June 20, 2020: Revisiting Imperative #3

I’m re-pondering my original March brainstorm - that we were all freaking out because there were Five Competing Imperatives. I think one of the three has since blown up and morphed and needs revising:  

1) We need herd immunity

2) We need to flatten the curve

3) We need to protect the vulnerable

4) We need to keep the (international, national, and) local economy going

5) We need tools (stats, tests, vaccines, etc.)

I am interested in looking back at all five, but I’ve been thinking about #3 in particular, and (honestly, not trying to force everything into my schema, but I think this does fit) how #3 was already big long before the pandemic. Right? 

I mean, among those who are interested in equity and justice and fairness and the opposite of xenophobia, homophobia, racism, all the ugly things, #3 has been on high alert forever, but SO much more so under the unceasing attacks-upon-the-vulnerable that have been unleashed by our current administration for the past almost-four years.

(The other four were new. I wasn’t worried about herd immunity or flattening the curve or getting a vaccine for COVID-19 in 2016, but I was worried about the vulnerable.)

So protecting the vulnerable was longstanding and deep-seated (I love putting those two together, the standing and the sitting) and a most desireable existing goal.  

In the reality of the pandemic, defining HOW to protect the vulnerable was hard to get our thoughts around. Did it mean keeping people home (but then they maybe had no income)? Did it mean visiting someone in the memory care facility, or not visiting them? Did it mean going to get take-out from a favorite restaurant, or was getting take-out putting the chefs at risk? (One local place lost a chef to COVID, and the owner said “We are not essential workers,” and shut the place in mourning.) Protecting the vulnerable was hard.

But then we saw George Floyd’s murder, and the whole weight of hundreds of years of racial ugliness hit us again in our now-COVID-inflamed “protect the vulnerable” soft spot, and then the protests took off and the police tear-gassed the protesters, which meant they too were “the vulnerable,” and then these bizarre law enforcement nameless goons went for the church folks handing out water bottles to protesters, so then the church folks TOO were “the vulnerable,” and our “protect the vulnerable” instincts and training and upbringing, our desire to Do the Right Thing, or at least do One Good Thing, went into overdrive, and I think “protect” stopped being quite the right word, and maybe “support” became better, and maybe “the vulnerable” stopped being quite good enough either, and #3 has to read “We need to support each other,” whatever that may entail.

New 3) We need to support each other

There has been a dust-up in local politics lately that I personally relish. It’s around racial justice, and police reform, and budget cuts, and making incremental change versus making far more sweeping change. It reminds me of the time a much younger male colleague tried to school me for being insufficiently feminist, only this time it’s people who are on the same side of an issue arguing about who is or is not “doing ENOUGH.” (Note! He survived! The younger male colleague! He survived!)

Here’s where I am on Doing Enough – if someone says I’m not doing enough, I’m going to just take the criticism. I’m not going to argue, or whine, or get defensive. I’m not going to say Hey, better than nothing! I'm just going to say Fair point.

I mention this because I was saying to a pal that it annoys me that my attempts to do good are so REACTIVE. The bad guys do something cruel, and I send money to organization A, or write a letter to politician B. The next day, the bad guys do something cruel, and I swing my sights over to organization C, or I clap from the very edge of outdoor protest gathering D, or I read book E, or gear up to argue kindly but firmly with person F. The next day I realize I need to attend an online training on G. The next day, the ‘heart’ of our problem is clearly voting rights or gerrymandering or vote by mail or NO, it’s the Food Bank! Of course! It’s the Food Bank! No, it’s the Columbia River! (If you don’t feel this way, I envy you. You have found your focus.) 

I’m just reacting to the bad guys. The bad guys are controlling me. They own me. They have – DAMN IT – owned me. They owned a lib, and that lib is me!

In an unbelievable stroke of luck, the pal who was listening to me said that I actually had a perfectly acceptable Philosophy of Doing Good, and that it was “Help the Most Recently Smitten.”  I could kiss her for this interpretation, but I never got within six feet of her, though I did get to sit outside in her beautiful garden.