bigtree

bigtree's Journal

December 17, 2020

How does it feel to not be a target for abuse and neglect?

...I've felt like a target most of my life.

Not just the ever-present paranoia, but also a sense of deepening disenfranchisement which permeates my confidence in almost every endeavor with an almost certainty of unfairness.

It's definitely worsened in the past few years, and I'm now resigned to what might be my final chapter (a long one, I hope), fighting ghosts of the civil rights era which had always before presented themselves to me as past transgressions of this nation, now threatening to become a permanent fixture in the remainder of my life.

There's always been a very fine line drawn between me and full citizenship, even though I was born in Brooklyn. I felt that divide distinctly when Rodney King took that beating and prosecutors initially failed to hold the police responsible accountable. Felt it again when Mike Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson.

No explanation needed for what's stirring up the acrimony in me today. We can all see the diminution of comity and respect that had been conditionally extended by this nation to it's minority inhabitants over the decades since Reconstruction; since the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts offered the protection of the federal government to ensure those rights afforded by the Constitution and in subsequent amendments.

Equal opportunity and equal protection are two important challenges we struggle with, but what about public accommodations like transportation, housing or medical care? All of these are diminished along with the degradation of decency and mutual respect.

Long route to this report today, but it speaks to every fear I have about this nation including me in its promises. I'm quite used to statistics which predict an earlier demise for me than my white counterparts and compatriots.

I'm all the more alarmed this morning to find government officials acquiescing to allow black and Latino communities' Covid-19 infections to rise uncontrolled in the interest of furthering an extremely dubious 'herd immunity' plan which most experts predict will kill millions before any such result is even possible. This in the face of an already wildly disproportional number of infections and deaths in already struggling black and Latino regions of the country.

I feel pretty much like I've felt most of my adult life. Like a target.

...thread:

https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/1339384156661399552

CDC's New Numbers Show Black Americans and Other People of Color Dying at Higher Rates From COVID-19 Than It Previously Reported

____The agency previously said Hispanic and Black Americans were dying at a rate of about one and two times higher than Caucasians, respectively.

The updated analysis also shows that American Indians or Alaska Natives have died at a rate 2.6 times that of White Americans. The CDC previously put that figure at 1.4 times as high as White Americans.

The CDC’s previous infographic, which downplayed the disproportionate burden on communities of color, was widely shared, including in the agency’s “Framework for Equitable Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine.” The CDC appears to have updated the analysis on Nov. 30.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/opinion-cdc-acknowledges-black-and-latino-americans-dying-at-higher-rate-from-covid-19-than-it-previously-reported/ar-BB1bF0XR

December 16, 2020

First Snow

...it's our first significant snow in my state today.

Not anything major, but most of us here slow down or stop to gawk at it or pretend we're all snowed-in. The saucer kids are already out in the street.

I wrote this poem a few years back... 'When You Smile at the Falling Snow'

When you smile at the falling snow,
You're likely remembering joy and beauty,
Experienced over a lifetime.

From the very first time your parents
Bundled you up with layers of long underwear;
Woolen trousers and several pairs of socks,
Oversized sweater over a turtleneck,
All crammed inside that impossibly small snowsuit.

You remember that first misshaped snowman
Mixed with dirt and grass, and snot;
More brown than the white ground surrounding it.
Well-dressed in Mother's good scarf you borrowed,
And perfectly natty in Father's old cap.

There's hastily erected snow fort on the front lawn,
Fully fortified with a neat pile of perfect snowballs,
Smoothed over by stiffening, soaked mittens,
Too precious, maybe too deadly to actually throw.
The fort is everything; only room for friends, and you.

Was there ever a truly safe hill for sledding?
One without the sharp drop into the half-frozen creek?
A sledding hill without that fence at the end,
Or that busy street with cars whizzing by past the curb
Threatening to drown, decapitate, or drive over you?

Soaked to the bone, soaked through seven solid layers.
Stubbornly ignoring frostbitten feet and swollen hands.
Struggling with your sled back up to the top of the hill,
Standing in line behind the big kids, you spot your sister
Shivering from the cold; you're suddenly shivering, too.

I was able to recreate all of that winter magic, as an adult;
My own sons, layered and stuffed into impossibly small snowsuits.
We made our own dirty snowmen; sturdy snow forts,
And sledded down unsafe hills, scraping swollen knuckles,
Stubbornly shivering as we stayed too long.

It's snowing, and there's a family of deer in my suburban yard,
Taking refuge on the softer land, ground deliberately layered
With the trees' insulating debris and evergreen ground cover.
There's spirit here; they know it's safe from predators,
A perfect place to digest their food and nibble a bit more.

They startle when I open the door to scatter birdseed,
Standing perfectly still, once more, when they hear my voice,
Softly reassuring them there's no reason to run away.
They're covered with snow, and one is trying to lick it off of the other.
The snow is falling fast, and I'm smiling again.

...stay safe, everyone!

December 16, 2020

I understand the need to win red states, but they're not the heart of our party

...most Democratic votes come from states where the vast majority of Americans live.

That's what make the denigration of progressives (and their policy positions) by 'moderate' Democrats so hard to understand. Most of their opposition to progressive candidates comes from a judgment that the left is unable to make major inroads in conservative areas of the nation because of their political beliefs.

What's not clear is if that opposition is based on a political calculation, or just opposition in general to progressivism. If it's politics, it's short-sighted. If it's about policy, then there's really little of substance to defend.

Progressivism is an affirmative value which seeks to increase opportunities and positive outcomes for individuals.

Moderation or centrism is a limiting ideology which seeks to parcel or deny progress on several key initiatives, as a political bid to gain favor from republicans and conservatives, or dilute their appeal.

It's not enough to just find someone who's willing to put a 'D' beside their name for the sake of winning, although gaining a majority in either body of Congress is an undeniable imperative. Those Democrats and others need to find ways to support progressive policies and initiatives, if for no other reason than to uphold the principle and values which are supported and defended by the vast majority of us.

The disdain sometimes directed at progressive legislators and candidates from red state Democrats because of their steadfast commitment to a progressive agenda is an anathema to those things most Democrats in the country vote to achieve and protect.

It's those progressive values which must be held paramount in our party's deliberation and legislation, not political expediency.

December 2, 2020

Cicely was young, Black & enslaved- her death during a 1714 epidemic has lessons that resonate today

A grave marker for an enslaved woman named Jane uses the archaic ‘1740/1’ Julian calendar notation to denote her death in early 1741. Nicole Maskiell, CC BY-ND

____Cicely lived and died during a time of racial unrest and disease. A slave revolt in 1712 in New York City led to several brutal executions and deportations. News of the revolt spread throughout the Colonies, stoking concerns of a wider uprising. Colonists armed themselves in fear...

Racial unrest was quickly followed by contagion. A measles outbreak the next year followed the same path up the coast as news of the revolt had traveled.

The epidemic started in Newport, Rhode Island, in the summer of 1713 and hit Cambridge, Massachusetts, that September. It broke out at Harvard before spreading to Boston. More than 400 Bostonians died – about 18% of them people of color – at a time when Black people were only 4% of the total population.

Racial discord and disease continued throughout the Colonial period. Between Cicely and Jane’s deaths in 1714 and 1741, a smallpox crisis gripped Boston, inflaming racial tensions. An enslaved person named Onesimus helped introduce an early form of inoculation called “variolation.” This technique was practiced on both white and Black Bostonians, to the consternation of many. On its heels, a five-year diphtheria outbreak ravaged New England, killing 5,000 people, including Jane.

Much like today, Colonists received mixed messages during disease outbreaks, with some leaders touting the value of inoculations while others stood fast against them. As Jane toiled in the shadow of Harvard in 1740, the male landowners of Cambridge held a contentious election that saw very high voter turnout amid a diphtheria epidemic...

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