We all have had enough of plague, right? Two and a half years later of Covid and its variants our culture and communities are fundamentally changed and as humans we are struggling. In the scope of things, compared to HIV, AIDS, Spanish Flu, we have had it easy if you apply it to a troubled past.

Without sounding like Chicken Little, there seems to be a wash of information predicting it is going to continue for a while longer. Meanwhile there are other things showing up like monkey pox and meningitis! The media is kicking new horrors around and in a way that feels exclusive to certain groups of humans. It is reminiscent of the 80’s and even darker times of history.

When monkey pox first made news in the beginning of May, the reporter linked it to two parties in Europe touted as gay orgies. The World Health Organization sent our a press release that fed the fervor that was only heard by gays. There are two unconfirmed cases still in the area where I live.

Just within recent days there was a meningococcal disease with a focus in Florida at this time, again pointing toward gay/bi-sexual men according to the CDC.

By calling out LGBTQIA (more specifically gay/bi men) this creates a vacuum like AIDS did, because this is not an everyone problem anymore. It is a gay people problem. When I heard the local newscaster read this story on network news, a gay man, I heard the break in his voice as it sounded to me like he was hearing a clear representation of blaming.

Stories like this are concerning. LGBTQIA freedom in the United States has enjoyed a beautiful renaissance, but since #45 was in office there has been a steep decline in those gains. It is more than a self-correcting social flux, where liberal ideas have enjoyed a lot of social muscle under leaders like Obama, Pelosi, Schumer and others. It’s scarier than that.

A friend told me recently that he thinks the tide is changing. The world is getting darker, more desperate, and scarier.

All the queer culture that has been shoved down the throats of conservatives is coming back to bite us in the ass. We absolutely need representation for queer kids and people desperately seeking a fair chance in the world.

Fact is the United States is 50/50 conservatives and liberals which makes every election a trial of wills. Elections are not swept any more without gerrymandering.

We live in a culture now where there is permission for racism, violence against AAPI, gun rights and mass shootings to have a place. It’s a dark turn and it is scary.

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Note: This was written before the supreme court ruling on Roe V. Wade. I feel the two stories are related because they flow in the vein that a dire tide is shifting in the world against social programs, against marginalized communities, and many other successes our communities have enjoyed in recent years.

Image Source: https://futureearth.org/2020/06/12/statement-on-racial-justice/

Today’s scheduled post has been interrupted because of history being made. Or is it that history has been undone? The post I was working on under the subject of #Culture was about a turning tide with a swell that is getting very scary and very large. It is about an unraveling of what many of us thought were truths that are simply breaking under the weight of a political shift. A movement against human rights.

Today’s news at the beginning of pride weekend (for a lot of places) started off with a nuclear blast about abortion rights in the United States. A long held ruling by the US Supreme Court was overturned. It was a case with a lot of opinions attached to it, mostly from the people who saw it as a problem. To be honest those people who struggled with it were “right to life” folks.

There is an underlying problem with the ruling as it could be knocked down if a justice court was willing to lean into it.

We have a largely conservative court now with appointed judges with agendas of their own. When President #45 took office he promised he would get some things done and he did. Which speaks to his popularity today even as his name is being dragged through the mud in open hearings by democrats.

Taking away a woman’s right to their own health of themselves and their family is a disgrace. It is mounted on the shoulders of old white men  making those rules. It is a fundamentally flawed way to govern and serve justice in a place that talks about freedom and liberties.

Today’s America

This is an age where racism and fascism were given light and grew. Whether it is a march with tiki torches, police killing people and getting away with it, or the glorification of a dictator it is all just bad taste. On the other side of the coin the public, through the media, has been force fed pronouns and Bridgeton level gender and race swapping that leaves many scratching their heads. Neither side has been very temperamental of the other.

The rhetoric just keeps growing and mutating as fast as Covid on a summer holiday.

Because of disease, lockdowns and masking we forgot how to be kind. There are more and more people fighting to survive out there and fear is taking over. The government, the police and our religious leaders all use fear to drive sick narratives that keep us from stepping back and working together to solve these problems.

More than a single ruling

The court decision today was only the latest piece taken out of the Jenga puzzle. And almost as soon as it came out there was an article about how Clarence Thomas* was about to weigh into other rulings that dealt with gay marriage and more. We have seen a clear assault on trans people across the country preventing them from functioning as normal humans in their chosen identity.

“Don’t mourne, organize!” – Lady in a store today

It felt like I was watching dominoes tipping over in slow motion. It is as if I have been watching that game for a while, but was never as invested as I should be. Maybe recent events have ignited something inside me, but because of the court ruling and some other recent news has opened my eyes  to a bigger threat to my well-being in this country. And, I am worried that my inaction is seen as consent.

At least the last six years we as a country have been raked over the coals and are all still in shock. The only way to move forward is to try something different. That might not be a knee-jerk reaction to horrible news, but rally and be heard. Fear is our biggest enemy.

*I am not familiar with The Hill specifically and site the article as a talking point and not as fact or a specifically reliable source because I did not get into fact checking. I used it to point out the tone of the country in my opinion.