Letter to My Mother, May 31st 2020

Thanks for the article and while I do appreciate John Lewis thoughts, they are more historical artifact than ironclad roadmap for the current times. There is no solace for me in a cadre of Liberal White Boomers, which you’re part of, laundering their own historical and contemporaneous docility through the words of John Lewis. You like what John Lewis has to say because all it requires of you is what you do anyway — put all your eggs into a rigged electoralism basket and pat yourself on the back for ‘doing things the right way’. While the world consequently burns around you for it.

I thought a lot about our conversation last night vis a vis our interactions and perceptions of the moment and for once in my life, couldn’t stop thinking about how you’re processing it. I’m not going to unpack all of it right now but there was a fundamental loss of respect from me towards you in that conversation and it didn’t hinge on just one thing but quite a few things you opined about. I got about 4 hours of sleep last night digesting what it means to see your own mother cape for reactionary politics while holding onto a delusional self image of Progressive Liberalism and how she wound up at that point.

It also made me think about our relationship and how I interact with you generally. I will cop to being evasive and distant over the years (I am evasive with everyone to a large extent though), maybe for my entire life but please please please understand that is a reflection of me trying to be polite and civil towards you and accounting for a lifetime of you reacting poorly to your idealism and desires being upended. With politics, you routinely buffalo past objections to affirm what you believe is right or important, and I got more than a few bones to pick with what you believe is right and important, which was revealed per our chat last night.

I don’t feel like having a long talk about this right now over the phone but take some time over the next week to do an inventory on how you arrived to the same conclusion about ANTIFA that Trump has (It’s related to the convo, promise). Also think about the hypothetical of what you would do if I were arrested for resistance and/or if I was arrested for association with ANTIFA. Factor in that you would not be the, second, third or even fourth call in such a situation. Should you be? Do you want to be? Do you think you could withhold a lecture about how I wound up in that situation if I called? Must I suffer directly and overtly at the hands of the police like George Floyd for you to liberate yourself from being useful to authoritarian power? The time of you trying to spare me of the outcomes of my own agency to insulate yourself from tragedy are gone and over and have been for some time.

I love you and because of that love, I am so disappointed in you right now. I know that this will be upsetting to read (It was extremely hard to write it out) and I apologize for coming kind of out of the blue with this. I am holding you to account for how you unwittingly stand in opposition to a future I and many others want to live in. A future which seemingly isn’t possible so long as we live in the shadow of your timid and backsliding electoralism. A shadow you cast yet deny in the few moments you’re even aware of it.

There will be no fruit in trying to mount a self exculpatory defense against how I feel about this. What I need and want from you is to internalize this bitter medicine of seeing yourself through my eyes and to meditate on that.

Marc