Skip to main content

Communique #11

I can't breath

 Reflecting on the horrendous scene in Minneapolis, “I can’t breath”.  I think of the disproportionate number of people of color who get sick and die from Covid-19.  I think of the respirators pushing oxygen into the lungs of people who are horrible sick.  “I can’t breathe” and I think of the lack of good health care in the Inter-cities and among the rural poor in the United States.  Before the pandemic this was just normal.  With people in the streets there is hope for a new normal.

Still, I am seventy-one years old and this racial hatred has been present my whole life.  I have seen its many manifestations, a numbing number of means of disadvantaging the other.  I have seen how it has been used for political gain.  Everywhere I have lived, it lives, North, South and West.  When I took the white supremacy in Oregon course I felt overwhelmed by the relentless discrimination, it has so many heads.  I don’t know if it can be changed, it has been so persistent; it has shaped geography and mental spaces. “I can’t breath” it is so deep rooted, such a long history.  Good that so many are in the streets, these young people give me hope a dialogue about this scourge is long overdue.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Communique #13

Close to Home Since sheltering in place, I have done two slideshows of my neighborhood walks, each in four different Portland neighborhoods, photos and sound.  In thinking about the next slideshow, the next neighborhood walks I realized that due to the pandemic and staying close to home I have collected a lot of photos in a photo file simply called “Home”.   Here is the slideshow:  Close to Home These are the walks close to home I have taken again and again for fresh air and exercise.  In this new time I have come to appreciate these close to home encounters.  I’m seeing more now, close to home, small changes.  I have seen in ways not seen before over these last few months.    Repeatedly walking past things I have seen “NEW” and in some cases photographed, documenting what I saw.   Besides the changes in plant life, I discovered and photographed a 1897 house that recently went on the market in the neighborhood.  So I share that here...
Post a Comment
Read more

Communique #12

I wake up in the night, feeling warm with a dry throat and wonder if I have the virus.  I dismiss it and go back to sleep. But, there are more cases now than ever.  The normal that one might want to achieve seems farther and farther away.  We are at an extended existential moment.  The future is unknown. I suppose this is more realistic-- thinking one knows the future is an illusion, and yet culture, our culture plants the seeds and creates the markers for this illusion that the future is secure, corollary, one is safe and immortal, this against all evidence.  I suppose my surprise at how strong ideology is, some who are able to deny the science of the virus, is not that different then this culturally propagated belief, the future is known and secure. The pandemic brings this belief into question and we can call it existentialism.  No, the future is not known, so get over it.  Life is a fragile gift, we don’t know what happens tomorrow....
Post a Comment
Read more

Communique #14

An Existential Moment   We are in an existential moment; both biologically (the plague), politically (the election), environmentally (climate change).  The best way to look at this situation is to acknowledge and savor its uniqueness, whatever may happen, dwell in it, drink it, savor it.   What can I learn from it--about myself, relations with others, both close to home and in the larger community?   I feel more confident that the political moment will be resolved, by the end of the year before the biological and certainly before the environmental.  With all of these factors in play, it could get very crazy.  So I shift back to, “I will ride THIS horse.”  I will let go of what was, or what it might have been, what I might have wanted it to be, and accept what it is.  A wild ride to be sure.  The uniqueness of these times can’t be overlooked.  “I will ride THIS horse”, is acceptance of this existential moment, to see life as a gift, ...
Post a Comment
Read more