A Shock to the System: Can an All Encompassing Revolution Sustain Itself?
“This is not going to go the way you think.”
- Luke Skywalker
Recycling the Past: We Have Been Here Before
Decades of inequality. A viral pandemic. Government intervenes with economic shutdown to contain the virus. Sudden massive unemployment. Riots. Protests. Authoritarian response.
The pattern is disturbingly familiar.
The Crack Is Not the Mirror
Focusing on the smallest of exceptions as endemic of the whole is a broken mirror. Back away from the mirror and the cracks seem less daunting. The closer you get, the more horrifying you look and the more the cracks supersede the purpose of the mirror itself.
The Minutes of Our Last Meeting – How Not to Shoot Black People
Haggard – Can’t shoot any black people if there are no more black people to shoot.
The White Kids Are Lionized; The Black Kids Are Demonized
It probably isn't any big surprise that, despite his strident hatred of Islam, I remain an enthusiastic fan of Bill Maher.
So, when I sat down at my iMac and watched his interview of two of the rich, white kids at the forefront of the #NeverAgain movement, I had to go back and look through his archive to see if he had any of the poor, black kids behind the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
He didn't.
What Price For A Cultural Paradigm Shift?
If the Future is Female, I hope it isn’t Margaret Thatcher, the women behind the Tokyo Rose broadcasts, or Susan Smith (who drowned her children and claimed it was done by an anonymous black man.) I hope the Female Future isn’t Aileen Wuornos, Imelda Marcos, or Eva Braun.
Whitish Lives Matter | Literate Ape 2067
Dateline: Old Chicago, 2067
It’s been 25 years since that magic year of 2042 where, as predicted, whites were no longer the majority in the Reorganized States of America. Everything went as the social scientists predicted. Now, there are far more People of Color in the country. There are now far more People of Color in power throughout the country.
Remember Minesweeper?
You step on one of those mines, you blow up. You blow up and your intended message gets lost, never reaching the other side of the divide, never closing the gap, even by a millimeter. It never had a chance.
Anxiety is the thing that’s ripped our country apart. It has divided us, caused us to fear and hate those who think and live differently than us, and even caused us to hate those who only slightly disagree with us. It has led to panic and overreaction. And I worry that American Anxiety is only going to exacerbate the social and political divide in this country to the point that there is no coming back.