I’m not going to pretend. I was really looking forward to jumping all in 2021 with both feet and wash a little of the 2020 muck off me. Unlike many people, I never believed that things were going to miraculously turn around in 2021. America’s got some work to do, right? But, whoa. When I saw folks scaling the walls of the Capitol building last Wednesday, my mouth flung open. I’m like, Where the heck am I? This doesn’t look like anybody’s United States.
And yet it is.
Honestly, I was stunned but not surprised. I had seen this brand of venom before. I was a community college professor for most of my professional life, the last few spent in a very red county in upstate New York. In those last few years, it became harder and harder for me to convince some of my students to eschew oppression because I was too busy dodging their vitriolic stares. It was exhausting. So when I watched those men and women on television, high-fiving one another, wallowing in all manners of foolishness, excitedly pushing past police officers on their way to overthrow the US government, I had one overarching thought: I need to be (What am I saying? We all need to be) VERY CAREFUL in the months and years to come.
Gail Upchurch 