Narratives

[mallorys_camera]

Yesterday’s National Counting Project adventures took me back to the place where the Confederate flag-waving, swastika-tattooed bikers live.

I assume the ducks are the neighborhood watch. They’re very white!

These cottages are in the most advanced state of dereliction and decay you can possibly imagine, and I think it’s reprehensible that the village of Hyde Park allows someone to turn a profit by renting them out.


What were these cottages? Shacks where agricultural workers once lived? What agricultural workers? What farms?

The other possibility, I suppose, is that they’re vacation cottages, but why would anyone want to vacation here? They do butt up against the Union Cemetery. (I wouldn’t want to drink their well water!) Is this where the Dutchess County chapter of Fans of the Civil War used to hold their annual conventions?

Also, when I read about the Hyde Park hoarder who died and had his corpse eaten by his 47 cats, I’ll know where that is! I had to knock on his door!

On the plus side, I made a new BFF— a woman whose tailor shop on Violet Avenue I have probably passed a thousand times without wondering what it was. Very interesting woman! A find, as my beloved MaryBeth used to say. After I surveyed her, we chatted animatedly for 15 minutes or so, and I will definitely seek to extend the acquaintance in another few weeks when the National Counting Project is through.

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The most interesting part of the day, though, was probably the long, episodic conversation I had with Neighbor Ed about narratives.

I pop back to the casa every couple of hours or so to pee. The National Counting trail is very hot and humid, and I drink gallons of lemon tea while I’m driving around. I certainly am not gonna risk coronavirus or other diseases by peeing in unknown gas station restrooms.

So, every couple of hours, I would return to the casa to find Neighbor Ed out on his lawn doing some kind of upkeep, and we would pick up our conversation, essentially where it had left off two hours before.

The subject of that conversation?

How neither of us can bear to read the news anymore because the “news” has become all narrative/no fact.

Examples?

Jacob Blake, the guy who got shot in Kenosha.

If you connect the dots one way, this is yet another unjustified shooting of a Black man by a white cop. Blake was shot seven times. In the back. In front of his three kids.

But if you connect the dots another way, the cops had been called to the scene because Blake was violating a restraining order filed by a woman who alleged third-degree felony sexual assault. That's one step down from rape. Blake had a knife, put one of the cops in a headlock, and for whatever reason, could not be tasered.

These two narratives compete for attention: The event was not justified; the event was justified.

Chances are, the narrative you believe will have very little to do with any analysis of the facts, and everything to do with which mob you identify with.

The problem is that so-called media are no longer reporting facts. They are reporting narratives. For left-leaning media, Jacob Blake is yet another martyr; for right-leaning media, Jacob Blake is criminal scum.

I find this a very dangerous state of affairs, and so does Neighbor Ed.

We are both, I suppose, old school liberals. I’m somewhat more left-leaning than he is, but I’d never describe myself as progressive.

I cannot buy into either Jacob Black narrative.

I would like to have more facts.

Also, the more people in Kenosha either “protest” or “riot” (depending upon your narrative), the greater the chance that Donald Trump will be reelected.

And that is fuckin’ terrifying.

Comments

[sabotabby]

I mean, I missed the part where your country executes people for violating restraining orders, or even third-degree sexual assault, without a trial. So clearly one narrative is correct and one is false.

But what's a more overwhelming narrative is that of the unstoppable, primal Black man who can perform superhuman feats of strength, doesn't feel pain, and cannot be brought down by anything short of a hail of bullets. It's a pervasive myth that allows good, old school liberals to accept a state of affairs where Black men are regularly executed without trial in the streets like animals.

[asakiyume]

I just want to do something to make a stronger, healthier, more capable community--I'd like to do more essay tutoring, or ANY kind of writing tutoring, but, tra-la, covid. I'm sending a letter of inquiry in anyway to a couple of places tomorrow. I'd be willing to meet in person with students if they'd mask up. My editing is so thin these days,I could give a fair chunk of time to it. --I want to do something like this because it ISN'T chest-beating and declaring my affiliation.

[mallorys_camera]

That's insulting, and you're a bully. A selective bully, to be sure. But a bully.

[mallorys_camera]

Yeah. That's why I did (do?) the ESL tutoring and the TaxAide stuff. Literacy Connections, the group that sponsored my ESL work, also does GED prep, which sounds like the kind of thing you're talking about. I wonder if there's any equivalent group to that in central Massachusetts?