One can hear it in the streets, on the web, and in their personal experiences all the time: “Don’t give up on me/us/this/life!” As a sign of mental health, that is a rational expectation because giving up on life means that one is facing the ultimate sadness. However, within the empire, people have gotten far too comfortable giving hope and faith to those who never deserved it, and never poured into that hope and faith enough for it to matter. Those who cause cruelty and/or demand “uplift stories” have gotten entirely too comfortable putting the peace of others on hold while they reap the benefits of comfort. While the empire dies, people are starting to realize that pouring into empty wells is more expensive than previously thought, and no one has the resources.
Pouring into politics that favor the wealthy is pointless, and folks who are just now starting to realize that have my utmost sympathy. For decades, people believed that if everyone just voted, the will of the people would be recognized and the mythological ethics of the Founding Fathers would be realized in the present day. So many BIPOCQ constituents were relentlessly harassed into voting–or not voting–because we were told that people died for our rights, so we had to use them. After less than a year of christofascism, the empire is ready to destroy the Voting Rights Act, which helped strengthen the right to vote for BIPOCQ voters, and if I were still on extensive social media, I would investigate what the harassers had to say for themselves. Rich people cannot compete and so they cheat, so it is pointless playing the voting game without the abolition of the electoral college or getting rid of money in politics.
“Working hard” is no more noble for those without resources than leisure is for those with resources, and people are finally waking up to the reality that nobody poor is being given a chance to escape poverty. Elders who had chances back in the day were so obsessed with wealth that they began to live stingy lives and develop hoarding problems, but they did not inherently work harder than anyone else on the planet. When living did not cost as much, there was some reason to work harder because of savings and retirement. Now, people are barely being given the wages for survival, and all these folks with money are looking to destroy the job market with their greed. Pouring into the concept of the “American Dream” is not noble if fewer and fewer people achieve it, and lots of people are seeking other countries for the opportunity to be poor without so many predatory financial options presented to them.
Finally, as a Black woman, I can honestly say that many of us should have given up on active racists a long time ago, and we are the poorer for continuing to believe that deliberately unkind people would change. Instead of anyone learning anything from the lockdowns and the job losses in 2020, clowns willingly chose to encourage christofascists to continue gutting the country. Conservatives would prefer to enact endless cruelty on those who lack the resources to evade their advances. Too many liberals would prefer to maintain their privilege at the expense of others while being entertained with struggle by “empowerment stories.” All seem to think that BIPOCQ individuals would prefer to continue building things up to get torn down, and shoring up the will to continue.
Those who obtained grace, compassion, and forgiveness too easily will never understand that being uncaring and disrespectful should lead to solitude, not enabling. Nobody ever gave up on unkind people in the past, and we have an empire full of terrible people who lack the skills to respect others. Too many people gave up far too soon on those being genuinely kind, so we all have a resounding fear of those offering true grace and compassion, and we resent being asked for forgiveness. Maybe if we had all given up on those who consistently offered pain and criticism, we would have the world we wanted, instead of a destructive force that alienates everyone, even us.
Chasing A Dying Empire 