I often hear these days “I am so done with this,” “I am so done with COVID,” “I am so done with global warming talk,” “I am so done with woke people.” What does this mean? “I’m tired”? “I’m bored”? ”I’m dead”? Whatever people think, COVID, global climate change and the struggle for nearly half of all Americans to finally have equality is not going away.
Magical thinking belongs in Disneyland and it doesn’t address the events of the real world. Wishing that the virus would just go away won’t make it happen, especially when such large numbers of people refuse to do the things that would reduce it. Ignoring the signs of global warming with its ever-increasing droughts, floods and wild weather events does not make those things stop being a threat. Mother Nature does not care if you are done with her.
The backlash by mostly white people against marginalized Americans is another case of trying to put the genie back into the bottle. Black Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics and other minorities having finally found their voices are demanding the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution. They are so done with being treated like second class citizens. The sleepy Americans who would prefer to stay ignorant may have to accept the face of America has changed.
If this country is to continue as the United States, we cannot return to the wishful, white society of the past any more than we can hold back the rising seas or “just say no” to COVID. There is no undo button for any of these issues. Playing ostrich, electing people who promise to restore Black people to their slave days and force women out of the workplace is done. Admit our mistaken magical thinking and move forward embracing science and reason.
Susan Chichetto
Bath
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