It is certain there are more sophisticated manners of understanding and portraying the current American predicament. But as someone with scant understanding of the mechanics of societies and exiguous historical perspective, feeling is the apparatus I deploy. Feeling soaked in the current. Taking cues in pitches of voices, smiles, and grimaces. And from that perspective, the best I can characterize the prevalent feelings is that of lost innocence.
For a non-citizen bystander in this country, the strife this country has gone through in the past several years has a distinct essence. It is largely an expression of existential angst of a segment of the population that has banked its identity and entitlement on a narrow set of racial and religious affiliation. In the bubble it has lived in, perhaps afforded by the military and economic superpower status of the country, it has no connection to the real suffering-- of material poverty, oppression with no pathway of escape, randomly inflicted harm with no prospects of restitution, institutional violence as a tool to "keep people in their place." It has mistaken lethargy in lassitude of prosperity as suffering. And is trying to shake off this dullness in imagined reality. A reality where its existence is threatened by some external factors. External factors where it does not have to take any ownership, emotional connection. No wonder immigrants, black and brown people are the root cause of all its ailments. No wonder its religion is threatened by godless people and people who worship other gods. If you stack these claims against measurable markers the results are agonizingly comical. But that is a largely useless exercise. It has no interest in validity of these acclaims. Because the primary purpose of this manufactured reality is to shake off that mental fog of an aging entitlement. It knows that the tool is constructed of lies but it needs it to transcend the rut. The visceral feeling it has evoked-- that it's existence is under threat-- is what ultimately matters, wakes it up, enlivens it. And it is a strong feeling. Affirming of some vitality. They appear almost possessed, teeming with angry energy, ready to be cruel.
When the moments have been opportune, it has not hesitated to flash that underbelly of cruelty. In caging children. In snatching children from their parents. And not even bothering to keep track of parents such that there are hundreds of children adrift without parents. In the violence of words and body language when it speaks of others-- immigrants, racial minorities, sexual minorities.
As an immigrant, this guise of the country is profoundly disorienting. A central premise, I assume, when someone leaves the comfort of their surroundings to a new society, is their perception of the benevolence of that society. If they perceived it as harmful, I would surmise, there is no incentive to move. In this collision of expectations and the current reality, we, the immigrants, have lost our innocence. At anytime, of the 10 persons you see on the street, you are now equipped with an understanding that 4-5 of them very likely have a visceral animus towards you even before he/she speaks a single word, just because of the way you look or talk.
Citizens of this country are voting. And we hear the emphasis that the outcome is going to have monumental consequences. It may be true to some extent. A slide down the path of further cruelty is guaranteed if one of the sides wins. But it is also equally clear that there is going to be no easy healing. We are talking about lost innocence, possessed population that has dabbled in cruelty. These things do not seem to have facile solutions. In the mean time, the major question at the personal level will be- how do we preserve decency amidst acrimony, if not for ourselves, for our children who have had to witness this human ugliness?
