I really promise I’ll try to write about food soon sorry sorry xoxo
As you may or may not have noticed, I took a few weeks of from this newsletter. I didn’t really have anything new to say and felt as if an added email in all 11 of your inboxes would have been inappropriate. But now, as we begin to figure out the new normal of posting, it feels right for me to try to articulate some things I have been feeling. None of this relates to food at all so I really do apologize to some of you who actually wanted food content when you put your email into the mailing list.
The last month has been marked by a massive social movement, the scale of which the country has not seen since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. It is hard not to feel emboldened and optimistic seeing the diverse multiracial coalition, something that did not exist at the beginning of the modern Black Lives Matter movement in 2014, that has formed in the streets of American cities.
At the same time, it isn’t enough.
As I write this, Breonna Taylor’s killers still walk free and most of them are still collecting paychecks from the Louisville Police Department. In response to widespread calls to #DefundThePolice, many in the Democratic Party have opted instead to endorse a series of reforms that actually increase police budgets. This, of course, doesn’t take into account that many police departments around the country already follow the proposed 8 Can’t Wait policies; policies which don’t work. The mainstream Democratic Party’s response to the June of 2020 has been a series of conceited performances. From the kneeling with in the Capital rotunda to the line that Biden’s VP pick MUST be a Black Woman, without any meaningful change to back these stances up, what are we left with?
Oh, by the way, we’re still in a pandemic. I neither have the words nor the range to fully address my emotions and response to how the collective governments of America are fumbling their response to this pandemic so I won’t try. But, 48 hours before Middlebury announces their plans for the Fall, I can’t help but feel that we’re walking straight into a buzzsaw for no reason other than the school wanting our tuition checks.
Of course, such Doom isn’t helpful. Doom doesn’t bail anyone out, Doom doesn’t maintain social distancing. Doom doesn’t win Jamaal Bowman or Charles Booker their primaries this week. Doom actively kneecaps progress both in the ballot box and on the streets.
It’s a hard line to walk between acknowledging the harsh realities of the world we live in and letting them consume you. I’m sure many of you have seen this quote floating around before but I will still share it at the risk of being corny, it’s by organizer and prison-abolitionist Mariam Kaba.
“Let this moment radicalize you radicalize you rather than lead you to despair.”
And so, that’s how I’m going to end this newsletter. No nice ending, nothing to tie it all up. I think that’s kinda fitting: when has anything had a nice little closure with a bow on top.