So someone pointed out to me recently that in a few years, maybe a few decades, the history of the us during covid is probably going to get twisted. The fact that we all had to make and wear cloth masks is going to be hailed as a symbol of how we “"came together as a nation”“” or whatever the fuck propaganda spin they try to put on it.
So I just want to say, for the record, the time of the corona virus pandemic was not a time when america came together.
This was a time when people hoarded toilet paper and sanitizing supplies either for themselves or to sell at absurd prices to the desperate people who didn’t get to the store soon enough during the shortages
This was a time when scared parents were sending their kids to finish school in the spring in plastic trash bags because they couldn’t think of any other way to possibly keep their families safe
This was a time when grocery store and retail and service workers were forced to keep working whether they wanted to risk their health or not because they couldn’t make rent otherwise and the people with enough privilege to have remote jobs tried to repay them with applause instead of fair wages
This was a time when nurses had the hold the hands of multiple dying people every day as their families watched their loved ones die over a video call because the hospital couldn’t risk having visitors
This was a time when city governments had to handle so many eviction hearings that they rented out convention centers and called in the national guard instead of doing a rent freeze to stop predatory landlords
This was a time when racism and police brutality were so unbearably horrible that people protested in the streets for months even though there was a god damn pandemic that our federal government wasn’t doing shit to stop and the cops were so mad that they were being asked to stop beating up black people that they were beating up everyone
This was a time when schools being forced to reopen in the fall or lose their federal funding had to draft templates for letters if a teacher or a staff person or a fucking child died from exposure to corona at school
This was a time when the president of the United states demanded that the cdc stop releasing data about all the people who were dying because of the warnings he ignored for months were making him look bad
This was a time when some state governments didn’t mandate masks and forced businesses to reopen because they didn’t want to pay unemployment to people trying to stay safe at home anymore
This was a time when Jeff Bezos was on track to be a fucking trillionare because everyone was ordering things on amazon instead of going to the store and the people he worked to death to get it didn’t see a single cent of it
This was a time when instead of providing homeless people with housing, we painted boxes on the ground to show homeless people how far away the had to be on the street to maintain social distancing
We did not come together to make cloth masks. Cloth masks represent nothing less than the absolute and utter failure of a nation’s government to inform and protect its citizens
This was not a time when we came together. This was a time when we survived, and not all of us made it.
This was a time when people casually talked about how many human lives the economy was worth without considering the evil that had just come out of their mouths.
This was a time when thousands of us died for profit and the ego of a cheating narcissists con man who scammed his way into the white house
This was a time that we survived. Most of us tried to do the right thing, stay home, limit trips to the store and socializing, wear a mask. And still, so many of us were lost. Thousands every day.
But that wasn’t a good enough reason for some people, for those among us who were too selfish to recognize the responsibilities we have toward one another as human beings.
This was not a time that we came together
This was a time that we survived
And those of us who did survive will never forget the evil we saw daily in our politicians and those around us
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