John and I spent last week in Sydney, Australia. He had business to attend to, and I tagged along for some quiet content development time and a little tourist action on the back end. It was my first time in Australia, and while I know every country has its drawbacks, I found Sidney’s vibes immaculate, sights captivating, and people kind. And peaceful.
On our first free morning, we watched locals doing life along the harbor’s edge: biking in full gear, running in small groups, walking dogs of all sorts, and happily strolling in twos with cups of coffee in one hand and their partner’s arm in the other. Of all the people we passed while hoofing more than twenty miles that weekend, very few seemed rushed. Or annoyed. Or suspicious.
I considered how nice it must feel to simply be wherever you find yourself, without looking over your shoulder or wondering if the person next to you wants to steal from you—not your belongings, but your livelihood, your ease…your dignity.
Lately, living and working in the United States, especially as a Black woman, is like being “sat down” for a months-long standardized test I never signed up for. Every day, I’m perplexed by something new, and it makes me feel more fidgety. Restrained. Yesterday, it was the unprecedented disturbance at the CDC. Earlier this week, it was the (illegal and unfounded) firing of economist Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Before that, and still, the planned and actioned infiltration of major cities led by Black mayors, including Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago, Oakland, and New York, all under the guise of fighting crime, which is in decline.
I would say that the coordinated attack on civil rights, democratic institutions, and scientific integrity in America is worse than I imagined, but that’s not true. (My imagination is fierce.) What is true is that I didn’t expect it to be so blatant and forceful. So rapid and unchecked. As the saying goes, if you give an inch, they’ll take a republic. Or something like that.
Somehow, being thousands of miles from America’s shore made what’s happening here feel less inevitable, even as it takes place. Instead of experiencing it from within as a thing we’re being swallowed by, I was able to see it from a distance—as a thing to grapple with, respond to, interrupt…transmute.
Thinking about America’s sociopolitical climate from a literal distance calmed my nervous system. Not because things aren’t bad, but because it allowed me to see America in context. Americans tend to navel gaze, and it’s easy to forget that we are but one chapter in a much larger and multi-faceted book called The World, and “now” is just a blip in a long and tumultuous timeline called History. We are not the first nation to be plagued by governmental overreach. Or gripped by the tension that naturally exists between what was and what will be. We are not the first nation to be faced with an existential threat to our shared humanity. In fact, we’ve been facing this particular threat to varying degrees for centuries. It’s a tale as old as time, and life is cyclical. The question I’m asking myself now is how will we ensure the circle comes back around? How do we prevent it from cracking open into a straight and jagged line to a new low?
“Staying out of it” always sounds like the safe route, but I think it depends on what you perceive as worth protecting. Some are protecting their pockets, their reputations, their peace. I understand that. We each have unique obligations and considerations. I don’t judge, because there’s real risk in speaking up for what you believe in, especially now.
But what if there’s something even more salient at risk? Like freedom? Well-being? The right to vote or travel or receive care or exist freely? In this light, is staying out of it—taking shelter in a manufactured storm—still safe? I believe all that and more is on the line for many of us right now, even those who are not yet feeling the heat. And as long as we reduce what we’re witnessing to politics, instead of acknowledging it as the constitutional leveling it is, we’ll remain polite and professional. Diplomatic and deferent. Neutral and avoidant…until our reticence becomes regret.
I don’t plan to wait that long or get that far. Regret is not an emotion I do well with. Those who can advocate for and work toward human-centered systems, community care, connectedness, justice, and fairness should do so every chance we get. Because if we lose these things, we won’t have to wait for the straight and jagged line to take us anywhere. We will have arrived.
Tara Jaye Frank