The text on the image reads
Don't look away.
Protests are still happening. Less than lethals/non-lethals are still being used. Police officers are still killing people. Statues are being toppled. Arrests are being made. Fireworks are being set off seemingly everywhere. People are still arguing about masks. COVID-19 is still spreading. It's over 100 degrees in the Arctic. A giant dust cloud is blowing across the Atlantic from the Sahara Desert. I don't understand what's happening at CHOP in Seattle. Politicians are... well... what are politicians doing?
I don't want to be talking about any of this. I want to talk about the beauty and ecological necessity of a diverse wildlife population. I want to look away.
Don't look away.
This morning, my husband and I watched Apple's WWDC opening presentation thing. After watching so much footage of protests for the past two dozen+ days, watching WWDC was surreal. I went from watching protest speakers talk about income disparity and legitimately worrying about their kids living long enough to become adults to watching people with finely coiffed hair and $500 pants smile their way through a social distanced infomercial dripping with so much money I could almost smell it through the screen.
What is this world?
That's definitely not a question I can answer without a metric ton of sarcasm since I have no more idea of what I'm talking about that anybody else. So, I keep watching and reading and trying to listen and working to learn. I have to take more breaks so that I don't burn out. Once I get to the 100th day of these Sheltering-in-Place posts, I will stop doing them every day. I'm not going to look away, though. Too much of this is too important, and I'm sure that I don't even understand the breadth of most of it. I hope that all of this leads to something better, whatever that may mean.
And you know what? We can know what it means. The protesters are telling everyone and each other what something better looks like. Not all the visions of it are the same, but there are commonalities. Equality. Equity. Less violence toward Black people and minorities in general. A redistribution of resources for everyone. These are the things I keep seeing and hearing. Maybe you're getting something different. I don't know.
Black Lives Matter. That part I do know. The elephant in the room (ahem, racism) is not invisible. Don't look away.