Why Us?

Yesterday, on a warm breezy day, two little girls approached me on the beach where I was sitting, my trusty cane at my side.

"Why do you walk with a cane?" one of them asked.

"Because I am old and if I fell it might be hard to get up."

"Oh, the cane helps you not fall, right?"

"I hope so."

"We're friends," the other girl told me. "So we don't have to keep a distance."

"Yeah" said the other. "We could get Covid. But if so, we'll get it together."

I watched them runoff to the water, one with golden hair and one with dark hair, hand in hand. They looked to be about five years old.

Why can't we all be like that?

***

Don't know about you, but I'm not looking forward to what will happen in Tulsa this Saturday night.

With the city's black residents celebrating 155 years of freedom from slavery this Juneteenth weekend, but also cognizant that perhaps the country's worst act of mass racism and murder occurred there 99 years ago, Tulsa is the last place on the planet to hold a political rally for a man who divides the country by race and hatred at a time we need healing.

Why Tulsa?

I fear what is about to happen there.

The confrontation between people marching peacefully for justice and the President who has threatened them with police violence is set to occur. By lumping the vast majority of protestors, who are always peaceful, with the infinitesimal minority who cause violence, Trump is inciting chaos.

That this is all in a quest for a second term in office is obscene. 

***

Beyond the potential for violence and further division tonight in Tulsa is the very real possibility the unmasked masses at or near Trump's rally will pass Covid-19 among themselves and the many others they will come in contact with the next two weeks.

You can do the math. Tulsa authorities say as many as 100,000 people may gather there; if each person only exchanges air with ten others between now and the Fourth of July, one million people will be potentially exposed.

It's easy to see why public health officials fear a disaster.

Most of us will not be in Tulsa or meet up with someone who was. There are 330 million of us. But if the virus gets spread among the cohort in attendance, many thousands of people could get sick, some of whom will die.




                                             "Why Me"

Why me Lord what have I ever done
To deserve even one of the pleasures I've known
Tell me, Lord, what did I ever do
That was worth lovin' you or the kindness you've shown

-- Kris Kristofferson