The Disorienting Absurdity of Whatever It Is We Talking About Today
Does anyone else feel disoriented?
The first few days of 2020 have felt like I’ve been walking on one of them airport moving runways. And then suddenly, because I wasn’t paying attention to the end of the runway, I found myself on steady ground*. When that happens, you’re likely to trip.
*I had to step away from my computer and sing, “On Christ The Solid Rock I Stand” just because.
I feel a little woozy. Disoriented might be the word. But maybe even gaslit? I feel like someone, I’m not sure who, is telling me that everything is cool when it’s not. Or that everything is urgent, when it’s not. Hot, Cold, Hot, Cold. We’re GREAT, LIFE IS WONDERFUL, also it’s all falling apart and we’re all dying now.
And If I ever see that “BREAKING NEWS” graphic on Facebook again… Jesus Christ.
First that man was impeached. Then he went and carried out an unethical airstrike to assassinate someone I am to believe is my enemy because he told me so. People joked about army drafts on Twitter and rationalized it by saying “that’s what Black people do with our trauma.” Which of course, derailed a conversation about war, borders, and the military industrial complex into one about what Black people should do during the apocalypse. Iranians, and anyone “who might appear” Iranian, were held up at airports. Somebody made a map of all the fall-out shelters in the New York area. And now no one is talking about impeachment.
There were protests. There were book clubs. Australia was on fire. Somebody on Twitter donated her nudes at $10 a pop to save Australia. She actually made a lot of coin and I’m proud of her.
Then Boosie wore Kappa para and started strolling on Instagram live. Lizzo left Twitter cuz y’all were talking about her beautiful body in trash ways. Bey went to the Golden Globes with her man and brought her own champagne. Tyler Perry told us that he’s the only Black Excellence he needs in his writing rooms. Christianity Today was critiqued and praised at the same time for “coming down hard on Trump.” They did this after years of publishing the very rhetoric that got ole dude elected and popular among people who actively hate people like me. Anti-Semitic attacks were on the rise during Hanukkah. The United Methodist Church told us they’re tryna figure out this LGBTQ+ stuff but not really. People talked about Blue Ivy’s hair. People went to Ghana and left the rest of us behind like the premise of Jordan E. Cooper’s Ain’t No Mo.
Then jet fuel fell out of the sky and onto children. Meghan Markle and her husband left the castle. Yolanda Carr, mother of Atatiana Jefferson, transitioned into the next life. The media wanted us to be talking about the Slack conversations of Sanders’ and Warren’s campaign volunteers instead of why the hell they’re supposed to be running the the damn place. Vince Vaughn talked to Donald Trump at a game. The WNBA reached a collective bargaining agreement that included an average salary bump (still pennies compared to NBA peers), better travel and full paid salary for family leave. Black Moms who were organizing for housing in Oakland were forcibly and violently evicted from the home they reclaimed.
That’s just what I remember. Is this not a lot of information? How is anyone supposed to wash clothes or be disciplined about writing or reading or having hobbies when this is what we wake up to every damn day? I’m deadass tired of this world.
If you feel disoriented, you’re not alone. That’s the spirit running all up through Solange’s Mad.
I got a lot to be mad about.
I don’t mean that as euphemism. I feel like I’m losing touch with reality. Every time I read something else, or watch another news clip, I feel like this is the Twilight Zone. Or some twisted dream sequence on a 90’s sitcom.
There’s no way this is what we’re doing right now. Not when the world’s superpowers are trending towards fascism and authoritarianism. Not when the World is burning. Not when the train costs $2.75 to get me to my destination late. Not when the NYPD invests more money in undercover cops to catch people for ditching that same fare than it takes to…
Not in the year of our Lord. Nope, there’s no way that this is happening.
On days I feel out of touch with real life, I remember the words of Alice Walker. The day after the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, she saved my life by reminding me who we are.
“How to survive dictatorship. That is what much of the rest of the world has had to learn. Our country has imposed this condition on so many places and peoples around the globe it is naive to imagine we would avoid it. Besides, do Native Americans and African American descendants of enslaved people not realize they have never lived in anything but a dictatorship?”
“Anger, the pointing of fingers, the wishing that everyone had done exactly as you did, none of that will help relieve our pain. We are here now. In this scary, and to some quite new and never imagined place. What do we do with our fear?”
When the news gets too heavy, I find myself spending time with blueprints. And sometimes blueprints aren’t right, but you get to see what was attempted and where it went wrong. Sometimes you learn the lesson you weren’t even tryna learn. Blueprints are useful. If for no other reason, so you won’t waste time repeating what we already know doesn’t work. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
So I sit a little bit longer with elders. I read more of Maria Stewart and Octavia Butler. I spend time in the quiet, because that’s where and how ancestors visit me. I listen to the Fisk Jubilee Singers. I make food --okay snacks-- which remind me of simpler times. This is not to be confused with burying one’s head in the sand. Black Joy As Resistance is NOT the same thing as Careless Escapism and Denial. A story for another day.
I need to remember that while what we experience is evil, we are not the first to encounter it. That doesn’t mean we flatten the specific kind of evil brewing today, or that we pretend we’ll be alright. It just means that there are some things to return to. Some stories to highlight. Some songs to sing.
I was angry when people said, “we’ve been here before, and we made it.” Because we know that everyone didn’t make it. And people aren’t “making it” today. We are deeply fractured. We are in need. We need something. Something that I’m less and less hopeful can be found on this side of The River.
But I get to remember that I am a human being. I get to remember.
A reflection in case you need to remember something, too.
why some people be mad at me sometimes
By Lucille Clifton
they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and i keep on remembering
mine.