It is reentry time, where we are transitioning out of our various levels of quarantining and back into public spaces. Anxiety, relief, fear and hope are all in the mix.
The mainstream narrative is that of "yeay we are getting back to normal". But what normal? Who’s normal?
If back to normal we mean pandemic-free, mask wearing optional, hugging, working together to create a more relational world with all that co-exists on this planet (i.e., our destiny is intertwined, so how are we all going to collaborate together?), than I am for it!
If we mean back to normal as back to the many systems and institutions that are obviously inhumane, unjust and unfair, where normal is to practice the isms: workaholism, consumerism, racism, classism, two party-ism, alienation-ism, ableism, binary-ism, etc., than no let’s not go back to normal. I am putting out a call to all ordinary people in our country, let’s practice innovation, courage and playfulness as we adopt this mantra:
I say to you, my friends … there are certain things in our nation and in the world (about) which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good will be maladjusted until the good societies realize. I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few, leave millions of G-d’s children smothering in an airtight cage of poverty during an affluent society. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, to self‐defeating effects of physical violence. -Martin Luther King Jr.