Spotted and I wanted to share it forward, since I’d like to be writing more about time:
Why Being Black Means Time is Fluid for Me
(content note: while this piece is SFW, many pieces on Salty may not be, so use your best judgement)
I appreciated the essay as another meditation on time, and considering how (to them) the experience of time is different for members of oppressed groups — noting how a white child might learn about segregation as some far-away historical event, but it was the author’s parent’s reality. The past and present don’t feel so separated.
That goes further into an idea about how “progress” looks a lot different depending on your perspective. The author references the spoken word piece Whitey On the Moon, which if you aren’t watching Lovecraft Country (a show on HBO), you can give the poem (2 minutes!) a listen on YouTube. In the 60s, the USA was in the moon race, meanwhile, plenty of Americans (including Black people) were facing overt systems excluding them (while of course, still paying taxes).
This also makes me think about how the coronavirus recession (the current era) is “the most unequal recession in modern U.S. history, delivering a mild setback for those at or near the top and a depression-like blow for those at the bottom”. Particularly since I do work in technology (a sector that, although the layoff train does pass by regularly if you’re to believe social media, is booming) and I remain gainfully employed, without much concern that I’ll need to soon join the food distribution lines.
They’ve added another block of social distancing markers to the line lately (it’s about 3 blocks long now).
So while I’m depressed, anxious, and generally meandering between my “you know, things are going well? maybe?” and “fuck, mental health danger zone” I appreciate the challenge in this essay: “But we must dream of the future, still. […] What’s on the freedom side?”
What does that future look like? I’d like to try and think about this.