AMERICAN AMNESIA
āAmerican political culture turned forgiving and forgetting first into a virtue and then into a fetish.ā - Masha Gessen
The Color of Normal was birthed out of a dark moment, the beginning of pandemic when our society as we knew it stopped and we were finally jolted enough to question on a societal level, āwhat is normal?ā
But I've always been very excited about this question, and especially for the pursuit of rebuilding what is ānormal." I hope for a path of reckoning, not forgetting.
Masha Gessen wrote "Why America Needs a Reckoning with the Trump Era" in which I was profoundly touched by a few points I'll share here in case you have a paywall:
āIn the early nineteen-nineties, the first Russian constitutional court of the post-Soviet era scrambled a planned public trial of the Communist Party, and many of the countryās leaders called on the people to let bygones be bygones. Their motivation was largely pragmatic. A real reckoning would have swept up everyone who had any government experience, leaving the bureaucracy understaffed; it also would have cut through families and communities, exposing past sins. Finally, a reckoning, whether in the courts or in the media, was bound to sap energy and attention; Boris Yeltsinās government wanted to show a better way, one that would have rendered the past irrelevant. That plan didnāt work. Within a few years, as old divisions turned into unbridgeable chasms, the history of Soviet totalitarianism, left unexamined, gave way to all-encompassing nostalgia.ā
ā...if we choose to move forward without a reckoning, we move into the future lugging the trauma: the trauma of four years of seeing and hearing a President who makes us feel ashamed of looking and listening; the trauma, for many immigrants, of fearing for themselves and their children, and, for nonimmigrants, of being complicit in the war on immigrants; the trauma of observing a First Family that appears to use the government as an annex to its own private enterprise; the trauma of seeing friends and family get sick and die in a pandemic, the effects of which could have been ameliorated; the trauma of half the country, led by the President, denying the existence of a deadly disease and refusing to protect themselves and others; the trauma of seeing American troops used against protesters; the trauma of hearing a President address calls for a reckoning with structural racism by fanning racist hatred; the trauma of feeling helpless in our outrage. The election does not wash away this pain, anger, fear, and helplessness, especially because this election was by no means a landslide: looking at the percentages of the popular vote cast for each candidate, one could conclude that this was just a normal electoral contest. It was not.ā
I want to emphasize that Iām not breathing easy just because the Democrats won. We are waking from a dark four years that was only the mass awakening of a deeper sleep through America's long broken past. The effective work to transform the equity and justice of this country is only now really just beginning.
As we pull out of this cartoon dimension, Iām also urging people to be aware of their relationship to social media, news outlets, and information feeds. If you became addicted to any of those in the past four years, know that it's time to check in on yourself and others to pull back from these unhealthy relationships. Let's untangle politics as a from entertainment or a non-constructive pastime. This is not code for politically disengage, this is code for watch the documentary "The Social Dilemma" for a good shaking, or pick up any other nurturing hobbies or effectual actions besides needless worrying, bubba! I say this to myself first and foremost, and now to you because I lava yew!
