Making Sense: A Pitch to US

There was a brief viral trend on social media earlier this month, hitting the rewind to 2016, and honestly, I’m all in for a good nostalgia trip—snuggling under a warm, weighted blanket that’s safer than today’s chaos. But, like all good things, you eventually hit the point where staying immobile means risking becoming numb to it all. By the end of 2016, I found myself questioning the continued bizarre normalcy of a country I’d called home for decades as a transracial adoptee living in the United States—wondering how long pretending everything’s fine living under paranoid, ruthless, unchecked empire.

Now, I rarely discuss being an adoptee from Central America, never mind following that up with also “raised in a caucasian household.” That concept would make sense as a black comedy mini series and maybe it’s the best way to articulate.

Plot - Lauren Anabela is humanoid alien toddler from a tropical planet Motmot who crash-lands to home of a working class family in the United States during the 1980’s.  Episodes felt with LA navigating their survivor’s guilt, relationships (including a younger sibling humanoid alien from a neighboring tropical planet) and learning about the bleak history of her adoptive homeland; including it’s involvement in destabilizing her planet Motmot and many other planets (including her sibling’s) in the galaxy. Ok ,maybe I relate to Gordon Shumway more than I thought.

However, I see the United States as the protagonist entity of the series.  It’s oppressive,  greedy, bias, vengeful, narcissistic and a paranoid supremacist to the point where it is scared of its own (decaying) shadow.  Although the protagonist has had opportunities to reflect deeply on themselves, those moments are often dismissed or hidden by enablers. Now on the verge of turning 250, birthed in native dispossession and slavery, it’s deeply flawed and long overdue for an immediate intervention with actual consequences.

Rewind to 2016; I had often been told (even as a tax payer) to refrained from engaging in political discussions, to “remain neutral” especially as a small business owner (impossible as an artist). But it was a stark realization to discover people I thought I knew, including family members, not only engaging in political discourse but willing to continue upholding the empire's decaying shadow. It makes me question not why you chose to sustain the illusion but if I could confide in you.  Side note: Liberalism is also not excused from criticism here and is also an enabler of the continued decay, as they benefit from the same (capitalist) system.

So how does the mini series end?  I don’t know but we’re rolling towards an unwritten finale and we’ve got serious reflecting and acting to do.  Do we continue to enable the protagonist or do we rally as community to expose, uphold consequences to extinguish the shadow once and for all? That decision is up to US.

LAB

Resources to expand your education:

Haymarket Books

PM Press

Zinn Project

Fight the Future