Ever since I was a teenager, I've always wanted to be on top of the news, whether it be from the US, Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, damn, even outer space! (I was a regular reader of UFO Report). I had to know what the leading stories were. I had a literal fear of missing out way before it became a trendy acronym. My high school classmates and I took pride in knowing what was going on outside of our little island nation of St Lucia. Many of us secretly read TIME and Newsweek and listened to the BBC World Service in the morning before school as we enjoyed debating each other in between classes and at lunch. We thought that what was reported was true, beyond dispute. They were the standard bearers of objective truth. In those days, there were very few digital distractions and television was only six hours a day. To fill the time, we absorbed & reflected upon a wide variety of things which kept our young, hungry minds occupied. That was the early 80s. Things have drastically changed since then, needless to say.
Now we find ourselves in a tricky, highly technological time where every controversial thing seems to be happening at the same time at warp speed. Our heads are spinning. Where the hell are we? In some sense, it is paradoxically liberating. More serious research has revealed numerous things about our world challenging the things we have known to be "true". One of my first "great awakenings" was the work of Ivan Van Sertima in his book, "They Came Before Columbus" which challenged everything I read in History class. The ground started shifting from that point. This scholarship has met with a raging blowback from the powers that be hyper-aware that their comfortable perch at the top of the food chain was fast becoming unsustainable. The world can no longer go on in the same way as it has for the last few centuries. William Cullen Bryant was right: "Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; / But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, / And dies among his worshippers". We have been seeing this play out on a daily basis in our highly divisive political and cultural landscape with anti-human policies being enacted on every level from immigration policies to health policies to voting rights. As George Orwell once darkly put it, in the character of O'Brien, the Party torturer - "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever."
For those who cherish their freedom of thought & movement, we have no choice but to resist. For those who enjoy the freedom of expression to include the absolute right to critique those who call themselves our leaders, we must continue to give them pressure. We know life is complicated. It's not black & white but deep shades of gray, but we deserve the right of not being lied to so consistently. We deserve the right to be safe in our own neighborhood and not be viciously attacked by ICE or sent to some foreign prison because of the particular shade of skin color God blessed us with. We deserve to simply be respected like every single person should.
Some would rather not be so political and choose to stay quietly on the sidelines & live their lives. Those with power & privilege bank on this position as it increases their wealth and oppressive reach. Power thrives on the apolitical. It thrives on the razzle dazzle of the entertainment industry, a weakened educational foundation, a compliant media spinning away at local crime stories to bolster the narrative of a wild bunch of animals bringing the country down and, to quote President Trump, "poisoning the blood of our country". We have seen behind the curtain and there ain't no turning back - & they know this. They have consequently dropped the masks and we are bearing witness to the raw face of inhumanity.
We are in a whirlwind my fellow humans. There will be no saviors, far less a savior descending on a cloud to save the world. June Jordan once wrote that we are the ones we have been waiting for. I'd go further: we are the ones the world has been waiting on.
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