Loads of people consider that President Donald Trump and his administration are ushering in dystopian America of types — one during which solely rich white individuals will have the ability to survive with no need to struggle each other over meals…which is able to presumably solely include the rodents we’re lucky sufficient to catch.
However whereas many put together to regulate for this new “regular,” it’ll be enterprise as typical for Black people…who’ve lived in a dystopia for the reason that day we have been torn from our homeland. That’s why you at all times hear Black people say “we gon’ be alright.” As a result of we’ve lived by means of worse.
In keeping with the Oxford dictionary, a dystopia is an imagined state or society in which there’s nice struggling or injustice. However when have we not lived in such a state? Was not the separation of youngsters from their mother and father, brother from sister, the destruction of Black households an instance of a life lived within the bitter embrace of injustice?
What about residing by means of chattel slavery? Being informed that the divine created us for a lifetime of servitude?
Our ancestors needed to struggle for the whole lot they acquired. Freedom, the suitable to vote, the suitable to reside the place we happy. These have been all gained not as a result of they got, however as a result of they have been acquired by those that wouldn’t take no for a solution. These courageous Black women and men who dreamed a greater future for his or her youngsters and grandchildren. Who wouldn’t relaxation till the rights they noticed others get pleasure from was theirs.
That’s what it means to reside in a dystopia. What we now have survived is as unhealthy, if not worse, than any writer or filmmaker may envision. It’s possible you’ll say 1984 by George Orwell is a dystopia, however what about 1719? The yr the primary slave ship arrived in Louisiana. Maybe you assume Margret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Story” is an unmatched dystopic imaginative and prescient. I counsel you analysis the expertise of Black ladies in America.
Or, higher but, simply watch “12 Years a Slave” (a dystopian movie if ever there have been one) and watch how Massa handled Patsy. Or watch Roots and observe how Rooster George got here to be.
Residing in a dystopia is nothing new to us. We have been born in a single. Stay in a single. And but, we by no means misplaced our pleasure. We created artwork that white individuals tried to steal. We created meals that was stuffed with soul. Our dystopic expertise by no means beat us down for we have been even capable of finding love.
So, sure…America goes by means of a reckoning of its on making. Those that voted thoughtlessly have welcomed a dystopia of their very own making. However we all know methods to survive a dystopia. In reality, we are able to thrive despite residing in a single.