Lessons of the COVID Lockdown
Like many people right now my wife and I are being reflective approaching the anniversary of our COVID home sequestration for the last year. Next week will be one year for us. We have been monk-like in our hibernation, not going much of anywhere and having almost all needs delivered to us. And we have stayed healthy and are thankful for that.
I’ve seen published pieces lately on what people have learned during this crisis and I’ve been thinking about it too for a while. It’s been a tragic year for so many in so many ways, so the pain that others have felt frames the total scope and all aspects of the experience. Between the news reports of the pandemic suffering and the botched handling of it by our government until recently, it’s been a sad, sad year.
When bad or sad things happen, though, processing them in active ways is critical to responding healthfully. I think is was Eckhart Tolle that said, “Compassion is a verb.” You’ve got to do compassion. An aspect of the pieces I’ve read on being locked down is also, “Ok, what’s the silver lining here?”
Similarly, I worked with a brilliant trauma therapist a few years ago when I was in a bad hit and run car crash in which I wasn’t physically hurt but others were. We settled on an action plan that amounted to, “What is the cosmos trying to teach me from this event and how will I react to and use this education well?”
The range of lessons from the lockdown I have read go from the humorous and mundane to the profound. Most sentiments suggest that returning to normal is not an option, however you define normal. Normal is what got us into this mess.
In sum, this has not been a difficult experience for my wife and me. For the resident introvert, I adapted pretty easily actually. For my more gregarious wife, it took some getting used to and improvisation, but creativity is her strong suit and she figured it out.
Critically though, you can’t complain when you’re happily retired, live in a nice home, have what you need to sustain yourself and are white and privileged. The worst part for us was not seeing family face to face, but it was an inconvenience, not a tragedy of any kind, and we found ways to adapt and connect. Given the suffering and grief so many endured and are still enduring, the angst we felt was for others who had been so severely impacted.
But we discovered or had affirmed valuable gifts and lessons for which we are deeply grateful. There were many but the key ones were the obviously important ones. Family and health are the critical priorities. We were blessed to be locked down with someone we so thoroughly enjoyed being with. We felt incredible gratitude for the front line essential workers in our society in all sectors who are the real heroes in crisis.
Some lessons were more mundane, but still eye opening. Our decision to downsize to one car when I retired turned out to be a great one. Writing pieces like this and reading more good books has been a ball. Eating in exclusively is nutritious, money saving and fun. Both of us are on our BMI targets, and for me that came with the cataclysmic realization that beer really was no longer a necessary part of my life, and peanut butter requires some degree of moderation. Go figure.
But the key takeaway from a year in relative isolation is more of a frustratingly profound reaffirmation of something we all have known to be true our entire adult lives. It slapped us in the face daily as we watched in disbelief as our government botched the pandemic response. It was abundantly clear as the selective brutality in law enforcement resulted in protests and civil unrest. It was a “blinding flash of the obvious” as our political system was upended by a violent transition of power for the first time in our history and one political party chose fascism as an alternative to democracy.
The lasting and critical lesson of the COVID lockdown is this: we continue to live in a country where one political party and perhaps as much as 40% of the population are overtly racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic in ways that threaten the future of our democracy.
Racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia elected the last administration and colored our government’s functioning the last four years. These obscene biases formed the basis of the administration’s inept and deadly response to the pandemic and the underlying systemic violence that caused the deaths of so many people of color at the hands of law enforcement. White supremacy is the symptom of these underlying diseases, and it’s not going away any time soon.
You may have noticed that a racist, anti-Semitic, xenophobic white supremacist still rules the Republican Party and is plotting a political comeback. And he remains wildly popular with his angry, white, mostly Protestant cultish base that slavishly believes and revels in the Big Lies he vomits prodigiously as a matter of daily routine.
The corollary lesson then coming from the pandemic lockdown is this: if you are white, not being a white supremacist is not enough. I remember well when I was in college arriving for my freshman year and meeting my roommate who happened to be black, thinking, “That’s cool. I’m not a racist.” Guess what: that’s not even close to being enough.
What’s required now from non-racist white people is active anti-racism. What’s required now is doggedly searching out, exposing and fighting against anti-Semitism wherever it rears its despicably ugly head. What’s required now is vehemently refusing to allow xenophobic policies and government and social systems to disenfranchise and restrict the liberties and opportunities of any non-white, non-Christian person in this country.
What’s a requirement now for whites that are not white supremacists is to defend and protect the welfare of all non-white, non-Christian people in our country in demonstrable ways. That means putting people in office that will fight for them. That means financially supporting organizations that will help to protect them. That means getting out on the front lines and protesting fascist, racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic policies and actions that target and put at risk people of color, indigenous people, non-Christians and immigrants.
That means whites who are not white supremacists must be activists in overt, measurable ways to help stop racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia in its tracks. We must have the backs of our brothers and sisters who are non-white and non-Christian and we must have their backs now. That’s what whites who are not white supremacists must do to do their part to help stop the destruction of our democracy by white supremacists that are conspiring to suppress voting rights and establish a despotic, authoritarian, fascist regime in the United States.
That is what we have learned from the COVID lockdown: we are ALL activists now.
