Photo of old gasoline can

 

"When you see something that is not right you have a moral obligation to say something—to do something."  John Lewis, U.S. Representative, 1940-2020

The Governor of South Carolina, Henry McMaster, has announced the funneling of 32 million of the 48 million received from the CARES Act to go to pay for tuition at private schools in South Carolina. He is in effect erecting a new kind of confederate statue in South Carolina. Lo and Behold it's Betsy DeVos riding contrapposto pose on a great stallion through the halls of public education. In one hand is a gasoline can. In the other hand is a match with the White House on the front.

Just like his other decisions he powers forward on his yellow and green tractor leaving no room for discussion or dissent while the essential voices of thousands of public-school teachers, who are still the greatly underpaid and the greatly disregarded, are now the first to be ordered back to work while our virus numbers have pitched a tent on Mars.

When the people of South Carolina want fairness and equality the ears of Governor McMaster turn into conch shells that can only hear the beautiful South Carolina beaches calling for more people far and wide to come and gather around (no mask necessary) in order to spend money here in the Palmetto State. This is the same man who, when the citizens of South Carolina went through the necessary paces, chose and vetted all the candidates for the new president of the University of South Carolina, drove the same tractor into the meeting and changed the rules of the game to meet his own personal needs. This is the same man who when he was the State Attorney General attempted to seize the 100 million of the James Brown "I Feel Good" foundation in order that the money not go to who James Brown had left it for—the deserving children of South Carolina and Georgia. This is the same man who when he was running for the office of the Governor of South Carolina said that his membership in the all-white country club was not an issue even though the state of South Carolina is 30 % black.

There are men and women in powerful positions, from North to South, who have made it abundantly clear by their words and their actions and their mask-less faces that they don’t care how many black and brown and poor white bodies are lined up in hospital hallways or stored in refrigerated trucks off camera.

There are men and women meeting right now behind closed doors who only want their own kind, with similar net worth, to make it through this pandemic and be left to populate and plan this amazing beautiful world.

And therefore, we who are fighting these armed tanks, these unmarked tractors, and ineffectual TV focused presidential task-force updates, laced with the perfume of An Evening in Paris toxic gas, are left with no choice but to call this American moment what it is:

The new pornography.