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America Returns to Its Violent Normal
Violence is only permissible here when it’s state-sanctioned
I find myself once again struggling with the American definition of violence. With who gets to define what violence is, and what it looks like. Some of this is because violence is so often discussed only as action, and not inaction: Protesters in the streets, but not institutional neglect. Violence in this country is so often discussed in the present, without any historical context. Our country talks about a city on fire, but rarely about what had to burn and who had to be left behind for a city to exist in the first place.
America now finds itself in another moment of reckoning, right as the country opts to “reopen,” a catchall term for some kind of return to normalcy that also whitewashes the risks for those who can’t work from home and must now return to the workplace. States like Ohio are setting up databases to report employees who don’t come to their place of work. Make no mistake: This is an act of violence. In a country where unemployment has skyrocketed and 40% of people can’t afford a $400 emergency expense, the wealth of billionaires continues to accumulate at the expense of exploited workers. This, too, is violence. People who are unhoused sleep outdoors in cities where hotels sit largely empty. Covid-19 has run through multiple prisons and detention centers, leaving many incarcerated individuals sick, and some dying without proper care. All of this, violence.
The timing of not just the killings, but also the uprisings in response to the killings, has made me question what American Normalcy is and who gets to celebrate a return to it.
In concert with America’s quest to return to normalcy, people have taken to the streets to protest the killings of black people by the police: Breonna Taylor, killed in Louisville in March. George Floyd, killed in Minneapolis on May 25. Tony McDade, killed by police in Tallahassee just two days later. The timing of not just the killings, but also the uprisings in response to the killings has made me question what American Normalcy is, and who gets to celebrate a return to it. So much of the discourse around the material nature…
