Divided States of America
There is no doubt that a lot of things have gone horribly wrong.
Many of those things have become polarized topics. You can’t just be against the coronavirus pandemic any more, you must pick a side as to whether the unprepared response to it was the fault of the left or the right.
My partner and my brother are expecting a civil war. I feel like that would be the worst possible outcome. I feel that if we cannot be united and cooperative about a crisis like this, we cannot expect to collaborate to heal all the warts of white privilege, misogyny, xenophobia, and gender discrimination. How could we get through the water and food wars without some sort of Hunger Games scenario? What would be the outcome for all the climate disasters to come without a centralized system which allows sustainable food, and other resources to be fairly distributed?
The pandemic has revealed a lot of systemic flaws. Our inequality, our racism and sexism, is put in a harsh light when we look at who is hurting most. People with diabetes and hypertension, for example, and people living in poorer neighborhoods, are at greater risk. Doctors tend to have less patient contact then nurses, and more men than women are doctors.
Domestic violence has increased with people staying home.
Working people in service jobs especially are hard hit. People who can comfortably work from home not so much.
We see the same divide when the topic of climate change is brought up. Social injustice is social injustice no matter if it occurs because your neighborhood consists primarily of people of color, downwind of a polluting factory, or because you are a hard-working care-giver not compensated with a fair living wage.
Looking for the light
This list of societal ills is already familiar to most of us. What the pandemic has done is focus a light upon them once again. The optimists are shouting for reform. The pessimists are taking a longer view, and declaring the end of democracy, and maybe even the United States as a United entity. Obama liked to remind us that we are not just red states for Republicans or blue states for democrats, but a configuration of United States.
It would look like a very lopsided country indeed, if we divided up the map with east coast and west coast seceding with a giant hole left in the middle, or if Alaska and Texas teamed up to be the biggest territories with the fewest people there.
Tearing up the map does nothing to promote more diversity and equality, it may instead, create more barriers than we already have.
Many people are blaming and shaming others, and that is not the way to get through this safely. Yes, indeed the federal response to emergency has been enraging. It feels as though the Trump administration is hell bent on blaming scapegoats such as Chinese laboratories, immigrants and others. Getting into twitter feuds with governors, and not providing reassurance — except to Big business — is wreaking more havoc, too.
Yet, given all of that, (and yes I know there are further outrages) we still need a United States because we need solidarity and identity as people who can fight the good fight and win something worth winning.
Opening a nation, or opening a wound
We are entering an opening up of America, or the beginning of the second wave of plague, depending upon who you are talking to these days.
These are very frightening times, but I think it is more frightening to see citizen turn on citizen; we can’t let things get that out of hand.
Clearly the majority of people are realizing how meaningful it really is to be supporting our heroes, feeding the hungry, taking distancing precautions seriously, and most of all listening to one another.
America really does achieve greatness only when we step up and put all our hearts and minds to the task of a moon landing, or stopping an ozone hole.
For the first time in a long time, we have seen people listening to the science and believing in knowledge rather than just gut instincts. We have seen people of faith who may believe in miracles, but they are not going to put their fellow worshippers at risk by attending church.
Parents are learning for the first time how hard teaching is, and spouses are learning for the first time how hard it is to manage a home.
Our nation does have gigantic flaws. I think, though, that each individual story is powerful and can help generate an improved society since we are, most of us, still staying home. It is a good time to write. It is a good time to talk. It is a good time to come together like never before.
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This post was previously published on Equality Includes You and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Christyl Rivers