and sharing these ideas:

Racist ideas grow out of discriminatory policies, he argues, not the other way around. [...snip...]
The goal is to identify inequalities, identify the policies that create and maintain those inequalities, and propose correctives in six areas: criminal justice, education, economics, health, environment and politics. Kendi also hopes to create an online library of anti-racist thinking.

Crime isn’t higher in Black neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods are just over-policed and underserved. The “achievement gap” has been engineered. The cruelty is the point. And it has been going on for centuries. Slave patrols and Night Watches, which later became modern police departments, were both designed to control the behaviors of minorities. Here is a physical reminder.

Here are some ugly historical events that should be better known:

• New York destroyed a village full of African-American landowners to create Central Park. Residents of Seneca Village were forcibly displaced to create this green space.
• Closer to home, in the Twin Cities, St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood was destroyed in the 1960s to build Highway 94. Before it was cut in half by I-94, St. Paul’s Rondo was a thriving African-American cultural center. I would have liked to have seen Oatmeal Hill and Cornmeal Valley. But I first learned about it when the Rondo Days Festival started when I in grade school, in 1983.
• How many of us heard about the existence of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, and the 1921 massacre of it, from the television adaptation of Watchmen? I know I did. It was never mentioned in school. Hearing about it reminded me of a scene Dear White People, where a white college kid says “We need to do here what they did in Germany…I meant the educating kids about the horrible past part, not the concentration camp part.”

I’ve been surprised by how many people in my social networks have been outraged and publicly showing support of the Black Lives Matter movement for the first time. It’s great to see but also obvious that some folx are uncomfortable and trying to figure out how to navigate it all. We’re all bound to make missteps when trying to show we are allies and willing to learn. Our feeds are flooded with anti-racist reading lists and petitions and fundraisers. But I’ve been shaking my head at some who have charged in without talking to any BIPoC and end up duplicating efforts or centering attention on themselves rather than on the organizations and people who have been out there organizing for a while now.

For some time now I’ve been following prisonculture on twitter. I’ve been referring folks to their perfectly worded pinned tweet. Questions I regularly ask myself when I’m outraged about injustice:

1. What resources exist so I can better educate myself?
2. Who’s already doing work around this injustice?
3. Do I have the capacity to offer concrete support & help to them?
4. How can I be constructive?

We all have a lot to learn. About being actively anti-racist. And learning to be uncomfortable and how to manage conflict. But I do hope we can create meaningful change together. Check out the resources at transformharm.org and don’t look away. Keep paying attention and engaging. June is Pride month. Remember now and all year long that Black Trans Lives Matter. And just in the last few weeks a number of black men have been lynched across the country while local governments have been ruling these cases as suicides. The white supremacists are pushing back. This must stop.

Last week came with an unexpected twist. I honestly didn’t think our governor would allow the stay-at-home order to expire. I understand he’s in a tough spot and trying to do his best but it’s upsetting. And we don’t have any requirements to wear masks despite situations like this: Austria Has 90% Drop in Coronavirus Cases After Requiring People to Wear Face Masks. I’ve made a point of posting photos of my son and myself wearing our masks to try to normalize it for others but many Americans are too stubborn and selfish. And the disappointments keep coming. Memorial Day weekend we were slated to road trip to Milwaukee for a Bikini Kill show. And this popped up in my inbox: “New Order & Pet Shop Boys - The Unity Tour Has Been Postponed” - these emails aren’t surprising but the way they kept trickling in was a bummer. Minor mournings. I would rather rip off the bandaid all at once. But I’m pretty sure I’ve finally run out of shows I had pre-ordered tickets to. On top of that, I’ve had big decisions to make about my son’s future, and my own. It’s no wonder I’ve been in a bit of a funk and didn’t leave the house for days. It’s been tough to keep myself distracted at times. I’ll watch 27 movie trailers but nothing grabs my attention. But there have been some things making me happy. Some bright spots:

• Last Friday we got the final season of She-Ra on Netflix. My son and I watched half the episodes Friday night and the rest Saturday morning. We’re not very good at pacing ourselves with the stuff we love. And this was wonderful.
• The Newcomers podcast from comedians Nicole Byer and Lauren Lapkus is ridiculously entertaining. The premise? These two had never watched a single Star War until now. I am a lifelong Star Wars fan so I thought I might be too annoyed but instead I’ve been laughing my way through each episode.
• Video: Missouri Penguins Enjoy ‘Morning Of Fine Art’ At Local Museum
• Sparks tell us about working with Adam Driver and “coming from a different realm of pop” Art-pop pioneer Russell Mael on Sparks’ 24th album ‘A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip’ and dreams of collaborating with The Weeknd
• Armed police called out to catch model tiger: Sculptor sees police helicopter overhead and invites officers to meet her ‘large wild cat’
• I adore comedian Sarah Cooper. Her body language and facial expressions as she spoofs of President Trump’s ridiculous statements - sublime.
• Last week I watched this: Bob Odenkirk and David Cross reuniting the Mr. Show gang for a “Zoomtacular Annual Business Call”
• The critics are all swearing by Never Have I Ever. This is a reminder to myself to watch it.

Now that the weather is warming up, I am envious of friends who have front porches and bigger backyard spaces. If we had more space here I would want one of these igloos with mosquito netting. But I’m sure Minnesota weather would destroy it before too long. Along those lines, I saw something they’re trying in Amsterdam at a restaurant with individual greenhouses for separate parties of diners. In theory, I like the idea but would be stressed out too much being served by people wearing PPE. And it makes me think of this: “An Italian Magazine from 1962 showing how the world would look like in 2022.” My son and I have agreed that we will continue staying home for as long as possible unless the situation changes significantly, for the better.

At times I can be forgetful. But grief and trauma? Those memories are etched in stone. My brother died on this day in 1989. He was just 18. I remember so many little details. Taking the bus after school from White Bear Lake to Maplewood Mall to downtown St. Paul to hang out with him at United Hospital. Getting tired of the lousy hospital food and walking over to Cossetta’s to pick up some mostaccioli to share. But sometimes he felt too sick to eat, because of the brutal chemo. He had a private hospital room in the adult oncology ward but we had to request to wheel in a TV with a VCR to watch movies. 15 year-old me pulled together some cash to go to a record store at the mall to get U2’s Rattle and Hum documentary on VHS so we could watch that together. Sometimes I would shake his plasma bags for the nurses before he received a transfusion. And I held the bucket for him when he was coughing up bile. On his better days we could play Nintendo together. The console was a gift from his employers at Kowalski’s grocery store in our hometown. At the end, I was sleeping in his room overnight but still in denial that he was dying. That last morning a few of us went downstairs for bad cafeteria food and to stand outside in the fresh air for a bit. I lingered in the sunshine. When I went back upstairs I washed my hands thoroughly before entering his room but he was already gone. I never said goodbye properly because I held on to the hope he would recover somehow. That the leukemia would go into remission. Even though it was pneumonia that had killed him by that point. His airways were being suctioned regularly. He was so very sick. But he knew I was there. I hope that’s enough. And it’s more closure than a lot of people are getting now, who are losing family members during this pandemic.

Trauma is nothing new for me. Before all this I’d been working through some past shit. But these current conditions have put everything on pause. I’m an artist but I don’t feel creative. Most days I’m just trying to get by. Going into this past weekend I was disheartened by so many things. In particular, the idiots protesting to “open up” the economy again, whatever that means. And a former married co-worker resurfaced out of the blue to proposition me (during a pandemic?) again so yeah, why not heap some weird vibes on top of my pandemic fatigue and burnout. And I didn’t even want to cook anymore, which is something I generally find therapeutic. Laundry? Forget about it. Right now I feel very little beyond exhaustion. But it will come. Later. And I do have an appointment with my therapist next month. She has been on maternity leave all year. I know I’m not alone on this roller coaster. This twitter thread sums it up perfectly.

Here are five better things:

• The Story Behind Every Track on Fetch the Bolt Cutters: Fiona Apple reached into the past to confront her rapist, middle-school bullies, and herself.
• Tom Hardy Gifting Us with a Week of Bedtime Stories (the week of April 27th). Thank you, Mr. Hardy.
• What We Do In The Shadows returns with horny ghosts and a pissed-off zombie. Just what I needed.
• Bluesmobile spotted in Milton Keynes playing feel-good tunes to ease strain of lockdown
• Memes of Chicago’s stern lesbian mayor are taking over the internet & she loves it