THE PANDEMIC AND OUR POLITICS IN 2020 AMERICA

By Aubrey Campbell

 

NEW YORK, NY. Tuesday, May 12, 2020 --- Hello folks. The calendar is showing that we are in the month of May but quite many of us were left scratching our heads to see snow flurries in parts of the city and state on the weekend.

And if that was not so bad, consider the reality check here in New York City and elsewhere in the country and you wonder at the timing and the confluence.

The pandemic continues to expose the truth about our politics and that is, all things are not equal.

Let’s stay local for a minute. With the city and state economy opening up, some, and as folks venture outside to exhale, the vampires and bats masking in blue, those who would have you believe that they are the finest, are hell-bent on taking out their frustration on minority folks, for not ‘distancing’ themselves in the public space.

Thanks to social media, those videos are really disturbing as they are evidentiary! And then you contrast that scenario with police officers clobbering and stomping on Black teens and adults with a sea of white folks, sunbathing in Central Park, not social distancing and not a cop in sight, and you wonder, is this 2020 America?

Eighty percent of persons ticketed in NYC, for not ‘social distancing’ and/or wearing facial covering while outside, are black and brown folks, and all this, in a matter of days, not even a week!

Are you kidding me?

It is disturbing and frightening when active folks in our community have to harken back to the days of the controversial ‘stop and frisk’ methodology in policing that was supposed to halt the crime surge in the city. It is that same policy that jettisoned Mike Bloomberg’s bid to unseat Donald John Trump as POTUS later this year!

Thank goodness, the ‘curve’ is flattening and New York City seems to have passed the worse, on the first go-around, so the police officers could do with being a bit more patient, considering that we are all in this thing together!

In another forum on Sunday, I could not help but conclude that it is a crime to be poor and more so, Black in 2020 America. The pandemic has laid it bare for all to see!

The long lines for food and the empty cupboards at food pantries all across the country are evidence beyond reason.

Ahmaud Arbery is black but he was not poor. He was out jogging in his Georgia suburban neighborhood, possibly to clear his head of the cobwebs due to sheltering in from the coronavirus disease. He was a rich kid, rich with ambition and a sense of purpose.

No doubt, before setting out to jog, he told himself, ‘I got this’. What he didn’t know was that, to go jogging while Black in a certain Georgia suburb can be a death sentence, a fact that did not escape the very careful attention of the beautiful senator from California, Kamala Harris.

Is this the definition of ‘MAGA’, or just plain, bad pandemic politics? That said, folks, you have to be careful when outside. There is no other way to say it. Observe the signs, especially the ones that read; no mask, no entry.

If I were you, I would not force the issue!

After all, Black lives mattered then, way back when, before you, I and were born. and it matters now. So does your opinion!

What do you think?

You have the floor!

--00--