Stars & Stripes 2020
by Mel Chin
This flag with anemic stars, representing our America of 2020, was put together just as the country was about to be ripped apart. It’s happening. The construction of democracy sounds so good we believe it and fall uncritically under its spell, blind to never ending hideous transgressions. It is a contract signed onto with hope, that is enforced by “law and order” and it is a cruel con. In fact, it is a societal contract nurturing an enforcement of privileges and protections that excludes Black lives and mutes their voices.
Here we are, under a viral infection that is not a hoax. While here we are, witnessing not riots but the writhing, thrashing, seething pain brought by a perversion of democracy that is a hoax, that is a disease of institutionalized injustice, white supremacy and privilege. Our system is not broken, it has been fixed from the beginning against a fair struggle for justice. This is a fabricated sham to be ripped into shreds. If the means, climate and methods to build a liberty that actually matters are not there, we must join a mission to create them, guided by and with those who have endured and survived this oppression. #blacklivesmatter