Humanity Is Not A Virus
This post was originally published on July 9, 2021
Vol. 10
Intro | Essay | Read Local | The Big Picture | Now Read This | For Your Earhole | Throw Your Money At 'Em | Final Frame
Hello, loves. Been a while. Turns out I rather prefer to be outdoors and away from computer screens in the summer, and so I have not had as much time to dedicate to the Grist. I’d apologize, but I think you’re all probably on the same page, or at least understanding, and I appreciate that.
As a consequence of this edition (my tenth!) being a bit of a long time coming, there are more reading recommendations than normal. Take what you want, leave the rest, though of course I think they’re all worth your while. But I hope you’re also able to spend more time outdoors, soaking up the sun and the good air and those beautiful, hardworking trees.
If you’re looking for recommendations for great places to hike and/or just spend time, I’m always full of ‘em (and open to yours!). Here are some that I visited recently:
Pheasant Branch Conservancy - several walking and hiking paths to choose from, and includes open prairie or shaded woods, plus a painfully clear/cool stream and natural springs.
Gibraltar Rock SNA - Beautiful, woodland trail that tops out at a spectacular overlook of the Wisconsin River Valley.
Table Bluff segment of the Ice Age Trail - Combination bluff prairie and woodland trail, with lots of great wildflowers, birds, and views.
Parfrey's Glen SNA - Not far from Devil's Lake State Park, this is a pretty popular spot, so if you like to be more alone than not I recommend going very early in the day. It's worth it no matter when, though, to enjoy the wooded trail back into the rocky gorge, where at some point the maintained trail ends and one needs to hop stones across the creek to make it back to the lovely little waterfall. Pro tip: If possible, scramble up the trail behind the waterfall itself to find an even more secluded area, with what I like to call the fairy falls down and to your left.
All right then, some thoughts...
Humanity Is Not A Virus.
You’ve probably heard someone say it at some point. Maybe you’ve said, or thought it yourself: “Humanity is a virus, man.”
In some of my most cynical, hopeless moments, I’ve been guilty of buying into the thought myself. Because cynicism breeds apathy, and apathy for a white American is about white supremacy--maybe not consciously or intentionally, but it illustrates our ultimate comfort with the status quo. It’s easy to be cynical and apathetic, after all, when your life and the lives of those you love aren’t being immediately, constantly, historically threatened by that status quo. (or you don’t think so, anyway).
I don’t fuck with that statement anymore, or anything like it. Humanity is not a monolithic group. While segments of our ever-expanding population are absolutely guilty of acting like a virus, I don’t believe we are, at our core, a destructive species. I’ve also woken up to the fact that not all peoples or cultures have or continue to live in a way that is antithetical to harmony with the natural world and each other.
It can be hard to see that when you’re raised, like I was, in the thick of a white supremacist, capitalist system of scarcity. When you’re taught that someone having enough means something is taken from you. When you’re taught that there’s only so much to go around. When you’re taught that this is how it’s always been and always will be, so don’t bother dreaming of anything different or better, and certainly don’t look at or learn from other people and other cultures who have already proven that there are healthier, more balanced ways of existing in this world.
How unimaginative, how insecure and fearful.
But I know now that it is not inevitable that humanity succumbs to its worst impulses, or even that every human has those same impulses. I know now, with enormous gratitude to all those who’ve taught me, directly or indirectly, that capitalism and its extractive ways and scarcity mentality is not a natural state, nor is it indestructable. That people have created wonderful (if always imperfect, always worth improving and evolving) ways of living that prioritize harmony with the natural world and each other, and who approach life through the lens of abundance.
If you find yourself slipping into that dark and cynical place, I urge you to look outside, to dream bigger, to humbly learn from others who show us a different way. None of this is inevitable. To give in and give up, particularly as a white Westerner, is to support white supremacy and all its attendant ills--this system that is literally making us sick, killing us, poisoning the earth.That is my lesson, one I am learning and re-learning every damn day.
If there is a virus, it is that system. We won’t cure ourselves by sitting back and doing nothing, allowing it to spread unchecked. We take steps--large and small--to protect ourselves and our communities, to inoculate against its cynicism, its greed and fear and ultimately apathy. Then we build something better, healthier, with a stronger immune system for the long-run.
We don’t even have to start from scratch.
Read Local.
The Wisconsin GOP continues to be the absolute worst.
“Assembly GOP leader refuses to schedule Dem resolutions, apparently in retaliation for Black History Month call-out” [Madison365]
Reminder about Jim Steineke and his feelings about addressing racial disparities
Further context from Rep. Hong’s chief of staff, Nada Elmikashfi
Of course, Rep. Hong continues to kick ass, anyway: “Chef Francesca Hong is Proving That Food Is Political” [Civil Eats]
“New ‘Madison Murals” website preserves downtown murals, sparks important educational opportunities for students” [David Dahmer for Madison365]
“A labor camp, a Super 8 and a long bus ride home: What happened when COVID-19 hit
“In less than two months last fall, at least 11 migrant workers at the green bean facility, operated by Seneca Foods, died of COVID-19 complications, making it one of the deadliest coronavirus outbreaks in the U.S. food processing industry. One in 14 migrant workers at the facility died after company officials and government regulators failed to take critical measures to protect employees.”
“Robin Vos signs contact paying retired police officers $20,000 to investigate 2020 election” oh and also “Taxpayers will pay former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman $44,000 to oversee election review” [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
The GOP just keeps getting away with using our money to fund their corrupt efforts to disenfranchise and discriminate against voters, now with the added insult of continuing to perpetuate the Big Lie about the 2020 election. I find it deeply unsettling to see the GOP overall doubling down on the undermining of our democracy, even after an attempted violent coup at the Capitol. If we as a country cannot stand up and say no to even the most egregious attacks, then I absolutely fear for our future. (P.S. Some historical context on Gableman, and some background on the retired cops hired [Tone].
“'I felt like I was fighting the world by myself': Students find each other, build discrimination case against Chippewa Falls schools” [Rory Linanne for Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
“While a student at Chippewa Falls High School, Casaiya Keyser said she routinely heard racial slurs and was told by school staff not to let them make her so angry. Another student, Hazel Behling, said she was harassed about her sexual orientation and told by a school counselor that she needed to repent her sins or go to Hell.”
“Does Milwaukee Want To Widen I-94? Introducing 'Expanding the Divide,’ a multi-part series on the proposed expansion of the 3.5-mile East-West corridor of Interstate 94 in Milwaukee” [Dan Shafer/The Recombobulation Area]
Meanwhile in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, members of Webster Middle School's School Acceptance Team put up an awesome mural, only to have their principal cover it up for being "inappropriate." After outcry and support from the community, the mural is now visible again. Support queer youth everywhere!
The Big Picture.
“Dispossessed, Again: Climate Change Hits Native Americans Especially Hard” [New York Times/paywall]
“In Oklahoma, the 1995 bombing offers lessons — and warnings — for today’s fight against extremism” [Washington Post/paywall]
“Those ‘seeds’ Ferrari saw at the Capitol are finding fertile ground in Oklahoma, where politics can be more powerful than memory. Domestic terrorism analysts trace a straight line from the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building to the Jan. 6 breach — two history-making attacks fueled by anti-government, conspiratorial thinking. Yet in the same city where McVeigh detonated a nearly 5,000-pound bomb, killing 168 people and wounding hundreds more, top Republican leaders are reluctant to acknowledge far-right extremism, much less take meaningful steps to address it.”
“The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-before Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax” [ProPublica] - Eat the rich.
“American democracy is in even worse shape than you think” [Perry Bacon, Jr. for Washington Post opinion]
“Perhaps democracy dies faster in darkness. But it could also die slowly in the light, as all of us watched but didn’t do enough to save it.”
"A Liberal Zionist’s Move to the Left on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" [Benjamin Wallace-Wells for the New Yorker]
“...if basically we’re always on the precipice of the Holocaust, then your only obligation is to survive. You don’t have to deal with the moral obligations of how you treat other people. So it gives you tremendous license to do whatever, because, basically, the Palestinians are just proto-Nazis.”
"It Turns Out, All Those 'Woke White Allies Were Lying" [Michael Harriot for The Root]
"According to a review of pledges compiled by Creative Investments Research, businesses have donated less than one percent of the money promised."
"If you graduated this year, here's something you should know" [David M. Perry opinion for CNN]
"...the science was there, but the humanities were left behind."
“Court orders Royal Dutch Shell to cut carbon emissions by 45% by 2030” [The Guardian]
Big deal for climate news generally, between this ruling in the Netherlands and shareholder revolts demanding stronger climate action from ExxonMobile and Chevron.
“Joe Manchin Can’t Have It Both Ways” [Adam Sewer for The Atlantic]
“If Republicans in the 1860s had taken Joe Manchin’s position that voting rights measures must be bipartisan, the 15th Amendment, which bars disenfranchisement on the basis of race, would never have been passed at all.”
Now Read This
"Fear of a Bi Planet" [Jude Ellison Doyle]
"There is a potential future in which everyone’s sexuality is presumed to be fluid, and everyone’s gender identity is self-determined — a world in which no-one is exactly “queer,” because no-one is exactly straight. That future is not the end of gayness. It is the end of heteronormativity, and it’s the goal at which much gay and lesbian activism has always been aimed. When the gatekeepers tear their hair and wring their hands, when they long for a world where being gay is a niche experience, when they insist that you should have to be really gay, no really gay, no really really really gay, before you can describe yourself with any word other than “straight,” they’re not protecting gay people. They’re working to keep heterosexuality the default."
“A Grown-Ass Woman” [Lyz Lenz]
"It just reminded me that we raise girls to be limitless, but make it hard as hell for grown-ass women to do anything."
“Want kids to learn math? Level with them that it’s hard.” [Jordan Ellenberg]
"If we were honest about how difficult and deep mathematics is — at every level — this would be less of a problem; we could move toward a classroom where asking a question meant not “looking stupid” but “looking like someone who came here to learn something.”
Some of the best advice I’ve read in an age, courtesy of John Paul Brammer, of ¡Hola Papi!:
“Justice isn’t a weapon. It’s not a sword. It’s a restorative thing. It’s a tool for building the kind of world we’d like to live in. It isn’t about satisfying an emotional itch or investing ourselves in the idea that punishment can fix everything. Justice can involve punishment, but, in the end, they are not one and the same.”
For Your Earholes
I just finished listening to the “Wind of Change” podcast and I cannot recommend it enough. An absolutely wild ride through 1980s rock music, Cold War paranoia, espionage, and more. Superberly told and exhaustively researched. Let it rock you like a hurricane.
“There Is No Cancel Culture.” [On the Media] - THANK YOU, YES.
Album recommendation of the day: “Colours” by China Charmeleon
Want awesome, diverse, mostly instrumental, very good to work to music delivered to your inbox every day? I just subscribed to the Flow State newsletter and it’s been a delightful ride.
Throw Your Money At ‘Em
Latinx transgender drag artist Chiquitita orchestrated a photo shoot with over 80 Brooklyn-based performers - The print is now on sale for $60 to benefit For the Gworls, a collective that fundraises money to help Black transgender people pay for their rent, gender-affirming surgeries, medical co-pays, and travel.
Final Frame.
‘Til next time.
Thanks for reading! Hit me up with questions, comments, suggestions, and tips on great hiking spots.