We don’t have a shared reality anymore

This is still America.

Last week’s newsletter didn’t age well. A starry-eyed essay about release and collective rituals to usher in a new year. Just let me bask in the goodness of that feeling for a few days because who in America really believes it’ll last?

What I choose to believe instead is our human capacity for hope. It’s fundamentally our baseline, like a compass eventually righting itself even when submerged in the chaos sown by the moral failures of our government in the name of American exceptionalism. Hope is a survival response, but this country has an extraordinary way of beating you down.

Halfway through January (what, already?) and hope is being tested, again. Who else has this song stuck in their heads seven years later?

The politically loaded music video, laden with symbolism and historical references, was shocking when we first saw it. This brazen depiction of violence in America will never not be relevant. But it’s the smiling, uniformed schoolchildren dancing while cars are burning and police chaos erupts around them that left a lingering impression on me the most.

I think about it still because the juxtaposition between chaos and oblivion plays out everyday: influencers in my feed next to by-stander videos of violent confrontations. Hollywood celebrating their golden statues while a war against their fellow Americans by the federal government rages on in Minnesota 1,800 miles away. The clash between the horrific and the sublime coexists seamlessly on social media. Violence is reduced to content. Context switching hits like whiplash.

We need distractions and an escape to cope, sure, but the dissonance is surreal.

This week’s newsletter wasn’t going to be about any of this, but it also feels wrong to say nothing about the ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good. I don’t have anything new to add; you know what happened. I may even feel a little regretful clogging your inbox with more words on the shooting that nobody really needs. So maybe this was for me—a way to process what is still unfolding this past week in America. It just feels weird to go about your daily life knowing that another line has been crossed: the murder of an unarmed U.S. citizen. A white woman. A mother. A Christian.

Anyone who’s ever felt immunity from the threats of this administration because they identify with any of the above should no longer feel safe. “Fucking bitch.” An audible mutter heard seconds after the three gunshots to the head is now seared into our collective psyche. Every woman has faced the aggression of male anger at least once in our lives—this is why the shooting hits like a sucker punch to the gut. The killing over an act of so-called disobedience is our fears, realized.

The so-called party of family values was quick to demonize Ms. Good, but those who recognize abuse can see the misogyny running from conservative onlookers up through our top federal officials: she must have done something to provoke him. Why didn’t she just do what she was told? She was disrespectful and the killing was justified.

The web of lies and character assassination that followed immediately after, even in the wake of damning video evidence, has shown that the administration will go to great lengths to manufacture false narratives. We don’t have a shared reality anymore. Almost exactly to the day on the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, we see another attempt to rewrite history, only we’re seeing it happen in real time.

If you aren’t seeking information on what continues to happen in Minnesota or other Blue states where there is ICE presence, then you wouldn’t necessarily know what’s happening. Not much is being reported in mainstream media, but Minnesotans are posting eye witness accounts of brute force ICE activity on social media every day. It’s one reason why I reluctantly stay on social platforms—to be aware of what isn’t being reported, but also to hear from decent, compassionate, but angry citizens who are the fighting voices of America. I hope the rest of the world can see that we haven’t given up.

Anyway.

It felt trivial to write about anything else this week. I’m struggling here.

What I do want to share is that I was taking a walk early one morning in my neighborhood just as the morning fog began to burn off. The sky gradually emerged in a pale, luminous blue. Winter light arrives at a lower angle with both clarity and restraint.

A stranger with a dog, who I approached as I crossed the street to enter Prospect Park, turned to me and said, “Isn’t the sky amazing?”

“Yes, it is” I responded. We both stood there with our eyes towards the sky for a minute before going in opposite directions.

Don’t know why that brief encounter with a stranger moved me, but it did. It broke through the protective fourth wall I sometimes build when I go for solitary walks.

Leave your house. Take a chance and talk to a stranger. Be in nature, see some art. It’s the only way we’ll get through it.

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Related reading

Stand by or stand up. Decide who you are.

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A roundup of links & recs

To read:

• Renee Nicole Good, murdered by ICE, was a prize-winning poet. Here’s that poem. (Literary Hub)
  So much focus on Good being a mother of three, but she was also a poet.

• Renee Nicole Good merch quickly spreads on Amazon and Etsy just hours after Minneapolis shooting (Fast Company)

  Capitalism. Of course. 🙄

• Group claims ballroom at Trump's Doonbeg resort must wait until rare snail starts to prosper (Irish Examiner)

  We take the wins where we can. Love that it’s a tiny protected snail that is legally blocking the expansion of the golf course 🐌.

• Buddhist monks persist in peace walk despite injuries as thousands follow them on social media (AP News)
  I’m seeing images and videos of the monks all over social media. They started their walk in Texas on October 26 and will end in Washington D.C. sometime in February. When monks walk for peace, it is a prayer in motion. I’m heartened by the reception that these monks are receiving along their path across the southern U.S. We’re all so desperate for displays of compassion, hope, and goodness in the world.

• Dennis Lehtonen’s Aerial Views of Remote Greenland Villages Illuminate an Evolving Land (This Is Colossal)
  Greenland is in the news lately, and not for good reasons, but what do we know about the world’s largest island? These arial photos of villages from photographer, Dennis Lehtonen, give a sense of scale to the breathtaking landscape. And here are ten facts about the Arctic nation.

• The Textile Artists Bringing Fiber Art Into the Future (W Magazine)
  I love textiles as a medium, so I was really interested in reading about artists who are redefining what textile art can be. “…Breaking down the hierarchies that separate craft and fine art, weaving and computing, ancient and new technologies,” a new generation of textile artists are bringing in work to museums and galleries.

• Gourmet Magazine Is Back. It’s Not Exactly Sanctioned. (NY Times)
  Shuttered in 2009, the trademark was not renewed in 2021 (up until recently, we still had old issues on our bookshelves). Now, Gourmet will be resurrected as a newsletter operated by five journalists.

A recent exhibition I saw in NYC:

• Jorge Pardo’s recent show at Petzel Gallery. I loved it just as much for the sensory experience of walking into this warm glow-y space as for the visual impact of his paintings and colorful acrylic lamps. It was both soothing and joyous.

  

  

  Till next week, – JP