Marguerite made her way to the upstairs linen closet. The setting sun shone through the dormer window on the opposite end of the hall. On her tiptoes, she grabbed the gray case by its leather handle and, as it scraped across the top shelf, a sheer curtain of dust danced in the beams of light that passed between her arms, over her head and shoulders.

A mug of coffee was waiting for her downstairs, sitting on the butcher block counter and fogging up the kitchen window against the January evening chill. She landed the case next to her coffee and pulled a low-backed stool closer. Thumbing the brass fastener loose she removed the fabric and plywood cover revealing the teal typewriter underneath. After the ribbon advanced several inches, the keys found good ink, and the key levers stopped creaking as soon as the grease on the bearings warmed up.

               Communiqué #1 - January 21, 1981

The United States of Amerika has, once again, lost its way.

This is a distress call from the belly of the beast that 
is US imperialism.

Our meddling with the democratic process around the world 
in the interest of lining the pockets of global enterprise
has led to the destabilization...

The machine emitted a series of sharp clicks as Marguerite pulled the completed leaflet out to scrutinized her work. The rules were the same, no names, no address, no clear directives or goals. This was a call to action and those who this communiqué was meant for would know what to do.

There was one more finishing touch; Marguerite retrieved an ink pad from a nearby drawer. The ring on her right index finger clung tightly to the flesh of her hand as she wrestled it free and pressed its face firmly, first, on the ink pad, and then, on the bottom corner of the leaflet.

The next morning, Marguerite visited her friend at the university copy shop, leaving with a stack of freshly Xeroxed pages still warm from the machine. She posted them around campus first, using a rusty steel staple gun to attach the pages to bulletin boards and telephone poles, one staple at the bottom, ker-chunk, and one up top, ker-chunk.

ker-chunk ker-chunk — ker-chunk ker-CHINK

Later that morning, with a diminished stack of papers and her hands chapped from the cold, the stapler jammed, leaving a flier hanging by a single staple, fluttering like a wounded bird. Marguerite banged the stapler against the pole trying to dislodge the errant staple. A man in a charcoal overcoat and fedora witnessed her predicament and crossed the street to assist.

“Let me see that.” The man holding out his hand was about twenty years her senior and looked strangely familiar, he smelled of cigar smoke and aftershave.

Marguerite gratefully handed over the stapler and blew into her cupped hands as the man turned the tool over in his hands. The man produced a pocket knife and flicked the blade open with a snap of the wrist. In a moment, he dislodged a clump of staples from the aperture.

“I think that’s got it, let’s see.” The pocket knife closed and disappeared into the inside breast pocket of his overcoat. The man spread the pamphlet against the pockmarked wood of the telephone pole and pressed the stapler against the top edge. ker-chunk

Smiling warmly, he returned the stapler to Marguerite. His eyes fell on the stack of papers.

“What is it you got there, anyway?” Marguerite handed him a leaflet and he perused it, his eyes lingering for a moment on the stamp in the bottom corner. He returned the page to the stack.

“I’ll tell you what, I bet we can get the rest of those hung lickety-split if we worked together. I know this coffee shop around the corner that has the best raspberry danish where we could go for a warm-up afterward.”

Marguerite’s hazel eyes quietly considered the tall stranger. Sun-worn but handsome with a scar in the shape of a C across his chin. There was something about him, a familiarity, as if she had met him before. She nodded once, and smiled agreeably.

“Ok. Sure. You got a name?”

“Mr. Carson. Harold. Call me Harold.”

The work went faster with two, they took turns with the staple gun while the other thumbed pages off the stack and held them in place. The sun was high in the sky when the cold finally drove them to seek shelter and they arrived at the diner. A bell rang as the door swung open and shut, a burst of cold air following them in. They found a place at the counter and Marguerite placed the few remaining pages on the faded Formica. A waitress approached with a pot of coffee in each hand, and, as she filled Harold’s mug, she looked at Marguerite.

“What can I get ya, hon’?”

“Black tea. Milk and sugar…”

“And two raspberry danishes.” Harold smiled and held up two fingers, like a peace sign. The waitress winked, and walked away.

“So, what do you do Harold?”

“I’m a pensioner — I’m retired.”

“OK, so what did you do.”

“I was a cop, in Lansing.”

“Lansing, huh? You know, you look so familiar…”

Just then a young couple, U-M students, entered and the blast of cold air sent the stack of papers airborne. Marguerite ducked down to the floor to collect the papers and, after a moment, Harold joined her to help.

Sliding the coaster on top of the recomposed stack, Marguerite took a sip of her tea, holding the cup in both hands and letting the heat warm her fingers.

“You should know, I don’t date cops.”

Harold held up both hands in mock alarm. “Ex-cop. And this is only coffee.”

Marguerite was so tired, I just need to rest my head for one minute, she thought. She felt an arm tight around her shoulders. Harold’s wool coat was itchy on her face and the scent of cigars was overwhelming as she was led outside and into the car.

Marguerite was only sixteen the first time she was arrested. After school she had taken the Greyhound to the capitol building with a friend, a 90-minute ride, for a protest against the war. The kids there had thrown bottles, garbage, whatever they could find at the cops, yelling “Pigs!” She had become separated from her friend when the police closed in and placed metal linking barriers, a police bus blocking the street they arrived from. The detective who booked her was handsome, a distinctive scar in the shape of a C on his chin.

When Marguerite came to, she was bound to a chair with duct tape, an IV cannula was attached with medical tape to her right arm. Harold must have taken her to his apartment, a modest studio on an upper floor, windows looking out onto the featureless brick of the building next door.

Her eyes darted around the sparsely furnished living space: bar, desk, chair, stereo, couch. The dim light from the windows was augmented by a single bulb in the standing lamp by the couch. She could see through a passageway into the kitchen, illuminated by natural light that seemed to come from nowhere.

Ochre-colored walls were hung with plaques, framed medals, and old photos. The one closest to her was a much younger, much more in shape army-fatigued Harold surrounded by a cadre of grunts that looked just like him. In another, he was shaking hands with J. Edgar Hoover, a couple of dogs at their feet, barely in the frame.

Three doors were in view, one–ajar–revealed a tile floor, yellowed by harsh, incandescent lighting. Bathroom. Another–narrow and unadorned. Linen closet? The third, decorated with an assortment of chains and deadbolts. The way out.

Across the room, Harold’s back was to her, but she could tell he was fixing himself a drink. Scotch on the rocks? Ice cubes. Amber colored liquor. Havana Club.

Turning toward her, he lifted the drink between the index finger and thumb of his left hand, wiping the other on his slacks. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he took a man-sized gulp.

With his free hand, Harold brought the desk chair toward her. He put his drink on the end table next to several glass vials, a syringe, and other medical paraphernalia. Removing his overcoat and hanging it on the back of the chair, he unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. He turned his attention back to the side table carefully loading a syringe first from one vial and then another.

She needed to say something, to stall. “I remember you.”

Harold ignored her, holding the syringe up to the standing lamp & flicking it once with his forefinger. He crossed the room and examined the IV site.

“How about we talk this out, man?” She coughed. “Harold.”

No eye contact.

After shooting the drug cocktail into the injection port, Harold left the empty syringe on the side table and retrieved a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder from a drawer in the secretary. He sat in the chair across from her and placed the recorder at his feet, unwinding the black vinyl-wrapped cord and setting the microphone facing her. He depressed two buttons on the recorder and the reels started spinning slowly with a soft hum.

He finally spoke. “Are you a communist?”

Marguerite’s head was spinning and it felt like the words had to fight to reach her, at the same time, her senses were heightened, the light pulsating like the camera man was oscillating the aperture, the whistling of the tape unspooling was grating. This wasn’t the first time she had been on psychedelics but there was something else in the mixture too, something that made her slur her speech and her tongue dry.

She twisted her mouth and managed to spit a word out: “Why?”

“I remember you, when they brought you in, you were just a fresh-faced little girl. You might not remember, but you spat at me. I was a detective at the time, brought in to assist with processing. There were so many kids being brought in.

In all my years, I’ve only been spat at one other time, when I returned from my deployment in ‘Nam. The protesters, they spat at us, they jeered, and called us ‘baby killers.’

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was coming home from fighting the Viet Cong to find there were commies here, operating at home, and there was nothing we could do about it.

Hoover got us on the right track with COINTELPRO. That leveled the playing field for a while, so we could fight those bastards here at home.

I wasn’t angry at you, though, when you spit in my face all those years ago. It made me sad. Here was this pretty little girl, and these radicals had sunk their talons into you. I didn’t want to punish you, I wanted to save you.”

Marguerite would have spat at Harold, if her mouth wasn’t so dry. He stood then and retrieved his drink, emptying it in a second man-sized gulp and walked to the AV cabinet. Dropping a needle into the groove of a record, he went for a refill.

A man’s voice, monotone, and another track in the background counting backwards from 100.

Play close attention — 100 — to what I am going to say — 99 — 98 — relax, let all tension fall away from your body — 97 — 96 — your arms and legs are heavy — 95 — 94 — you will slip — 93 — into a deep sleep — 92 — shortly — 91 — you will be in a deep sleep — 90 —

The recording continued like that as Harold filled and drained another glass of rum and then wandered off into the kitchen holding the tumbler in one hand, the bottle by its neck in the other. A moment later, Marguerite smelled the sweet smoke of a cigar.

As soon as he was out of sight, Marguerite struggled against her bonds. “– your eyelids are leaden — 78 –” The tape was loose enough around her chest and shoulders that, with some effort, she was able to lean down toward her arm and grasp the cannula in her teeth. “– breath deeply — 62 –“ The medical tape tore away as she yanked the needle from her arm. The cannula was an injured bird fluttering in her mouth, she took a deep breath and it was inanimate plastic and metal again. Using the sharp end of the catheter as an improvised tool, she began scoring the duct tape with repeated passes of the needle. “– 50 — 49 — 48 –“ When the needle broke lose from its plastic sheath Marguerite spit it out (fly, birdie, fly) and wrenched at her bonds. The adhesive tore at her skin but the tape split at one edge spurring her to pull harder “– 32 — 31 — 30 –” all at once her arm sprung free of her bonds. In another moment she freed her other arm. “– 22 — 21 — 20 –“ She looked around, eyes landing on his coat.

Seconds later, she was shoeless, creeping across the wooden floor to the kitchen threshold. “– 12 — 11 — 10 –” Harold sat at his kitchen table, a cigar between his thumb and forefinger of his left hand, the rum glass balancing precariously in his right hand, which nearly touched the floor. He was looking through veranda doors, at the setting sun.

For a second, Marguerite looked too. Red, orange, pink, purple…swirling together, like… “– 7 — 6 — 5 –“

She snapped back to reality. The knife in her hand, she stepped forward and grabbed Harold by his hair. Pressed the catch. Flicked her wrist. Remembered her training.

“– 3 — 2 — 1.”

A few years ago (okay, maybe more like a decade…), I started the collaborative blog 30POV.com in order to facilitate intelligent discussion. (You can read about that decision on our About page.) Mind you–this was EONS before blogs became the way to communicate, connect, and converse.

What 30POV.com came to be was a special community of writers–yes–but also characters, intelligentsia, rebel rousers, friends & enemies, reviewers, very opinionated readers, wordsmiths, poets, and truthtellers. In short, it was exactly what I’d dreamed of.

As all good things do, that blog eventually came to an end. Life stepped in for me and my co-publisher and everyone moved on, and eventually IN to their 40s.

(Remember when you’re Mom or Dad turned 40? Remember how old that felt?? Wow, is 40 not that old at all.)

At times a reunion issue popped up–in our lackluster FB group, say, or when I was having drinks with a certain 30pov-er I know IRL. But you know how you look back on college as something that was Just. So. Fun. when in reality, it was a lot of hard work and having to wake yourself up on time for an 8 AM class (which, at the time, felt like torture) and not eating enough except when your friends let you in to the cafeteria through the back door???

Sometimes the memory is better than the real thing. And I have often wondered: was 30POV really that great? Or was it all a hoax? After all, being in my 30s kinda sort sucked. (Except for the whole having babies & getting married part. That was good.) So maybe writing about it wasn’t all I’ve remembered it to be.

These fears kept me away from 30POV (the historical record) for quite some time. Eventually, the fact that I edited and published this DAILY blog for almost 3 years (!) even fell off my resume. But you know what remained? The connections, smart-ass though they may be.

I got to know several 30POVers much better, and I kept track of others here & there via social media. Occasional + random emails from our wittiest wordsmith brought me much needed humor. And we even visited our fave music writer on a cross-country road trip.

I watched/listened/learned as these 30-something blowhards became Real Humans: parents, published authors, magnates (you know who you are), PHDs, professionals, and lovely, lovely people. And I felt proud, like a Mama who’d done well just by letting go.

And then–Trump.

And then–COVID.

And then–racial reckonings, near and far.

And then–unemployment. homeschool. boredom. the holidays. an impending and wholly unexciting 2021.

A 30POV Reunion Issue was the only salve I could think of that would snap me out of my funk–a mindset that kept pulling me into the place where I’d forget my talents or even that I was talented at all. So I dispatched the carrier pigeon. And waited.

Because we’re now nearer to age 50 than we are to 25, throwing together a magazine–which included updating a clunky, non-responsive (gasp!) website built in the aughts–didn’t happen in a flash. We move slowly around here, and we’re okay with it.

The end result, though? Well Worth It.

The call I sent out to our former writers asked them to weigh in on the current situation–where have they been? what have they seen? how are they feeling? who have they become? What I received back was a bucketful of life lessons–both similar and different from my own. And just as with every single one of our former issues, the importance, I feel, is in the differences.

So read and enjoy (if you’re even still awake after my pensive ramblifications!). And please, please, please: if you have something to say, Say It. We all have a valid point of view.

Love, Lee Lee

So it seems appropriate (if unfortunate) that the last of this quarter of this four-year election cycle would be so defined by a crescendo of lies and deception that makes the previous three years of lies and deception cower in deference. 

The plague riddling the world and the cult of the orange cur came together in an alliance with guns drawn and mouths and noses uncovered to say “fuck you” to everyone and everything, spreading both the filth that coats their minds and one that might kill your grandma if she has the audacity to breathe in the presence of the maskless. 

Those engaging in rational thought were due for a victory and we were ready to claim it.

The election was strange though for those of us who voted by mail. The pageantry of physically walking up to the voting booth of election day was neutered by an admittedly mundane vote-by-mail process. 

I’m not disappointed I didn’t vote in person, but I kind of expected more from the experience. 

This is perhaps not a flaw in the system as much as one in my own expectations. By November 3, I was already done. 

All that was left was for “those people” to do their thing; and I, for one, was confident that they were outnumbered. I went through my day of remote working anticipating an outcome that I soon realized was probably not going to come that evening, but rather weeks later. 

And yet I hoped for something else. I’ve never been one for delayed gratification. I want it now!

At around 5:30 PM–just a couple of hours before the polls would start closing in many places–I received a call telling me that my sister, Michelle, was missing after an emergency trip to the hospital that had resulted in a transfer. 

I spent the next several hours not watching poll counts and projections, but calling hospitals and begging for information from people who’d rather let someone die alone in a hospital bed than break HIPAA rules. 

Eventually, I learned that my sister was inpatient in an ICU with kidney and respiratory failure. I didn’t even have any clue that she’d been sick. But there she was. 

To add insult to injury, the team treating her had desperately been trying to reach someone as they had no next of kin information–even as the original treaters were denying me information. 

Over the course of the next few weeks, what started as a hope that this was a reversible scare turned into a realization that it was something much worse. I wasn’t ready for this. She wasn’t ready for this. This wasn’t supposed to happen. 

As her reliance on a ventilator increased, there was something in the doctors’ voices each time they asked me for consent to treat that suggested that the happy movie ending I’d initially anticipated was in fact a red herring I’d deboned, broiled, and served to myself. 

At around 9:30 AM on December 4, 2020, Michelle experienced a cardiac event that her body was unable to recover from, and she died. 

In the aftermath of all this, I was heartened by the love that my sister spread out into her community as her friends and extended family reached out and supported us. I was humbled and gracious for all they had done.

And I was bitter and angry at the cards my sister was dealt. She’d endured too much in her life for it to just be ended so callously and abruptly. 

I demand a recount.

Who has time or quiet to sit down long enough to write an artful and coherent point-of-view piece? Do I even have anything worthy to share?

 A decade ago, I never would’ve imagined this type of struggle. I also wouldn’t have dared dream of a full time teaching job at a prestigious university, let alone two kids & a husband I’d hunker down with in our half of a row house in Brooklyn. I would have imagined a book, just not the one I spent the past year interviewing and researching and writing–a book on the power of food wielded by Black women organizers in the 1960s as a tool of political and social change.

During my accelerated doctoral program, when I was also teaching four courses and bartending, I was able to think ahead just a week, or an assignment (mine or my students), at a time. There was no use planning or worrying about more than that because of so much that was on my plate any given day. When I did have a stretch of time during which I could’ve sat and pondered the future, I spent it finishing my most pressing deadline or, on occasion, taking a morning to sleep in.

The ability to choose focus over worry continued to serve me well when I had my first kid in my mid-30s. Three years of diligence and focus had paid off: I now had visiting teaching positions instead of semesterly adjunct ones; a first book under contract to research and write, and then to promote; and a move to New York City.

As a student, and then an adjunct, I don’t remember my dreams being centered on big accomplishments like university jobs or babies being born. I was too focused on the many steps it would take to get anywhere at all. But now that the future is here, I see how my imagined snapshots — two kids sitting around a Christmas tree; my name next to a prominent review — were the underlying force that allowed me to focus on the next paper, or the next adjunct gig, or the draft of a book proposal that might not even sell.  

I have since rounded the corner of 40. The visiting positions turned into something permanent. The second book after a half decade of projects never signed is now less than a year from publication. The baby is about to turn 2. The present, while still demanding, feels like the future I deserved.

And yet–the future is as uncertain today as it was a decade ago. Only today, after _ weeks of an upside down reality, I have less of a grasp on which uncertainties are worth focusing on. My step-father tested positive for Covid this weekend and my husband’s work as a musician has drastically slowed down. But my toddler’s screams in the next room are the pressing reason I’m unable to write any more of this essay I wasn’t planning on writing anyway.

***

It’s Sunday morning, around 8 AM, and I can hear older brother comforting the toddler, the soft thud as he helps her out of bed. I learned a decade ago not to spend precious moments worrying about things too far in the future. The present has more than enough to give me pause. 

I rise, and go to meet my two kids at the end of the hallway. We’ll face the day together, focusing on whatever comes our way.

Times have been trying, indeed. And then, amidst an already debilitating public health crisis (waiting in line at the grocery store sucks!), we were asked to reckon with the systems of racism, inequality, and patriarchy under which we live. In fact, we’ve been asked to stand up against them. Yikes. How much can we white heteronormatives take?

We’ve seen “good people” crack under the pressure but I’m here to tell you that going to jail or going insane aren’t the only ways to passively resist this massive, long overdue wave of change. Rest assured: there are plenty subtle–and Safe!–ways to show you’d rather things stay the way they are, then for over half of our country to be afforded the same privileges you’ve been granted just by nature of your demographics.

You’re probably already doing some (most?) of these but just in case you need some more ideas, here are my favorite 10 ways to NOT be an ally during these difficult, unprecedented, challenging, unlike anything we’ve seen before, unheard of, wacko, hard, frightening, and confusing times:

1. Stay Silent

There are so many voices in the neo-American cacophony that adding yours is truly a waste of everyone’s time, particularly yours. Non-allies are at their best when they’re suffering in silence, refusing to be a part of anything meaningful, especially a discussion that could get super uncomfortable when hippie-liberal Aunt Susan and white supremacist Uncle Jed are both at the table–if you know what I mean! One of the easiest ways to stay silent is to replace any thoughts of curiosity, responsibility, and humanity with scarcity, individuality, and fear.  Being a passive observer takes some time. Luckily, there’s no shortage of free time in this quarantine day-and-age!

2. Forget to Fact Check

Occasionally, you will want to chime into a discussion, usually when there are absolutely no risks to you doing so, like a comment thread on Facebook. In this case, it’s best to spout facts and share links that just aren’t true. Well, maybe parts of them are true/ish.–there’s always that possibility, anyway–but adding factual data could very well buffer one side or the other of an argument; therefore, erring on the safe side and posting without fact-checking is recommended. Another tactic that is easy to adopt is sharing singular examples from your own life, or from the lives of those you feel well enough to exemplicate, as “case in point” of the answer to whatever larger issue is at hand. Note that these examples do not always have to be relevant, just as having happened.

3. Pray for Peace

While others work toward changing policy and challenging long-standing oppressive systems that form the bedrock of our society and culture, we anti-allies need only send thoughts and prayers. There’s nothing more ineffective than praying over a problem. Like, it literally effects no actual change! Instead, praying, along with peacemongering and radical acceptance, actually gets us out of the hot seat of expectations. This whole thing really is out of our hands–because it’s in His Hands (or Her Hands, depending on how “liberal” you are). Offering simple well-wishes to families, colleagues, business owners and community members whose lives have been turned upside down in the past four years might feel ineffectual–because it totally is–but this just means, it’s something we can do. Over and over again. Ad Infinitum. Amen.

4. “Protest With Your Wallet”

The libs love to proclaim how they vote with their dollars; it’s only fair that those of us caught in the middle of these culture wars do the same. How do you protest with your wallet? It’s as easy as remaining uneducated about where the products come from that you purchase on a daily basis. The best way to ensure your dollars aren’t supporting progressive ideas like women and minority owned businesses being able to stay afloat during a pandemic is to stay on the Big Box Store path: Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target, Best Buy… Some are liberal-leaning and some are still run by old white men, so it’s good to vary your frequency, thereby covering all the bases of apathy. If buying online, order from Amazon Prime whenever you can. Lucky enough to be able to afford a Tesla? Good job. No respectable non-ally would drive an electric car not built by a total asshole. 

P.S. Stay away from Chick-Fil-A!!

P.P.S. ‘Merica Runs on Dunkin!!!

5. Favor the Founding Fathers

The dudes who started our country were good guys. That’s a fact that needs no checking! A lot of this hullabaloo about changing names of buildings and taking down statues and revisiting long held myths that only serve to uphold patriarchal, oppressive systems is just whims of change blowing through the cultural landscape. Most of it’s gonna blow right over, so why get involved in these silly arguments and protests? Tom and John and Ben and a bunch of other white men just like them did their due diligence. They eloquently and bravely wrote words on paper. They revered intelligence, even as they ignored all systems of thought that differed from their own. And they set up this bucolic utopia that we now take for granted. Listen, it’s going to take a lot more than a few name changes for their grand vision to be knocked down a peg! Keep rooting for the home team–aka, the Founding Fathers–because we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them and that makes them perfect in all ways. 

6. Expect to Evolve

The occasional book group on white fragility probably won’t hurt–but there’s no reason to actually study the true history of our country or to actively work towards changing your behavior in any way. Why? Because, as everyone knows, Americans evolve naturally and over time–the way {white} men intend for progress to be (see #5). Look around you: is anyone still pissing in a single stall bathroom outside? Do women still make less money than their male counterparts, all while fending critiques about hair hair and choice of wardrobe? Are minorities in our country still called by diminutive names? No, no, and no. That’s because progress is natural, albeit slow by some standards. (I, for one, could use free tele-massages as part of my Obamacare plan, please and thank-you.) True non-allies know not to expect too much of themselves. One day, change will come, whether we work for it or not. So why waste our time???

7. Whine About Being Woke

Doing nothing that actually brings about change might seem like we should then replace our “Woke” face masks and coffee mugs, but that would make it difficult for us to get the perfect Instagram shot–that ever-so-sought-after balance between humility and boredom. Being woke is truly a burden to bear, so much so that it can pose a real challenge to our willingness to not become allies. Staying honest about this carrisome feeling is the way to go, though, because, in doing so, you’ll find a sympathetic, and likely shallow, audience that identifies with your very minimal pain. You can go as simple as a mug shot with #iwokeupwokelikethis #thestruggleisreal as back-to-back hashtags, or you can really let loose on social in a long instagram post no one’s going to read anyway. (FYI–this kinda mug shot, not this kind.)

8. Say Hasta {la Vista} to “Hasty” Vaccines!

We can be grateful to Covid-19 for continuing to bring us myriad ways in which anty-allyship makes sense and, frankly, is quite easy. Refusing a vaccination that will literally turn our country’s health and economy around, not to mention save an enormous amount of lives, is one such opportunity. The reasons not to be vaccinated are so numerous, it would take another article to go into detail; however, the scary speediness of Science is a good one to latch on to until you see what happens. Hey–you’re not saying NO forever; you can always change your mind and get vaccinated later, after the majority of the population has tested efficacy and we’ve basically reached herd immunity and all that. For now, though, better say, “No Thanks. I’ll pass.” (Especially since we don’t really leave our houses anyway!!)

9. Normalize Nasty

There’s no one nastier than the Nasty Boy himself–he who coined the term Nasty Women because he intimately knew the ins & outs of nastiness. (He who dealt it, smelt it. Know what I’m sayin’…?!) And yet, taking ownership of Nasty (just the word itself–not the right to actually be nasty, or the understanding of what that would entail) quickly became a non-ally non-starter, sort of like a nanny nanny boo boo for pundits. Reclaiming words that really don’t need to be reclaimed is, in fact, a standard non-ally act. Remember Hustle slogans? And the mainstream kids in your neighborhood that tried to pull off a “That’s Punk” every now and then? I’m nasty, you’re nasty, she’s nasty. We all scream for nasty. It’s so easy and non-powerful to say this delicious word–it just rolls right off one’s tongue. It’s like Tastee Kreme without the T and misspellings. Claim it. Say it. Normalize saying it. We’re getting nowhere and it feels…Nasty!

10. Embody the Stereotype

Whether you’re living in poverty or you’re VIP-ing it up with the one-percenters, there are plenty of ways to embody a stereotypical non-ally. First and foremost, you must fully lean in to your biggest fears–hello, loss of privilege and power!–and act accordingly. For some of us who “pass” as good white people, we can simply remain wistful about the way things were. (Be sure to mention this in your “diverse” group of friends, though!) Others among us are viewed as a little less awake, so leaning in might look like picking up some new pro-gun decor or posting on  Facebook about the most recent totally Scientific article explaining how face masks are ineffective. If you were born wealthy, well then, you’re going to be seen as a bad guy no matter what–so maybe buy an island and live there until this whole thing blows over and American goes back to the way it was.

***

Of course, there are many, many, many more ways to *NOT* be an ally during a racial reckoning. These are just a few of my favorites–the tried and true, you might say. I’m sure you’ve been exploring a lot of these in your down time, while the tutor schools the kids and the sitter walks your Covid-adoption puppy. The important thing is not to get bogged down in the why and the reality of it all. It’s really much easier just to not think, and to act the way you’ve always acted.

On the other hand, if this list is overwhelming, perhaps you’re not quite ready to be apathetic. Maybe pray over it? Or try on non-allyship for size. Again, what you do or don’t do doesn’t really even matter! That’s the beauty of America. Humanity is going to evolve. Things are going to get better. Trials and tribulations are going to be taken care of by those watching over us. All we really need to do is sit back and wait for our fate to be decided. (Let’s face it: we’re pretty safe, either way.)

I remember that October night in 2017, the night my consciousness shifted so much I knew there was no going back. I was at NYU for a live taping of Maria Hinojosa’s and Julio Ricardo Varela’s politics podcast In The Thick produced by Futuro Media. The topic: “Undocumented and Unafraid.” I was a new Futuro Media development officer and was attending my first event.

We gathered at night in the airy event space and could see ourselves reflected in the windows. We were a packed audience filled with people who cared deeply about the undocumented, people that every New Yorker knew either as family, friends, colleagues, or employees, or neighbors, or strangers in the subway. We were also the undocumented, or the once undocumented, sitting in the seats, or on stage, for there was newly named MacArthur genius and organizer Cristina Jiménez on the panel. All around us were people building their lives–and our society–in a country that could pull the rug from beneath them at any moment, especially in the age of Trump.

But that’s the thing. This is the night that I saw clearly how it was never just Trump. 

I lived through the post-9/11 Bush years. I remember how bad it was for immigrants in the aftermath, especially Musilim immigrants, and how so many Americans looked to our borders with fear. How the USG stoked this fear, made borders brittle and hard as best they could. I knew this, yet I had never given sustained attention to how the federal government treated migrants in the meantime. When Cristina Jiménez spoke of how hard it was to support President Obama’s candidacy only to see meager results for immigrants, and how journalist Julio Ricardo Varela spoke of being told by some progressives not to “rock the boat” when it came to pressuring the President, I was stopped short. When Varela referred to President Obama as the “Deporter in Chief” I was shocked.  

I’d never heard anyone call President Obama the “Deporter in Chief” before. This was a president I respected and supported throughout the entirety of his two terms, even through my own grave disappointments with his response to police murders of Black people and the Flint water crisis. I’d known the President made concessions on “border security” to Republicans in hopes of real immigration reform, but the reality is that I had never had to face what the fallout of those decisions meant to real people, real families torn apart by our government. Though my step-father emigrated from the Philippines, he’d never faced government persecution due to his immigration status.

Later, I’d learn that President Clinton deserved this terrible designation more than President Obama with over 12 million deportations over two terms if you include all border apprehensions, removals, and returns. But if you focus on removals–the kinds of deportations that involve removing people who have established lives in this country that often include families, jobs, and broader community ties, the Obama Administration beat both the Clinton and Bush administrations with over 3 million.

The more I listened to panelists Cristina Jiménez, Executive Director of United We Dream, Sandra Lilley, Managing Editor of NBC Latino, and Viviana Gonzalez, a student at NYU and co-director of policy for the NYU Dream Team, the more I sank into the horror of realizing how much the government has long terrorized migrants–new arrivees as well as long-standing residents–in our names and how inadequate the Obama Administration policy response had been despite the true win of DACA protection for undocumented young people. I knew that immigrant families had been detained under Obama, families that included young children. But something about this night opened my eyes, again, to the sad reality that the machinery of state violence was not stopped by the mere presence of a Democrat in the Oval Office, and how that Democrat could make things worse. 

The #BlackLivesMatter movement emerged in reaction to our lived reality as Black people targeted for harm and death. On this night in October, my field of vision widened. So did my empathy.  I saw more of the vulnerable around me, and how their vulnerability predated Trump administration atrocities. 

Since that night, I’ve done what I can to listen and learn about the migrant experience in America, including atrocities such as mass detention and family separation. I am particularly moved by Maria Hinojosa’s reporting on these issues. 

I am not going back. The human rights of undocumented immigrants are non-negotiable.

Historian Greg Grandin noted in his Pulitzer Prize-winning The End of the Myth that by 2016 “the United States was spending more on border and immigration enforcement than on all other federal law-enforcement agencies combined.” I will no longer accept that this is how it must be. Too often, our leaders bargain away the rights and protections of human beings. Too often, we accept that those who promise us “security” should get the lion’s share of our money. No. No more accepting that things are how they are if the status quo is hurting people.  

I think back to that NYU night, how I thought I was going to an event for work. I couldn’t know how much would shift for me. I’ve broadened my own reckoning with the past, and I’ve joined our collective reckoning. We won’t stop just because there’s a new administration. Reckoning is our only hope.

I flipped off the Orange Turd’s eponymous tower as I passed by during an aimless, frantic walk. Then, during a painful phone call with colleagues who were refusing to accept reality, I insisted that we tear up our newsletter’s issue on the Clinton administration and go with the much thinner one on the looming clown show. 

After I hung up I had a gentle argument with a guy on the street, who said he was frustrated by the Democrats (more on that later). He made good points. But eventually he agreed that the next four years would be far worse than what would have been under Clinton.

Back at the hotel, the lobby bar was packed, and I leaned into the beginning of a four-year bender. I vaguely remember haranguing strangers about Putin bombing Estonia. (I was and remain a believer in Russiagate. Read the Mueller report and tell me I’m wrong. But a lie repeated endlessly becomes accepted truth.)

As the night winded down, two middle-aged jagoffs marched through the lobby, chanting the pathetic conman’s name. Before I knew what I was doing, I cupped my hands and belted out my best “Booooo,” honed by decades of being a Bengals fan. Many others joined in. “You’re in Chicago, motherfuckers,” a fellow patron yelled. The two steakheads slunk away, cowards like their invertebrate leader.

*******

It wasn’t like the results were a surprise. I’d spent time in Ohio and the Dallas suburbs in the weeks just before the election, my brain seared by so many of those damn signs you see carpeting Red States. Friends and relatives there showed Facebook memes about Clinton to me and my wife. Back in DC, where we live, we shared our worries about the election. Several of our friends yelled at us and patronizingly insisted we were wrong. I wish we had been.

I’d also been in Cleveland to cover the convention a few months earlier. It was as insane as you’d expect. But also a waste of time for me, although I did get a decent story out of my afternoon with Jerry Falwell, Jr. Tough run for him of late.

Oddly, I don’t remember being filled with rage from my time in the Cleve, though that’s been the dominant emotion for me during the last few years. My five-year-old daughter can confirm. “You do hate him Daddy, right?” she asked me this week. I couldn’t lie. She saw it clearly in me, as soon as she was able to recognize the emotion.

The last four years have turned me into a radical in many ways, even more anti-everything than I was as an idealist twentysomething. I’m not ashamed of that, really, as it’s a logical response to the shitshow of the last four years. Although I am sincerely sad I don’t give a shit what Republicans think anymore. (Does that make me a fatalist? Or just a ranting, aging white man?)

As a journalist with old-school sensibilities, I try hard to understand all sides of disputes. Where there’s tension over how smart people with relevant expertise think society should deal with enormously complex challenges. You know, real life. Not fucking a tidy little bow on a viral Facebook post that reinforces your bias about being on the right side in the heroic struggle of good versus evil.

The skeptic vibe comes naturally to me. I’ve always been wary about true believers. And more than I’d like, the Left is loose with the facts on the issues I cover. In my social circles, that’s often because progressives want to pretend they aren’t part of the 10 percenters who benefit from this inequitable system staying so fucked up — the dream hoarders. All that bothers me deeply. 

The Right, though? On another planet. This version of the Republican Party is so severed from reality it doesn’t have much to say in my world. They’re bizarrely close to being wrong — morally and factually — on almost everything. I still can’t quite process how that can be, that in this case the baddies really are that bad.

Our national nightmare has turned this healthy skeptic into a full-blown cynic. One filled with rage that goes nowhere healthy and who increasingly is convinced the human condition is the problem. That’s a bad look, I know.

But I’m proud about skipping every night of the convention in Cleveland. I like the idea of that empty chair in the arena as our wannabe dictator spouted his spite-dripping word clouds.

The saddest, most infuriating truth is that he’s only part of the story. He made it far worse, for sure. Cutting the head off of the snake should help. But this trajectory began long ago. Remember birtherism? Mission Accomplished? Purple band-aids? Willie Horton?

*******

I was hunkered in my basement during the 2017 inauguration. My toddler daughter went up to the TV during that ghastly “American carnage” speech. I took a photo as she touched the screen. It came out perfectly — so much so it was hard to look at. I considered deleting the pic, but figured maybe some day she’d want it.

Later she started calling him “The Country Man.” She’d been asking me questions — no doubt fascinated about this figure who so animated her parents. I tried to explain what his job was, and said something about him running the country. Hence the moniker, which stuck for the three of us, and eventually a widening circle of friends and family.

Turns out it’s easy to explain anger at this administration to a young child. For example, she totally got that it was lame and not cool to lie about a hurricane and to use a sharpie to doctor a meteorological forecast. Why does he lie so much? Why did he tell people “the bug” isn’t real? Why can’t he admit he lost the election? Does he have a dog? Is he nice to kids?

Like so many of us, I completely lost it with this administration’s gleeful move to tear children away from their parents, put them in cages and eventually to lose track of hundreds of children and their families. My wife and I held a fundraiser for a legal aid group at the corner bar during the heat of that moment. 

Still, I wish I could’ve better controlled my rolling fits of white-hot rage. When that piece of human garbage belittled the suffering of “Democrat-run” cities and states during the early months of the pandemic, for example, my rants were so visceral that my kid will probably remember how red my neck would get and the f’ bombs I dropped more than she will the reason for the reactions.

Last week she told me that she and a couple of her buddies from school made up a chant on their walk to the playground from the daycare center — we subsidize our online kindergarten with the sort of additional care we and other comfy liberals can swing, unlike so many other Americans. The chant was just a simple, “Kamala Harris! Kamala Harris!” Not ashamed of the brainwashing. Couldn’t help it.

As I misted up hearing this story, I remembered sobbing in front of the kid and my wife the night Biden tapped Harris for the ticket. The trigger was seeing a tweet from Taylor Swift, her favorite artist by far. The tweet said only: YES!

*******

Like so many of us, I’ve had to say a COVID goodbye. My grandmother didn’t die from the virus. And she was very old. But my brother and I had to kneel in the dirt outside her window when we visited to say our farewell. It was better than nothing. And I can’t blame the nursing home — seven people in her wing had died from COVID by then.

My grandmother was a hard-bitten Depression kid for life. She told us she was hanging on at 98 just to get the chance to vote for Biden, and against the most virtue-free politician in modern history. She didn’t make it there, but would’ve been proud her home state of Pennsylvania helped seal the win.

For years she said the only way out of the downward spiral for this country would be for something to break the fever — the reality-denying madness of social-media fueled resentment and ignorance. I truly thought a pandemic and its sandblasting effects on all our lives would do the trick. Oh well. Maybe COVID helped dislodge the 300-pound tumor in the White House.

I should be hopeful. And some days I am. But the selfish weakness that has infected this country runs so deep, I don’t see many good outcomes. It would help if the Left would get its head out of its ass. Don’t get me wrong, the coalition that formed to make this election happen was impressive. Their platform is exciting. Honest.

But the failures of the Left’s ability to get the working class are on display in the fantastic documentary “American Factory.” The film takes a nuanced look at a Chinese company’s attempt to resuscitate a long-dormant truck factory in my hometown. They make windshield glass there now, employing far fewer people at much lower wages. With safety violations out the ass. Is it better than nothing? I don’t know.

The interviews with Black (and white) union members are powerful. They articulate far better than I can why a monolithic view of racial identity and an inability to actually help struggling, hard-working people stabilize their lives has contributed to a deep distrust of Democrats. One that’s well earned.

*******

The dismaying reality that large swaths of this country remain lost in the fever swamps of QAnon conspiracies has taken me back to a cynicism that predates my adulthood — the flannel-wearing Gen X grunge phase. We weren’t wrong to focus on the foundational lies of society and what fuels them: Here we are now, entertain us. I feel stupid, and contagious. 

Marketing sellout garbage ruined grunge quickly, of course. But it reinforced the feeling in my peer group — at a developmentally crucial time — that we’d never feel comfortable with the conventional wisdom in this country. (And I still love going down a Layne Staley rabbit hole on YouTube.)

I’m kinda done with politics, perhaps for life. I’d like to not know the names of the Members of Congress who head committees. And for years now I’ve been avoiding political news coverage, the stuff that treats it all like ESPN’s take on which team is going to make the playoffs. Fuck that.

Decades ago I decided to have limited ambitions in journalism. Not sure it would’ve mattered if I tried to make it to the bigtime, anyhow. Journalism is like show biz — make sure you have a backup plan. I found a good niche, covering issues I care about with a depth that feels worthwhile, as long as I remember it’s relatively superficial and that my role is more of a gameshow host summarizer than an expert.

But thanks to the pandemic, I’m now more focused on my four-block radius and who lives in it. And I’d like it to stay that way. No more offices or work travel for me, if I can make that happen. So a couple months ago I decided I didn’t want to keep scrambling to help the publication find its footing in a fast-shifting market. 

And I’m done with the hours. Editing copy until 11 p.m. on weeknights — I’m too old for that shit. So I filed my notice. No more journalism for when 2020 ends, before this appalling administration slinks away. I’ve got plenty of job options already. It’s good being a 10-percenter.

I have another pledge, one that will be hard to keep. So much so that I’m afraid to type it. But after Jan. 20, 2021, I’m not saying that grotesque caricature of a human being’s name ever again.

My personal blackballing of The Country’s Man’s name is part of a fantasy that he and the wave of ignorant, selfish fuckwittery he rode to the White House collapse on their own weight, shriveling like a dying star, becoming a tiny speck that eventually is swallowed by a Black Hole, its very existence annihilated by the cosmos. 

I’d belly up to the Billy Goat for a High Life toast to that; that is, if bars were to open again.

The year started off with promise. I had just left a job that made me unhappy and unable to do any of the things I loved. I planned to visit people and spend more time volunteering and getting back into activities and groups that I had left behind. I made plans for vacations abroad. 

Then, March 14^th, everything changed. On Friday the 13^th (befittingly?) my 2^nd grader went into his school for the last time that school year. I was afraid to go out, and spent my days waking up early to see if I could get groceries delivered, worried that the things I may need or want would be out of stock, getting frustrated that no delivery options were available. Thinking that at any moment, my family would get sick. 

I spent a few months incredibly fearful and anxious, but also grateful that I didn’t have a job to contend with on top of virtual school. My focus became on making sure my son had fun and the most normal day-to-day living I could create in a situation where we couldn’t go anywhere or see anyone except via the computer. 

Then things flipped for me, completely. I began to think this was all just an elaborate plan to take advantage of us as a people. I began chasing down information, groups and people who had a completely opposite take on the pandemic, or ‘PLANdemic’ as some called it. I would go out of my way to ‘prove a point’ and even got into arguments with family and my own partner about this. If the first few months were spent in paralyzing anxiety, the next few were spent in paralyzing frustration. 

None of this helped me function. I felt I was right back to where I was a year ago, full of stress and anxiety. Eating and watching mindless TV to turn off the thoughts constantly running through my mind. I felt like the world was against me and I was under attack. 

Two turning points came for me. The first was when everyone started posting a black square on Instagram to support Black Lives Matter. I had worked to understand and appreciate Black Lives Matter and had been doing some internal investigation to think about how I can better be an ally or adjust my biases. But when everyone starts following a trend, it usually makes me want to turn the other way. 

This trend gave me pause. It made me stop and ask myself, wait. Why is this person posting a black square? Why am I considering this? What does this do? And I personally decided – nothing. It does nothing meaningful for me. It doesn’t mean I am a racist if I don’t, and it doesn’t mean I’m not one if I do! 

The second was when schools were preparing to open. I had said vehemently that I would not send my son to school if the school required him to wear a mask. They required him to wear a mask. All of a sudden I was in the throes of anxiety again. I started to look into homeschooling. And then my husband asked me a question that made me immediately calm down, “What if he WANTS to go to school and he’s OKAY with wearing a mask?”

I’ve spent these few years preparing myself that my child is his own person. It is not my job to tell him how to think or what to do, but to prepare him to make his own decisions. Even if it means they aren’t what I would agree with. Ultimately, if he’s happy, there’s nothing to complain about. 

I also started to realize that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I can go to the grocery store and put on a mask if it means this is what I have to do to get groceries. It won’t kill me to do it, and it doesn’t mean that I agree with the policy – I just need to focus on getting what I need. 

Layer onto all of this the 2020 election ramping up. Donald Trump has been a worldwide sensation. I went from absolute ‘heart dropping into my stomach sick’ when he was elected to not telling anyone I was American when travelling to just defeated acceptance with an underlying worry. But with my mixed feeling about the pandemic, I found myself genuinely undecided on who I was going to vote for. And also genuinely confused how I could be undecided. 

With people on either ends of the spectrum taunting each other and blaming each other, along with my confusion around what ‘left’ and ‘right’ meant – I was trying to find my place. Where did I fit? Where do others? If I express my opinion and it doesn’t fit into this bucket, am I going to be ridiculed or written off?  I totally felt like I was trying to find a clique in high school. It didn’t seem ok to have some opinions that fit with one group and others that didn’t! 

You know what I ultimately decided? I didn’t really fit anywhere. And I didn’t want to. Maybe I was more liberal than conservative and more right than left (or wait is it more left than right? I forget). But that doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to my opinion. I also acknowledged for myself that I could, gasp, change my opinion based on new information. 

I also decided that there are things I can do and there are things I have to let go. Worrying, anxiety is going to hold me back. Negative people, people who want to put you in a box and not hear out your point of view don’t serve you. People who don’t lift you up, who don’t support you and your dreams, don’t need to take up any space in your world. 

So, what could I do? I served as a pollworker for the first time in my life. I got a chance to help people vote and shared in the excitement of first time voters. I gave more time to a non-profit that operated every single day during the pandemic, never stopping, to help families in need with food and groceries. I focused on personal development – I joined a fitness coach that helped me get my nutrition and exercise on the right track. And the biggest thing of all that I did – I turned off the news. Completely. 

When the presidential election results came out, the person I voted for ultimately won. But instead of feeling an intense jubilation (or despair, as some may have), I felt neutral. I was in the middle of loading up food to be shared with families so I was focused on that. The election result was a piece of information that didn’t directly impact that exact moment for me. 

I still have to wake up each day and make the best out of this one life I’ve been given. There are going to be things that upset me and excite me – so there’s no need for me to create those. 2020, I thank you for teaching me when to keep my head down and to protect myself, so I can be happier and be the woman of my own dreams. 

The first approach I considered was taking a look at the art created during the last four years. I remember reading an article published shortly after Trump’s election victory in which the author argued that art would flourish under his administration. Great tension and struggle often creates an environment where great art can flourish. This would be a silver lining, argued the author. 

So I spent some time looking back at the movies, music, art, television, and literature that has come out since 2017. Did we see a renaissance of creativity, spurred on by the frustrations and horrors of President Trump?

After a thorough analysis, my conclusion was… meh. Sure, lots of art spoke to the times we live in. There were outstanding novels (much love to Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy), excellent television shows (Succession is a brilliant dissection of corporate capitalism, nepotism, class structure, etc.), mind-altering cinema (does it get better than Get Out?), and instant-classic albums (let’s fetch the bolt cutters, Fiona).

Of course, none of those are directly about Trump. And while there was plenty of stuff that tried to make more direct commentary about our 45th President (such as season 2 and 3 or The Handmaid’s Tale, or the comedy of SNL), reality was always stranger, more upsetting, and more flat-out absurd. 

As I worked my way through a fifth iteration of that original essay, trying to find something that resonated with me, I came to my own realization. This was the sort of essay I would have written for 30POV the first time around. That’s not a bad thing! I love writing about my favorite art and pop culture. 

But as someone who is no longer in my 30s, my perspective has (thankfully) evolved. And looking back at four years of Trump already seems like a dead-end to me. Perhaps we need to learn to look at time in much longer increments. One term of Trump was bad. There is much work to be done to fix the damage that has been caused, to our society and our democracy. I don’t say that lightly. But let’s also know that we can undo that damage. We can put in the work to make this a better country. We are capable of that.

Let’s zoom out further for a moment. I have two sons: an eight-year-old boy and a five-year-old boy. When they are old and grey and looking back on 2020, what will they think about? 

I can assure you that they won’t be thinking about the time when there may have been foreign interference in our elections, or about how Facebook was once a monopoly, or any of the awful or spiteful or hurtful things said by our President. I don’t believe they’ll think about how we were a fractured nation politically in 2020, and I don’t think they’ll be thinking about Hunter Biden’s emails.

I believe they’ll remember the global pandemic, that once-in-a-lifetime event that reshaped all of our lives. They’ll remember staying at home, day after day, with their parents, not able to do things like have a birthday party, things they already had learned in their short lives to take for granted. And they’ll remember how we all found new ways to have fun, to celebrate, and to enjoy the time spent with each other. 

I never went through such a disruptive event in my youth, not at a global level, and neither did you. The global pandemic of 2020 has already made a profound impact on my children’s lives that will never leave them. Imprinted in their memories, they will eventually pass on, genetically and culturally, what they’ve learned from these experiences to their children or to others they love.

So what do I think about the last four years of Trump? I think that we need to dig out of a big hole, but I trust that we will find a way, that the arc of history does indeed bend towards progress. And I believe that we will have crappy Presidents and wonderful Presidents again, that we will continue taking two steps forwards and one step back. The history books will record all of that.

However, we will also have something deeper. Time will roll on, and if there is a legacy of this time in our history, let it be this: that we struggled through some tough times and learned that no matter the obstacles, we could find ways to connect and love and focus on what really matters. 

Good riddance to 2020 and to the outgoing administration, and much love and hope for the future. 

Not so much. Anyway, I gingerly hit record on the VCR and hoped like hell my parents wouldn’t wake up, walk into the living room, and see me recording the first non-porn film I ever heard of with an X rating. Mercifully they slept as I captured the film. I think I wrote “Danger Mouse” on the VHS tape label, because no one I knew liked that show but me and so no one would ever bother to play that tape. Genius.

I must have watched Kubrick’s classic 30 times in high school and especially college, when I could enjoy the movie without fear of a family member or normal friend walking in one of the many infamous scenes. Read the book lots of times too. Had the soundtrack on cassette, and absolutely knew every word to “I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper.” Had a gigantic poster of Alex, Pete, Georgy, and Dim at the Korova Milk Bar, in between my other gigantic poster from Reservoir Dogs and my normal-sized poster of Ace Frehley. Called my closest friends “droogs,” but only occasionally so not to be a weirdo.

And then I went on with my life and hadn’t watched it since then, a span of about 25 years. But: as I turned the movie on and Wendy (known then as Walter) Carlos’ score synced to the primary colors of the intro flashing on the screen, I knew such lovely pictures: I remembered every line, every action, every image, every aspect. The slang: real horrorshow. The well-known scenes: still on point, raw, shocking, and riveting. It didn’t feel dated or clumsy as some 50-year-old work does. 

I loved all of Alex’s soliloquies, telling his tale of woe in between acts of ultraviolence. I enjoyed the stranger monologues, like those from Mr. Deltoid and Mr. Alexander, so nasally and breathless and absurd. (“TRY THE WINE.”) Even the minor parts, like the chief guard reading out Alex’s possessions as he entered prison (“one half bar of chocolate”), or Furry-Turtleneck Joe the Lodger’s lambasting of Alex upon his return home, were so familiar and fun. I went to bed that night with that exhilaration we feel when meeting an old friend after many years but pick up right where we left off with easy conversation. This friend just happened to put fake eyelashes on one eye and assaulted half of England.

And so you must now surely be wondering why I, your friend and humble narrator, am sharing this random set of information with you for a theme of the 2020 U.S. election. Well, this early November movie night was four days after that election, and the night before Joe Biden got his 270th electoral vote, followed by a bunch more until he landed at 306: Landside/Blowout/Historic, as it were. My family and I celebrate this, while still enduring that unique dread that Trump creates in our lives. But most importantly, he’s out and Biden is in. It’s a new day.

Still, I wonder: where does a film like A Clockwork Orange fit into this new day? And where do those like me who enjoy it stand? I feel so close to the empowerment movements that have risen to highly visible boiling points in recent years. The coalition of the young, disenfranchised and fed-up in our society has been remarkable and inspiring, and surely they should get the most credit for Biden’s win (it sure ain’t my fellow older white fellas doing the right things—amirite, Chad and Brad?). It’s well past time for this, and I’m all in.

But what if those same folks that I feel so close to watched this film? What would they feel as they watched so much violence against women in between so much sexualization of women, with not much in between? Surely some have seen it, being inspired by cinematic histories, pop culture references, or overbearing arty boyfriends. Imagine how pathetic the explanations are: that the violence is ironic, or it’s artistic, or it’s political? Or worse, that they just don’t get it? 

I’m not here to apologize for my feelings for the film. The film genuinely is satirical and makes powerful points about free will, approaches to public safety, and the unique dangers of dystopian times—hell, some of those points are more relevant now than in any recent time. And it’s a part of film culture: this is not exactly a bootleg copy of Faces of Death.

But I am here to acknowledge that I don’t know what these feelings make me in the year 2020. The election does create hope over the cretinous and the loud. I know what side I vote for and support. I know which stories on social media and in the news hit me the most. And I know the future I want for my children, as well as the future I want for all children.

Am I really a part of the side I claim to be on? How can there be a place in this new world for someone with the pre-woke experiences of enjoying such a movie then? How can I change to be a part of the future, not a jumping-off point away from the past? I could start by apologizing, but I just said I wasn’t going to do that—not because I’m a dick, but because I don’t feel that in my heart. Is this the problem: a posturing brain covering for a gruesomely dark or permanently unrepentant heart? 

I know I’m not young: I still listen to Pandora and make that hand gesture of pinky and thumb extended and middle fingers curled in when referring to a phone call. I know I’m not disenfranchised: My people have had the vast majority of privilege and still get the most profits. 

So I guess the question is why am I not fed up enough to change? What’s it going to take? Do I and my fellow Gen Xers who have been where I am now have what it takes? 

This is a new day. For some of you, anyway.