Moment to Monumental Outcry (151)

We are living in, one of the worst years I can remember. It is globally challenging. Socially, economically, medically.

It started as a hopeful endeavor, for many of us. The number 2020- its sounds even and hopeful. But it has been anything but. It has been laden with heartache and uncertainty.

2020 like 1920, 1820, 1720 and 1520 before it- will be remembered for pandemics, tumultuous change, and social upheaval.

During the Red Scare of 1920, for example, hundreds of immigrants were rounded up and some were deported. The trial and execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian immigrants accused of murder, highlighted the prejudice against these newcomers. Also, the wide-spread contagion of the Spanish Flu, played havoc in the world.

In 1820 there was a pandemic of Cholera. In 1720 the plague was the global illness. In 1520 the Aztec Empire fell to a smallpox infection. The year of twenty, does not seem to hold much promise in any century. Especially when we are amidst a covid epidemic.

We have been quarantined for months and now that we are allowed to venture back out, we are doing so- not to a changed world, but to the same selfish, racist, misogynistic, prejudiced, laced landscape, we took refuge from, a few months ago.

People who were unkind and brutal then- are still traumatic to society now. Hateful, cruel people- after being isolated and quarantined, are even more despicable now. We have seen it these past few weeks, in many situations.

We became more focused on family, being productive, collaboration and beauty. Yet, some, turned inward and harbored more freedom to be obnoxious, rude, and downright wicked. They looked for ways to spread barbarism.

Visceral speech still roamed free, from our homes. From our newsfeeds and unfortunately our televisions. Stupidity and ignorance was alive and kicking, as couch crouching vermin, spewed their ‘trollism’s’. But somehow, we felt a little safer, they were locked away, like us.

Somehow, for a few months the bitter, brutal, cruelty of humanity, fell a bit silent. Not nonexistent, but just muted by isolation. The violence was still ever present, but the stories focused, on the global threat, the obvious attack. We turned inward, just a bit. The trollism’s we were used to- the violence we heard about on a daily basis, became lessened.

We took a moment, we breathed out, calmed our spirits temporarily. Only to have it erupt ferociously, into a loud yawp of injustice. Our deep focus on survival, was severed and our re-alertness and awareness shifted to the reality of cruelty. The realism of hatred and violence. Rewind, same unimaginable grief, its still here, after all of this?

At a time when humanity was resurfacing, our slightly relaxed mindsets were transformed by one single knee.

One herd of savage thinkers.

One brutal act.

A senseless behavior that plaques our society. 

Action over response. Reaction over discussion.

Add the fuel of racism and privilege, implied power (a uniform) and lack of judgement- you get a repeat of atrocities. You get what just happened in Minneapolis.

People are not talking, reasoning, they are revenging an injustice, because they feel trapped in an endless cyclic flow of racism. They are trapped in an endless cyclic flow of racism.

I am isolated, away from the masses. But my heart, my mind, my spirit is entangled in the community- working together to clean up the destruction. My emotions are heightened, and I am feeling helpless to make a difference.

But- I felt I needed to write something, just words on a page- but they are from my heart.