I Used to Think I Knew

Identity, Politics, and the Politics of Identity Politics

“yes don’t stop pictures of nature”, my friend urged me.

I started this essay one way, and then I deleted what I wrote out of fear. I suspect that, these days, a lot of writers are doing this. It goes something like this:

Type

Think

Feel

Fear

Delete

Type something else.

I don’t want to live or write like that, and I freely and fully admit that I have a lot less to fear than other people who are living and writing like that #intheseuncertaintimes.

I have heard that phrase so much recently that it makes me want to stand an inch away from the mirror and projectile vomit as hard as I can. I want my vomitus to shatter glass the way a soprano’s voice allegedly can when hitting the octave above high c.

Sing

Think

Feel

Fear

Vomit

Delete

Stay woke, we tell each other. Stay silent, they tell us. Shut up. Suck it up. Love it or leave it. Delete, delete, delete.

I don’t even remember what I originally started this piece by writing. I don’t even remember who I was when I…