By Kwame P. Dean
Posted August 17, 2021
I can’t shake it. After the expensive testing, overfilled flight and 15 hours straight in my mask in planes, trains, and automobiles, my 20 month hiatus from home ended with a feeling that things had changed in some fundamental ways.
Maybe “Midwest nice” has taken a beating as much as the economy during the dual political and viral pandemics? There seems to be a wariness in the air. The side eyes I got elevated the simple act of wearing a mask in Walgreens to social/political commentary.
In my first day back, my next door neighbor felt the need to declare his love of country in our socially distanced welcome back chat. People talked about birthday cakes for dogs in a grocery store parking lot. Starbucks gives away “pupachinos” and beer for dogs is a thing. Football season started. All normal stuff and yet it feels off. It’s like everyone has been exposed from their carefully cultivated hiding places where they usually reveal themselves only to those they are sure will agree.
My long hair is a dead giveaway in this Trump town that I’m not playing by the rules on purpose even as my skin color indicates that the game isn’t mine to play anyway. I’m not the only one though as others are participating in acts of defiance from mocking mask mandates on trains through quietly refusing to get vaccinated. It is their game and yet they refuse to play because this time they disagree with the rules promoting individual inconvenience for the greater good.
There are unhoused, addicted people living in a park conveniently served by the drug dealer working there. The police aren’t too interested in any of them. Small towns aren’t so small anymore. What we thought were big city problems are more commonplace. Maybe the problems so many urbanites have to deal with encroaching on these once imagined bastions of wholesomeness contributes to a certain disappointment if not cynicism? That could be a part of the eroding trust in institutions and each other. An implicit social contract has been broken.
The January 6 insurrection was billed as an effort to “stop the steal”. It was more than about the election. This political double entendres also meant to stop the taking of a way of life, a constructed political and social hegemony that guaranteed at least a slight advantage to nativists and their allies. We now know many of the insurrectionists came from political districts that experienced large demographics shifts in the last 10 years.
As the 2020 census headlines shout about the first decline in the percentage of white population in the US since 1790, the ongoing sense of loss of control, that most never really had, will continue to prop up know nothing, media born demagogues. They will profit off of every perceived slight against the mythical status quo.
The feeling in the air reminds me of the opening of the tv show “All in the Family”. Archie and Edith Bunker sit together at a slightly out of tune upright piano lamenting days gone by. I wonder how many are singing a similar song today? How toxic is it when they do?
“And you knew who you were then
girls were girls and men were men
Hair was short and skirts were long…
I don’t know just what went wrong
those were the days”
“Those were the days”
Songwriters: Charles Strouse / Lee Adams
Gasoline & Grits 