As COVID-19 tears through the heart of our country, I have too often heard a call for the “return to normalcy.”
This is as absurd as it is immoral. “Normal” is a fragile system in which a person’s access to health care is tied to their employment. “Normal” is the fact that minority communities across America are suffering higher death rates due to COVID-19 than their white counterparts. “Normal” is endless wars in the Middle East that kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people. “Normal” is having nearly one-quarter of the global prison population, while making up less than 5% of the total population. “Normal” is purposely destroying our planet for the profit margins of an ultra-wealthy elite. And it goes on and on. Do you get the picture?
We can’t return to “normal.” That would be a death sentence. What we need is to take bold, courageous steps toward reimagining our relationships with each other, with our political apparatus and with our environment. This work is already happening in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic.
Across the Pioneer Valley, extensive mutual aid networks appeared out of thin air and have taken the lead on caring for members of our communities, meeting needs where state and federal governments have failed. People from across cities, towns and counties have joined together, many of them complete strangers, to support each other through this crisis, something that at the beginning of 2020 was likely not on many people’s minds.
The Sunrise Movement is another example of a community that sprang into existence as a response to crisis. The youth-led organization pressures political leaders nationwide to pledge to a Green New Deal which radically changes the way we view our collective roles in challenging the climate crisis, as well as the roles of our elected officials.
There is no leader of the Sunrise Movement, no figurehead who calls the shots. All decisions are based locally and democratically made by school- or town-based hubs. Here in western Massachusetts, there is a coalition of nine hubs working together toward the same goal – demand that politicians act for the good of the people or step down.
By working in a decentralized way, Sunrise has shown that it is possible to organize ourselves into functioning movements without a systematic accumulation of power or influence, and in a way that recognizes and minimizes the oppressive forces of “normal.” But this monumental task can’t be left up to organizations and activists. We all have a role to play in building a new framework for society. By questioning what is sold to us as “normal” we can begin to unravel the tangled web of half-truths and outright lies that stagnate the possibility of a free and just future.
Again and again we are shown that “normal” does not take human lives into consideration. “Normal” does not look at you or me or our parents, children, co-workers, and friends and ask, “How can life be better?” Instead, it asks itself, “How many of these people can we sacrifice?” Our bodies are fuel to the status quo. It needs our labor, our minds and our blood like a car needs gasoline and oil.
This is all to say that those who cry out for normalcy are crying out for the continuation of a brutal system of oppression that chains us all to a dying Earth.
Justin Campbell is part of Sunrise Easthampton.