On 2020
What a year.
To try to force meaning of this year would be harmful. The very idea of surviving when millions around the world did not is simply enough.
So instead, I am choosing to write what I feel and can remember. Writing to me, is healing. It allows me to expand my notions of life and living, and it is why I journal and why I keep this blog. In this post, I am attempting to make sense of everything I was witness to. Truthfully I cannot recall all 12 months, but I can remember what I felt this year and what sparked my interest and awareness about people and issues bigger than myself.
If I am lucky enough to wake up in 2021, above all else, I will take these three things with me:
We deserve to infuse our worlds with meaning, and we are allowed to fulfill our dreams and aspirations. But we have an obligation to make sure others can do so as well. Those we know and those we don’t. If we are to continue to reap the benefits of globalization in the 21st century, then we must resist our nature of being apathetic and complacent and selfish in the face of injustice.
In the words of MLKJ: “We have the power to make the world over again.” What is normal doesn't have to stay this way. We can reimagine what our communities look like. We can rebuild and we can do it every day if we are sustained and determined- in fact, we must.
Indulgence is not simply for special occasions.
If you decide to read nothing else, I implore you to take away those three things.
If you would like to stay, and I hope that you do, then in no particular order, these are the stories and people and books and ideas that held my attention this year:
Alicia Kennedy
This year introduced me to the musings of Alicia Kennedy, a food and drink writer from NY based in Puerto Rico. I have subscribed to her Monday newsletter, which explores food culture and media, and politics. I don’t know how exactly I found her (probably through Twitter), but I do know exactly when I was hooked. Her newsletter, “On Catastrophe and Capitalist Distraction,” shocked my world. “If you were lucky enough to have survived the catastrophic plot twist, you get to tell the— you must tell the story.”
I was in awe of how seamlessly she could intertwine chefs and activists ideologies and histories to teach me about systems and new ways of thinking. About new ways of liberating: “The individual composes the collective, and we must understand what solidarity looks like, really feels like. There has been too much pushing of responsibility onto some gout that doesn’t actually exist to create a perfect regulatory system that will fight climate change…..that’s a fallacy and a fantasy. That’s neoliberalism. “People have the power to redeem the work of fools.” We’re recognizing it.”
Another standout piece was her essay, “On Sustainability.” I found this one particularly enlightening as I supplemented it with readings by Robin Wall Kimmerer and other literature from my Economics of Food course this fall. (I highly recommend the book Braiding Sweetgrass). I will leave you with two passages from the essay, and then you must subscribe on your own.
“What the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed without a doubt is that sustainability includes individual acts, but it means much more is demanded of us to participate in collective actions that seek balance- that allow life to be sustained. Not every individual action is individualistic in its intentions and effects. It means investment in local food systems with an eye toward sovereignty. It means properly paid restaurant staff at the farm-to-table restaurant and every restaurant, cafe, and market- or else they should not exist. It means safety, living wages, and the right to organize farmworkers, and those processing meat, whether at small or industrial levels. It means breaking up industrial food production, full stop. It means systems are in place making sure everyone is fed on a daily basis, and systems are in place to respond to an emergency, whether that is a literal storm that wipes out a crop or a global pandemic that leaves most workers vulnerable, with a government that won’t step in to help. It means reparations and the restoration of land to those whom it has historically belonged, to those who have historically worked it and retained the knowledge of how to work with earth’s power, not against it.”
“Because I think that’s what sustainability really is: working with the earth as a steward, not in reaction to the devastation it has proven it can create. It’s about recognizing our capability in damaging systems and envisioning how we can change, individually and collectively; and about prioritizing both ingredients and labor. Sustainability is not just an action; it’s a mindset.”
Philip Alston
Since last fall, I have been familiar with Alston when I took an economics course on Poverty and Human Capital. In Dec. of 2017, he put out a statement detailing his visit to the U.S as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. Our class spent the entire period dissecting the systems and policies behind the egregious shortcomings of a country so rich and capable.
But in July 2020, I came across a press release from the Center of Human Rights and Global Justice from the NYU School of Law that outlined Alston’s final report as UN Special Rapporteur. The report was his observations on how deeply off-track and out of touch the UN States are to eradicating global poverty and meeting the Sustainable Development Goals.
From the press release:
“COVID-19 is projected to push hundreds of millions into unemployment and poverty, while increasing the number at risk of acute hunger by more than 250 million. But the international community’s abysmal record on tackling poverty, inequality and disregard for human life far precede this pandemic,” said Alston.
“Over the past decade, the UN, world leaders and pundits have promoted a self-congratulatory message of impending victory over poverty, but almost all of these accounts rely on the World Bank’s international poverty line, which is utterly unfit for the purpose of tracking such progress,” said Alston. The expert condemned the near universal reliance on the Bank’s line, currently $1.90 (2011 PPP) per day, which he said is deeply flawed and yields a deceptively positive picture.
The Bank’s line shows the number of people in extreme poverty fell from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 736 million in 2015. “But the line is scandalously unambitious, and the best evidence shows it doesn’t even cover the cost of food or housing in many countries. The poverty decline it purports to show is due largely to rising incomes in a single country, China. And it obscures poverty among women and those often excluded from official surveys, such as migrant workers and refugees.”
While World Bank economists have quietly recognized many of these limitations, the Bank’s focus remains fixed on the line, which features prominently in its research and publications, and the international community has followed suit.
“The result is a Pyrrhic victory, an undue sense of immense satisfaction, and dangerous complacency. Using more realistic measures, the extent of global poverty is vastly higher and the trends extremely discouraging,” Alston said. “Even before the pandemic, 3.4 billion people, nearly half the world, lived on less than $5.50 a day. That number has barely declined since 1990.”
Alston also criticized the framework through which poverty eradication efforts and development policy are structured at the global level, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda. “The UN and its member states are sleepwalking towards failure. Five years after their adoption, it is time to acknowledge that the SDGs are simply not going to be met.”
“Rather than providing a roadmap for States to tackle the critical problems of our time, the energy surrounding the SDG process has gone into generating colorful posters and bland reports that describe the glass as one-fifth full rather than four-fifths empty. COVID-19 and the accompanying economic debacle should provide an impetus to revisit the framework of the 2030 Agenda.”
“It’s time for a new approach to poverty eradication that tackles inequality, embraces redistribution, and takes tax justice seriously,” said Alston. “Poverty is a political choice and it will be with us until its elimination is reconceived as a matter of social justice.”
There it is: Poverty is a political choice.
Have you ever experienced someone saying something that you disagree with but can’t ever explain why? I feel this all the time, but particularly when I hear this:
Person 1: “everything is so politicized.”
Person 2: “what do you mean? of course, everything is political!”
And while I understand Person 2’s sentiment, I have always fundamentally disagreed with the idea that everything is political. Poverty is political. Homelessness and hunger are political. Poor education, inadequate public health services, and wealth inequality are political. But having access to all of those things and living a dignified life is not political. These are human rights that are guaranteed to me regardless of any other factor. They are guaranteed to me simply because I breathe. That you choose to deny them from me is a political choice. But that I have a right to them is not.
Beyond helping me articulate my discomfort with a frequent remark, this report also helped me take off the rose-colored glasses I have been wearing regarding the SDG’s and current measurement systems we have globally upheld- and to truly ask myself the question: what has it cost us?
I think this particular topic concerns me because poverty (globally speaking) is interconnected with human rights- in fact, to be poor is a human rights violation for the basic fact that it deteriorates someone’s dignity. I think this was one of the reasons why I decided to minor in Economics in the first place. To understand development, poverty, and global economics as human rights implications, tools for achieving justice, and not just economic gain. Beyond Alston’s literature, I also got to read Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen this year- which explores these ideas more fully and is a good read all the way around.
You can read Alston’s full report here.
Immigration Nation
This is the name of a documentary series on Netflix, exposing DHS for all of its cruelties beyond the Trump Administration. It may not be obvious through the blog, but Immigration Law and Refugee Policy are of huge interest to me. Including the U.S, I am interested in how countries choose to treat the people who show up at their borders.
Watching Immigration Nation was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever watched.
An excerpt from a journal entry:
August 6th, 2020 —> Thursday
“I am in the middle of watching immigration nation, and boy is it hard. I feel it in my chest. The inhumanity, the cruelty. It is hard to do so, but I am wrestling with how much I should empathize with ICE officers. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to arrest someone in the middle of the night or in front of their children or to put chains on someone and tell them that they have to go back to a country where they have no life or the ability to make one for themselves and their family. And I could understand it if these officers were forced too out of life or death. But that is not the case. Apart from the few who seem to find enjoyment in it, I keep hearing people in this series say, “well, it’s my job,” “I am just carrying out orders, I don’t make the rules,” “it is hard, but I just have to put my emotions aside.” I am so sorry, but a job that asks you to set aside your feelings and not think isn’t much of a job— more like subservience to a sick propaganda. My empathy and respect for immigrants and refugees and their justice are unwavering. But for some reason, I can’t stop thinking about the people who wear these uniforms. Who carry out these arrests and deportations. Who hear children and parents crying and shivering and still choose to look away. Who are they? And why do they do it?”
Here are some notes from the documentary that I took and deeper policy implications that I hope Biden-Harris tackles.
When ICE was established in 2003, there were 8 units, and today there are 129. Some people might be surprised to hear, but: The U.S existed before DHS (and I am confident that if we chose to abolish our current carceral and militant approach to Immigration, we could exist after). The Bush administration created it in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. To create it, he pulled agencies from already existing departments.
Under the Obama administration, ICE prioritized removing immigrants arrested for committing serious crimes. In Trump’s first few days, he signed an executive order shifting priorities to remove all immigration violations. *No one asked, but I believe deportations under any circumstance that isn’t tied to terrorism is completely unjust- another conversation for another time*. (you can read my thoughts in full here.)
Immigration courts are not independent- they are run by the justice department, making them subject to shifting political priorities. Judges don’t listen to a person as they plead their case. Instead, they look at a meter on their screen telling them whether or not they have reached their quotas.
There are about 120 deportation facilities in 47 states. Only about 5 of them are run by ICE; private companies run the rest. Just like private prisons, money is involved in our immigration system. We make money off of people’s livelihoods. There is money involved for each person per day. Detainees must pay for their phone calls, extra food, and can do voluntary work where they get paid $1/day, and shifts could last for 8 hours. If this is beginning to sound like jail, it’s because it is. This system is not new under Trump, but of course, because of him, it exploded. So when you say things like Abolish the Police or Defund the Police, I hope you mean it. And I hope you mean all carceral systems- beyond incarceration, but detention and surveillance as well. These private companies include GEO Group and CORE Civic, and other privately run but publicly financed organizations that use our tax dollars.
This documentary also highlighted the Sherriff and 287(g) program with a close up on my home of Charlotte, NC, and the group Comunidad Colectiva. It also explored labor trafficking and wage theft in Panama, Florida. Undocumented workers pay at least $24 billion a year in income taxes and yet are not fully protected by U.S labor laws. This must change.
“Do it the right way.” “Get in line.” It is infuriating to hear this. Especially in light of asylum seekers protected by American law and international law (non-refoulment) that provides them the legal ability to show up at U.S borders and request asylum- HOW THEY REACHED THE BORDER IS IRRELEVANT. And yet, at least 20% of those detained by ICE centers are asylum seekers- with no right to bond, or it’s left to the discretion of ICE.
Usually, asylum seekers are processed by CBP when they report themselves at the Port of Entry. Under Trump: they are immediately put on a waitlist, backing up an already unorganized system. This administration has completely criminalized asylum seekers. This is worrisome given the number of displaced people globally.
The documentary also highlighted the Migrant Protection Protocol policy. This policy forces asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while they wait for their court date. During the first year of the policy, over 60,00 asylum seekers were sent back to Mexico.
Lastly: Clinton in 1994. “Prevention Through Deterrence.” I don’t know why we don’t talk about this policy as much as we talk about his mass incarceration policy. This forced migrants through hostile terrain that was less suited for travel, away from water, and made it easier for enforcement to track them down. The hope was that if enough people died, then it would send a message. In fact, inside the policy was a measure for deterrence effectiveness: “deaths may increase.” If Reagen was ‘we can’t lock up Black people just because they're Black, so let’s plant drugs in their neighborhood,’ then Clinton was ‘we can’t shoot migrants simply for coming to our borders, so let’s make it look like they are killing themselves.’ Oh, and if you’re wondering, it hasn’t deterred anything. But hundreds of people die.
I wish I could understand the lack of compassion we have for our immigrant community. Or our need to otherize people and conflate foreignness with terrorism or threat. And what is most infuriating is that both of our political parties have no problem with the continuous harsh and inhumane treatment. Because of our policies, people die. It is as simple as that.If you can find time to watch this series, I implore you to do so. And to read.
A good global look at displacement can be found in Ai Weiwei’s documentary Human Flow, on Amazon Prime.
In fact, I am reminded of Weiwei’s wisdom regarding humanity and the crisis our refugees and displaced persons face: “As a human being, I believe any crisis or hardship that happens to another human being should be as if it is happening to us.” This sentiment is why this social issue is such a concern to me— beyond it being a human rights issue. If I needed refuge, who would help me? Who would open their doors? God forbid the tables were turned on the U.S. What country(ies) would be willing to let us in?
And for a Christian nation….what does the bible say?
“When strangers reside with you in your land, you shall not wrong them. The strangers who reside with you shall be to you as your own citizens; you shall love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Lev. 19:33-34).
The Atlantic
I don’t know how it happened, but The Atlantic has become one of my favorite magazine/political and cultural publications. There are two pieces that came out this year that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
1. Ibrahim X. Kendi’s “Is this the Beginning of the End of American Racism? Donald Trump has revealed the depths of the country’s prejudice- and has inadvertently forced a reckoning.” July 30th, 2020
“Black Americans- indeed all Americans should in one respect be thankful to him. He has held up a mirror to American society, and it has reflected back a grotesque image that many people had until now refused to see: an image not just of the racism still coursing through the country, but also of the reflex to deny that reality.”
“The United States has often been called a land of contradictions, and to be sure, its failings sit alongside some notable achievements- a New Deal for many Americans in the 1930s, the defeat of fascism abroad in the 1940s. But on racial matters, the U.S could just as accurately be described as a land in denial. It has been a massacring nation that said it cherished life, a slaveholding nation that it claimed it valued liberty, a hierarchal nation that declared it valued equality, a disenfranchising nation that branded itself separate but equal, and an excluding nation that boasted opportunity for all. A nation is what it does, not what it originally claimed it would be. Often a nation is especially what it denies itself to be.”
2. Ed Young’s “Anatomy of An American Failure, How the Pandemic Defeated America. A virus has brought the world’s most powerful country to its knees.” August, 4th 2020
“How did it come to this? A virus a thousand times smaller than a dust mote has humbled and humiliated the planet’s most powerful nation. America has failed to protect its people, leaving them with illness and financial ruin. It has lost its status as a global leader. It has careened between inaction and ineptitude. The breadth and magnitude of its errors are difficult, in the moment, to truly fathom.”
“Despite ample warning, the United States squandered every opportunity to control the coronavirus. And despite its considerable advantages- immense resources, biomedical might, scientific expertise- it floundered.”
“Despite its epochal effects, COVID-19 is merely a harbinger of worse plagues to come. The U.S cannot prepare for these inevitable crises if it returns to normal, as many people ache to do. Normal led to this. Never was a world ever more prone to a pandemic but ever less ready for one. To avert another catastrophe, the U.S needs to grapple with all the ways normal failed us. It needs a full accounting of every recent misstep and foundational sin, every unattended weakness and unhealed warning, every festering wound and reopened scar.”
“When you have people elected based on undermining trust in the government, what happens when trust is what you need the most?”
“Pandemic= tragedy + teacher. It’s very etymology offers a clue about what is at stake in the greatest challenges of the future, and what is needed to address them. Pan and demos. All people.”
I can’t recommend these two articles enough, and if I could sum up 2020 in just two pieces it would be these.
Heather Boushey
In September of this year, UNCA’s Economics department virtually hosted Heather Boushey to give a discussion on her book Unbound: How Inequality Constricts Our Economy and What We Can Do About it.
Here are the three major takeaways:
Inequality constricts growth by subverting the institutions that manage the market, making our political system ineffective and our markets dysfunctional.
Inequality constricts growth by obstructing the supply of people and ideas (human capital) into the economy and limiting opportunity for those not already at the top, which slows productivity growth over time.
Inequality constricts growth by distorting demand through its effects on consumption and investment, which both drags down and destabilizes short and long-term growth in economic output.
I imagine I’ll have a lot more opportunities to learn from Boushey as she has been appointed as one of Biden’s economic advisors for his presidency.
Human Rights
I envision a world where human rights sit at the center. Where dignity is upheld through legal, social, political, economic, environmental, and health policies. This is the world I am actively trying to create. And at all times I am asking myself, how do I contribute? I believe in activism, rooting myself in community, and staying engaged even when my shoulders are tight.
“We develop muscles around the damage.” Dorothy Allison writes this in her essay, ‘A Cure for Bitterness’. I think about this often as I come across readings and reports and media that tells me how many people in the U.S need rental assistance and the eviction crisis that will be exacerbated because of COVID-19. Or about health inequities all over the world. Or about frontline workers and the working class living through a pandemic that has been politicized in some authoritarian countries. Or about women and children and how all efforts on equality and safety, poverty eradication, quality education has taken several steps backward.
The center is falling apart.
And rather than flexing new muscles and reimagining what every system can look like for the good of all people, we are developing muscles around the damage. We are telling people to live with the new normal. Things will stay the same….under life-changing circumstances. This isn’t right. Something must give.
At our fingertips lays a global fund of knowledge. To look away is to be complicit. The crises we are facing are not too big to solve. But they have costly consequences if we choose to look away.
So here are some key ideas that I have taken away from this year but will continue to mull on in the next.
We must continue to defend whistleblowers, the press, and to value science.
After this year, it is safe to say that every country needs to publicly and boldly renew its commitment to human rights norms and democracy.
I believe rights are interrelated, interdependent, and indivisible. I have never bothered to prioritize the rights in order of greater importance to least, but after this year I can confidently say the predominant right among all others is the right to life. Without it, no other right can exist or be fought for. And that right cannot be rationed or limited. All resources must be used to protect this right.
After ridiculous debates on mask-wearing, it is time for a paradigm shift. We long have heard that human rights are the responsibility of governments. But this pandemic has confirmed that they are the responsibility of individuals as well.
I am still optimistic about the future.
Carr Center Fellow, Binalakshmi Nepram, details what that future looks like beautifully:
“Thus, human rights for me, in the future, is a world where there is 10 percent reduction in the 1.3 trillion US dollars military spending, a world where nations create Ministries of Peace, not War, spend the taxpayers' money wisely in people’s genuine welfare, a world where nations spend less on the military-industrial complex and invest more in health, education, gender, and climate justice. A world where people are put before profits, peace before greed, love before hate, peace before war, non-violence before violence.”
Keep reading:
Books That Made Me
I have never really made a list like this before. Honestly, I think it’s because I truly like every book I read. And I read a lot. But I’ll share with you the books that made me think and cry and wrestle with humanity in ways I didn’t quite expect.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
What a beautiful exploration into friendship, and childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, family (in its many layers), math, art, and law. This book is difficult and romantic and challenging beyond measure. There were moments when I literally had to put the book down and stop my hands from shaking. There were moments where I wished I could hold Jude in my arms and, in essence, myself, because I saw myself in him from the moment I met him. I wish I were exaggerating, but this was truly one of the best books I’ve ever read. It is rare that I ever reread books (so far, there have been only 2), but I would pick this up in a heartbeat.
Here is an excerpt:
“He knows what a stolid careful person he is, and although that stolidity and sense of caution guarantee he will never be the most interesting, or provocative, or glittery person in any gathering, in any room, they have protected him so far, they have given him an adulthood free of sordidness and filth. But sometimes he wonders whether he has insulated himself so much that he has neglected some essential part of being human: maybe he is ready to be with someone. Maybe enough time has passed so it will be different. Maybe he is wrong, maybe Willem is right: maybe this isn’t an experience that is forbidden to him forever. Maybe he is less disgusting than he thinks. Maybe he really is capable of this. Maybe he won’t be hurt after all.”
Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare by Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward
I’ll be honest, this book is dense, and I definitely skipped a few chapters. Still, I learned a lot about how public relief is used to avert and quiet civil resistance during economic downturns and yet used to exert pressure on the working class when the economy is stable. Anyone interested in public policy must give this one a read.
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? by Martin Luther King Jr.
I think I found my new bible. I wish I were kidding. In his last book, MLKJ makes the brilliant argument for a human rights paradigm shift: a guaranteed income, living wage, quality education, and addressing poverty. It is always astonishing how our struggles and conversations aren’t new. Reading this felt like holding up a mirror to some of the same conversations we have been having as a nation on defunding the police, the Green New Deal, and how to rebuild moving past the pandemic.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
A son writes to his mother who cannot read. I enjoyed this exploration into race, class, masculinity, and sexuality. Storytelling at it’s finest.
A passage:
“Sometimes when I am careless, I think survival is easy: you just keep moving forward with what you have, or what’s left of what you were given, until something changes- or you realize, at last, that you can change without disappearing, that all you had to do was wait until the storm passes you over and find that- yes- your name is still attached to a living thing.”
Realizing Human Rights, Edited by Samantha Power and Graham Allison
“In short, if a key challenge of the second half of the 20th century was gaining universal acceptance of the idea that human rights existed or mattered, the key challenge for the decades ahead is to identify the policies and actions that most effectively realize human rights.”
This book brings together prominent scholars and leaders in the human rights field including but not limited to Louis Henken, Jimmy Carter, Makau Mutua, Kenneth Roth, John Shattuck, Kofi Anan, and Richard J. Goldstein. I would argue that anyone who wants to work in human rights should already have this in their canon.
The Global Racial Reckoning
I am struggling with whether or not I should write a full blog post on this one. If I walk away with trauma from this year it will definitely be because of what I witnessed this summer both in person and online.
But I will say this:
That being Black means that I am always susceptible to violence, inequality, and even death is heavy to hold.
But I deeply hurt for how much work we still have to do. And I hurt for Breonna Taylor who I will share a birthday with for the rest of my life.
“[Black people] hold only one key to the double lock of peaceful change. The other is in the hands of the white community.” MLKJ said this. As aspirational as this sounds, I am fearful of what this means. The Black community has been holding its key for generations. What will it take and how long will it take for the white community to hold up theirs?
What is Next For Me?
I will continue to write and read and drink tea and cook and run because those are the things that have truly kept me alive this year.
And I enjoyed small things: like turning 21 and entering the world of cocktails. Eating savory dishes for breakfast. Iced coffee. Saying ‘I love you’ to people. Getting into resistance work.
But this year I struggled to breathe. And I learned that I am afraid of the dark.
In full transparency, I have never taken my health seriously. And although I know the longterm effects my childhood trauma (another story for another day) can have on my well-being, I haven’t made radical trauma centered health changes. So this upcoming year, the only new ‘resolution’ or habit I am holding myself to, is implementing a daily mindful exercise into my life.
Other than that:
I want to challenge myself to read more books centered around disability, body, and feminism— separately and all together— because I don’t know enough.
I will keep my eyes open. But I also want to rest.
This new year will also bring my final semester of undergrad. It has not sunk in yet. And part of me doesn't want it to until I know for sure what is next. Grad school? An entry-level position? A fellowship? I am unsure. And that shakes me to my core.
But I am excited about the possibility of living to see it unfold.
It’s been a pleasure to write to you this year,
e.m
all pictures belong to me