We have got to move forward, not back. “We The People” means all of us, everybody. We’re all Americans: all colors and races, gay, straight, man, woman, vegan, whatever. We’re all Americans, folks, it’s not just a thing for white people who tell themselves they are “Christian”. Don’t tread on me? We’re with you – that is exactly what George Floyd was trying to say, as that damn cop inexplicably kneeled on that man’s neck for almost 9 minutes until he finally, really, couldn’t breathe. What the hell is wrong with us?
I don’t know how to talk to you people. “You People”. You people that I have somehow gathered here, on this, our Public Square/Party Line , which shouldn’t be owned and weaponized against us by a giant, amoral entity, by the way.
I feel very isolated, lonely. I see that most of us do, you people, right now, I guess. Those angry-looking white people I see sitting behind the current President at his ill-advised gatherings sure do, even behind those branded masks they were instructed to wear.
I used to be sustained – financially – and nurtured - spiritually, socially – by my life as a performing musical artist. Musician, bandleader, singer/songwriter, producer, composer, theatre music director. That seems like a dream, longingly, here at 4:10am, with less than a week to go before the historic Election of 2020, because I can’t sleep and what the hell, I don’t really have anything I have to get up for anyway.
It was a beautiful dream, really. I’d be playing in a loud, hot, crowded rock and roll bar, people cheering for my band, that band I used to have. Or some corporate event in some swanky downtown hotel – remember those? My happening little acoustic duo with my pal Michael (damn, haven’t seen him in a while) on percussion – library concerts and park concerts and grocery stores and nursing homes and just playing all the time is what I did. How I connected with people. How I could feel like I mattered even a little bit, like I was giving something back, useful.
But here I sit alone in my house, a lot. With no real leadership from the top during This Global Pandemic, I, we, are just left to sort it out on our own. So, I’m trying not to get me or my family or my friends sick, trying to avoid those folks who just won’t wear a goddam simple little mask to try and keep us all alive.
I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I know I have it good. My recovering-alcoholic father, Jack, taught me – us – all to count our blessings, to never lose sight of those less-fortunate. I – and my family – have roofs over our heads. I somehow had enough nuts (been watching my neighborhood squirrels lately) squirreled away to hopefully make it through the winter. So far, I have weathered losing all my work and income when things shut down mid-March. Things came back, barely to half-strength, starting in mid-June with outdoor gigs. But that’s all gone now.
And I’ve lost three of my dearest friends/collaborators in the past year and a half, one last month (yeah, Covid-19.) So, I’m dealing with a lot of sorrow, a heavy heart.
But I know we all are. I see you. (Where was I? Oh, yes.)
We’ve got to move forward, not back.
I’m communicating to you through this fucking computer because I can’t see you. On one of many corrupt and corrupting social platforms that are so damn handy. On this addictive little spying-on-us TV communicator in my pocket that I’d been trying to stay away from because it’s so addictive and intrusive. But it’s all I got now. So, you know, hi……
Forward, not back. I don’t know what you angry, overwhelmingly white folk in your supplied, branded masks sitting behind the current President at his ill-advised rallies want. I have friends whose judgement I trust who think we are on the cusp of some sort of second Civil War. Over what? Do you really want us to go back, to “again” – where only white males who owned property were allowed to fully participate in America?
And do you really think that a guy like Joe Biden (and every President, except the Current) is a satanic baby-eater? (Sidebar on that one: I’d actually place my money on the guy in Sulphur smoke holding an upside-down Bible in front of a boarded-up church, if you ask me.) Z tells me to stock up on canned goods, for the next few months. Should I be worried about armed gangs of grievance-fueled White Supremacists shooting up my neighborhood? (Sidebar on that one: I’ve often thought of learning to shoot, getting a gun, keeping it in the basement in case The Shit Finally Does Come Down, but I read a stat somewhere that your odds of dying by gunfire go up tremendously if you own one. And I learn, mostly, by mistakes. So: no gun yet. But glad to hear black females have made up a big percentage of new concealed-carry permits. That makes me feel safer, actually.)
What, why would that be? Because I live in a fairly well-integrated neighborhood, that’s why. Always have. I grew up steeped in black culture. Music, friends, colleagues, heroes, inspirations, influences. I was raised by parents who went from not prejudiced to anti-racist. My dad was that one who told me about the Southern Poverty Law Center in my twenties, when I found a newsletter from them after he had joined. You should check them out, he said. Important stuff.
And yet, despite all that, I was blindingly unaware of the massive amount of White Privilege that defined my life prior to Ferguson and the dawning of Black Lives Matter. This country was built from the ground up by black labor. Not only do Black Lives Matter to me, but they are Essential, Undervalued, Beautiful.