The Daily: 26 July 2024

The point is that in almost every instance of our lives, our social lives, we are, if we pay attention, in the midst of an almost constant, if subtle, caretaking. ... This caretaking is our default mode and it's always a lie that convinces us to act or believe otherwise. Always.
— Ross Gay, The Book of Delights, "The Sanctity of Trains"

Young males are starting to do things for me. Or offer insistently if they can’t just jump in and do it. A young co-worker who is as perpetually behind in life as I am, and therefore shows up a minute or two late every day, has started to hold the door for me so I don’t have to fish my badge out (though I do usually have it in my hand). He will stand there waiting on me even if I am several meters away. Then he will march up the stairs — always two at a time… because youth is wasted — and hold the door at the top as well, also waiting if I’m not matching his speed. We are, both of us, quiet sorts, so this whole interchange is usually done in silence except for my thanks and his mumbled you’re welcomes. It is not quite awkward, but maybe a bit disarmingly confusing.

The other day I was mowing the grass that lines the veg garden. Not a strenuous or time-consuming task — though Queen Anne’s Lace refuses to lay down to my powerless rotary blade mower and I have to go over it repeatedly. So I was standing there shoving the mower back and forth while two teens came walking up the road, chatting animately as they will when they feel they are unobserved by judging eyes. I have long passed that test. Even when I was a young woman, something about me seemed to be reassuring. People seem to instantly intuit that I don’t follow the same rules of judgement as the rest of society. (Could be my ratty garden attire and the propensity to wear practical footwear and hats.) Anyway, I am not a threat, but until recently I’ve not been deemed in dire need of assistance.

So there I was mauling the Queen Anne’s Lace and one of the boys turns to me and says “I can do that for you”. I smiled and thanked him and said the job was nearly done. But he replied, “No, really, it’s no problem. I can get that done in minutes” by which I gathered that he was talking about coming and doing this for me regularly. When I said I sort of like doing it, he became quite vocally adamant that he should be the one cutting the grass.

I don’t think this was motivated by any urge to get money out of the deal, though the potential for cash under the table probably was an enticement. Still, I think his more urgent reasoning was that he did not want to see me doing this thing anymore, that while standing there trying to subdue the weeds I might just conk out from exhaustion, probably fall into the road and get run over… and he couldn’t bear that idea. It was quite touching. I refused him as gently as I could.

In “The Sanctity of Trains”, an essay in Ross Gay’s exquisite Book of Delights, Gay observes that people on trains are rather lax about personal property. From luggage to laptop computers, we abandon them to go wander down to the toilet or the cafe car or whatnot. We don’t even ask neighbors to keep an eye out. We just leave the stuff and go about our business trusting strangers, to both watch and to not turn thief. And we all do. We watch and we don’t take advantage of others. Gay goes on to point out that this trusting and this watching are the normal states of humans. When we are being our most natural selves, we act with a remarkable degree of goodwill toward others, loved ones and strangers alike. Ross says that these small actions — holding the door, offering to mow an older woman’s lawn, watching the abandoned laptop until its owner returns — these are who we are. We are caretakers. Almost constantly.

But we don’t believe this about ourselves. Why? Because we are constantly told otherwise. We are made to see each other as threats, as competition for scarcity, as Others. We are made to not see all acts of caretaking — from the people who clean our homes to those who watch on trains. We disregard and devalue care, calling it weakness and gullibility. We are convinced that any apparent kindness is either witless or motivated by some ineffable selfishness. We are enculturated to believe that human nature is sociopathic and cold. And we believe. Despite our everyday experience, we believe. We disbelieve in those impulses and small kindnesses that we show and are shown every day, every minute of every day, to believe in this massive lie. The lie that makes this sociopathic culture possible and binds us to it.

Last Sunday, something extraordinary happened. Joe Biden acted selflessly. He put the needs of his party and his country before his own desire to maintain power and status. He saw that his continued campaigning would very likely end with another Trump presidency, which, in turn, will likely be a rupture that this country could not withstand. So on Sunday morning, Joe told the world that he was done with the campaign. Then a half hour later (probably after a bit of a cry), he enjoined the world to put all their support behind his Vice-President, Kamala Harris, telling us all that she would be the next President.

I missed out on this revelatory moment. Though I was on the computer for much of the day (feeling ill this past weekend) no evidence of Biden’s extraordinary announcement intruded into my day for at least ten hours. And when it did, I was so elated by the idea of electing Harris that I didn’t realize just how quiet the media were being on this. Shouldn’t this have been blaring breaking news? With ticker tape and red banners and “we interrupt this broadcast to bring you…”? Isn’t this sort of thing the only reason breaking news exists as a concept? But, as I said, I was too giddy to notice the silence.

Then at 5:30am on Monday, Apple News finally sent out an announcement to its captive audience of hundreds of millions. And what did they say? Biden dropped out and now “Democrats are entering an historic struggle to find another candidate.” I was shocked (I shouldn’t be). I was standing there staring blankly at the phone, thinking “What new candidate?!? She’s right there!” We were all voting for her anyway. Most of us who had resigned ourselves to voting for Biden, had long ago rationalized that this was statistically a vote for Harris because it’s not like an 81-year-old is guaranteed to live for the next four years. But now I had the opportunity to cast my vote directly for the first female POTUS. This was so exciting it brought tears to my eyes. And Apple was shitting all over that first thing Monday morning!

A few days ago, I saw, somewhere on a screen, Joe Biden holding a sign that read, “It’s not my age, it’s because she’s Black”. I’d been thinking for weeks that he was only fronting Harris so that white guys would vote her into office as VP, at which point he would calmly step aside — citing a sudden and oh so unexpected onset of old age — and allow a competent and caring woman to step into the role. And oh how prescient that proved. That sign was exactly the point. She’s Black.

So I was standing there blinking stupidly down at my screen trying to internalize the inanity of “historic search”, trying to understand why nobody else was dancing in the street, beginning to wonder where all the noise was  — weather… all I wanted from the phone was to check the weather… do I need hip-waders today? — and the shock and confusion started to boil into anger. At 5:30 on a Monday morning. I recalled Biden’s funny-not-funny sign and almost threw the phone out the window.

That’s why it took hours to say anything about Biden dropping out. That’s why there wasn’t collective relief and rejoicing in the streets. That’s why there wasn’t loud praise for this amazing act of caring self-restraint. Because self-restraint is weak. Because Biden was admitting defeat rather than going down fighting and taking us all with him. And most of all because Biden is endorsing a Black woman. He said so explicitly and forcefully. And Apple can’t have that. Nor can any other mainstream media outlet. Nor can business or the military-industrial complex or the Supreme Court or… or… or… or… or any other organization run by men… which is to say everything.

I know in my heart that Ross is right. We are all caretakers, men and women alike. But women have different priorities. It’s: how do we keep these people fed and housed and healthy? For men the question seems to be more: how do we keep them spending money? These two goals are in direct opposition. And we all know which one has this planet in a death grip. If the other were to loosen that grip just a little, if a woman in charge begins the process of supporting lives and building viability, then the whole teetering tower of modernity would collapse. And Apple can’t have that…

Apple would go to the extreme of sabotaging this election, beginning with this not-terribly-subtle Monday morning sowing of doubt that Kamala actually is the candidate for election. They would throw the Democrats under the bus, choosing instead to elect a vile slug in a hairpiece who will undoubtedly destroy the last appearances of democracy, ethical behavior, intelligence, and any other good human trait left in this country. Most of all any inclination toward care that Ross Gay rightly says is our native instinct… but for the lie.

A lie that takes the form of “an historic struggle to find a candidate” when the obvious and already sanctioned nominee is a brown-skinned woman.

Of course it is not just Apple wearing its callous bigotry on its sleeve. The lie is huge and pervasive and varied. On Monday, one after another, aspersions were cast, some more subtly than others, some perhaps unaware of how bigoted they sounded (does that exonerate them?). And these were from the “progressive” media sources that I allow into my life. I’ll admit I didn’t read most of these articles, but I couldn’t not see the headlines and tag-lines. One bit of faint praise that stands out said that Harris was a mediocre VP and ran a poor presidential campaign in the past… but at least she’s not Trump. Many chose the Apple tactic, insinuating that Democrats were scrambling to find a replacement for Biden, one that didn’t come with ovaries.

But then a happy ray of sunshine burst through my clouds. The governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, delivered a warm endorsement and urged New Mexico’s Democratic Party delegates to put their support behind Harris. And the crowds went wild in New Mexico. It seems all the New Mexicans are vocally in favor of Harris. Goddamn! Someone who looks like us (albeit perhaps cleaner…). She might even think like us.

Which is an important point, one that is lost in comparing the body traits of one candidate against the other. I believe that Harris is more focused on feeding people and cleaning up messes and generally allowing us to care, more so than elite white man-babies, of course, but also more so than many from non-dominant castes that have risen to positions of leadership. Most out-group people achieve positions of power and status by riding on the backsides of white men, and they parrot the dominant narrative, perhaps even more loudly than the dominant class. They have to. They have to be loudly supportive or they lose their standing. In those non-dominant bodies, they are a priori suspect. They must continuously prove their right to hold and voice opinions. It must be exhausting…

But Harris is different. She holds herself differently. She is not afraid to show who she is. She laughs. She blazes with rage. She calls out idiocy. She is a Black woman, and dear heavens it is high time for Black women to be in charge of this country — since they’ve been building and maintaining it from the outset. But also because there are very few Black women who are tailcoat riders. Those who have risen in the ranks do not often owe their position or their allegiance to the dominant caste and its ideas. Black women have always spoken their mind — “Ain’t I a woman…” — and their mind is stridently different from the dominant narrative. At the very least, Harris will bring a much needed new perspective to the job. But it is my feeling that Harris will begin to break apart this lie.

This culture doesn’t have long to live. There’s just not enough planet to support it. But how it dies is important for what will follow. It could go out in a fascist bloodbath, leaving behind a toxic husk of ash and fear. Or it could melt away as the lies that support it are revealed and repudiated. Imagine a culture in which young men are not trained to think care is weakness. Imagine a culture in which we all see the care we give to each other every day. Imagine a culture in which lives are valued and all that supports a life becomes the prime directive.

Maybe Kamala Harris can’t deliver such a thing. Maybe I’m not even right about her priorities. But it’s nice to indulge in fantasies now and then. And if enough of us indulge in the same fantasy… then it starts to become real. And then it’s not all on Kamala.

If you look, you will notice all the care we give to each other. It’s like Ross says, we do it all the time, everywhere. It takes millions of screens blaring the lies constantly to divert our eyes and our hearts from this love that is all around us, enfolding us in myriad small — and large — kindnesses. A young man holding a door. A boy offering to do the yard work. The abandoned laptop that will never be stolen because we are all carefully paying attention. Because we all care.

Consider Joe Biden… If he is to be remembered for anything, it will be this one quietly monumental act of grace. That he was man enough to step aside and let a woman take up the banner. Putting aside his own selfish concerns because he cares. He gashed a hole right through the lies, and the liars were left spluttering in exposure on Monday morning.

In the ensuing days since Monday (one gets the feeling that there were bedroom discussions had…), support has grown for the idea of a Harris candidacy. Some are even talking about a Harris presidency. (As they should be, because the alternative is too ghastly to consider.) But maybe the lesson in this week is that we’ve seen the lie. We’ve seen what happens when the lie is merely threatened with the potential of a different perspective. We’ve seen the lie stutter and make false steps. We’ve seen it for what it is. And it will be very difficult to hide it once more regardless of who is in the White House.

Imagine a world where we notice that we care, where we notice all the ways that we care for each other. I am enjoying my imagined fantasy this week. But even more, I am hoping that perhaps, with enough of us seeing it, it might become reality.

©Elizabeth Anker