Why isn't the covid pandemic over? White supremacy

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.editorialboard.com/why-isnt-the-covid-pandemic-over-white-supremacy/

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White supremacy. That’s the reason. Lots of white Americans want to believe the lie that they are better than other Americans, even other white ones, because they can’t or won’t believe they are subject to the same laws, same rules, same vaccines as the people they despise. The common good isn’t common. It isn’t good. It’s the enemy. When it came time to choose humility over arrogance in the face of death by virus, millions of Americans chose arrogance — then death by virus.

Then there are profits. Because there are so many white people who want to believe the lie that they are better than people they despise, there are naturally lots of opportunists standing by to tell them exactly what they want to hear on account of the lie feeling so good. It feels so good, they will pay to keep hearing it. And the more they pay, the more opportunists keep selling it. And the wider and deeper this closed circuit becomes, the more it feels to its participants like the whole world is on their side. Until it crashes into the truth. But instead of accepting the truth, they want to replace it. Lies feel too good to quit.

The truth could set them free. From the lies. From corruption. From the virus. From the poisonous influence of amoral corporations profiting from the selling of lies to white Americans who won’t quit them. But why? Why won’t they set themselves free? The answer is terrible but we must say it. They don’t want to be free. They can’t feel free, not without lies, not without corruption, not without seeing the suffering of Americans they despise. Their freedom is therefore conditional, much the way their love for each other is conditional. And those conditions on love and freedom are a source of endless pain.

We don’t often talk about their pain. We should. It explains so much. They could be happy, but they won’t be, because they can’t be, because it’s just not possible for them to have love without hierarchy, relationships without authority, community without corruption. They are in endless pain. They can’t imagine a world without it. Pain is the beginning. It is the end. It is a God-like presence. Instead of facing it, they justify it, make-believing horrible enemies against them, against “their way of life” — anything that might explain all that pain, anything that might distract them from having to do the work of overcoming it.

*snip*