Dear Reader,
I remember the willful ignorance I embodied on that Tuesday in March when we were told we would not be returning for Seventh Block; I remember how I genuinely believed we would be back for Eighth Block, how mindlessly I ignored the severity of a disease that had already taken thousands of lives and would go on to take millions worldwide. It wasn’t until schools started closing and masks became omnipresent and I saw the streets of New York more empty than I had ever seen them before that I realized how real all of this was. The past few months haven’t allowed for that willful ignorance, the kind that so many people already could not afford to have.
Beyond COVID-19, following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and countless other Black individuals who were killed by police, people from every state and dozens of countries took to the streets, demanding an end to white supremacy and police violence. While racism has existed in this country since its colonization, plenty of people have refused to see the ways it has shaped every one of our systems of power. For those who had been so willfully ignorant, the events of this summer stripped their naivety, and for many Black activists and their accomplices who have been fighting this fight for a long time, this convergence of pandemics strengthened the demand for the abolition of carceral systems.
What happens when two pandemics exist in your community, one highlighting the disparities of the other? When you can’t trust systems or a government that have proven to not care about their citizens, especially their most vulnerable and marginalized? These are huge questions, and we hoped to approach them with this issue, asking: how have these (or any other pandemics) affected people in our community, and what are they doing to handle or challenge those effects?
The past few months have been deeply uncertain and oftentimes quite lonely. We decided on this theme so that people would have a chance to think, reflect, talk, write, and share any struggles or experiences they have had during this time. I know I wouldn’t have held up well at all this past summer had I not had my support network who was always there to talk and listen. Let us all be that network for these incredible writers and artists and for everyone else in our community—we are all we have.
Listening Always,
Maya and the Cipher Staff