Divided

Like many Americans, I have been losing sleep. Not because I am sick with COVID-19 and not even because I am in great danger of contracting it. There is so much more than the virus. I feel unsettled, highly stirred up all the way down to my soul. How about you?

Rather than be united like our country’s name says, it is clearly divided. Of course, much of our division started a very long time ago, but the coronavirus has offered clarity on disparity. Through both of my part time jobs, it has been hard to ignore the swell of societal problems.

One job is in higher education while the other deals with the public health sector. Both include people of varied races and ethnicities. And both are highlighting the chasm of inequality in our country. Picture any number of cartoon characters with one foot on one side of the crack while the other foot is desperately gripping the other side as the gap grows. Many of our fellow Americans of color feel like they are barely able to straddle this divide every single day. And this was before the coronavirus. Add a sickness without proper healthcare coverage and unemployment when a multigenerational household relies on you. Now pile on repeated discrimination.

This week, I felt like I could barely catch my breath over each injustice that I viewed, wondering: When will this end? How will this end? And then this morning, Face the Nation ended their episode with one of the most salient, sobering clips I have witnessed on network television. As you watch these 2 minutes, ask yourself: are we really all in this together?

How can we bridge the divide?

When we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem. Honestly, I just don’t know what to do? How about you?