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I don’t know where these words will lead me.
As I right this, I’m tired, and I can feel something bubbling up inside of me that has the texture of… rage. My sister Belinda recently shared the story of two people she knew from the same household who died of COVID-19, both black. One person was just 20 years old. He had underlying health conditions. If I remember correctly they included asthma and high blood pressure.
The next day I spoke with Lt. Edwin Raymond of the NYPD (interview on IG). He’s an incredible public servant I had a chance to meet four years ago for a show I did. He’s been witness to an extraordinary loss of life due to this coronavirus, especially in parts of black Brooklyn. COVID-19 is pushing a lot of people over the edge, but the truth is too many people were living on the edge to begin with. Racism and exploitative capitalism are comorbitities. We built the system to work this way, and it’s performing as designed.
I look at this administration in the United States, and I see what I’ve always seen from this president: blatant disregard for the lives and wellbeing of others unless there is personal benefit in it for him. This president made his money by discriminating against people, by stealing from his customers, in fact by stealing from us all (that’s what tax crimes are). What he does is who he is. I've been updating this timeline of horribleness someone on Facebook sent me, but honestly, I’m not surprised. I’m not even disappointed. I’m just… furious.
Much of the suffering we have experienced and will see more of soon was avoidable. There was a better way to handle this. There were literal playbooks on how to prevent or minimize a pandemic, but maybe because it happened when we had that young black president, this racist criminal organization in charge now just tossed the shit. So here’s the consequence: We are experiencing different pandemics, and this disease is revealing some of our ugliest truths.
Pregnant women are delivering babies alone. Health workers are being sent into battle without proper equipment. Domestic violence victims are trapped with their tormentors. “Essential workers” running our transit and food networks skew poor and black and brown and are overexposed to this disease, and don’t even get me started on Wisconsin and a Republican Party that now openly admits its strategy for victory is massive voter suppression.
Rage.
Welcome to another edition of the newsletter. I feel some relief in getting those thoughts off my chest but there’s more where that came from. I urge you to read all the way to the bottom. I'm going to piss you off and bring you down, but I'll do my best to lift you by the end.
Now, for your regularly-scheduled content in these irregular times…
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