You know it’s getting bad when the Internet has run out of memes to describe the fact that 2020 seems to have no bottom to hit.
In the last week:
We received a grant from the City of Bethlehem
Governor Wolf, keeping with his apparent strategy of making sure none of his citizens can prepare for anything, said that, contrary to his prior announcements, we will be able to have outdoor seating next weekend.
We were able to start spending PPP funds (correctly, we think)
Local governments, scrambling to prepare for YELLOW and its new rules, are trying to figure out how to generate the most space they can out of parking spaces, parking lots, alleyways, parks, and whatever else happens to be around.
Police in Minneapolis killed a man on video.
In response, an agonized nation, full of people frustrated and cooped up, has begun tearing itself apart. Many protests were peaceful and law-abiding. Many were not. Four policemen were shot in St. Louis; one was run over in New York. Countless protesters have been injured by police and other dangerous conditions. Damages from looting and vandalism are being visited on large retailers and community establishments alike in cities all over the country.
In response to the protests, the president threatened to send the military to effectively invade his own states. He then ordered law-abiding protesters to be shot with rubber bullets and tear gas so that he could take a photo in front of a church.
June started. It’s Pride month.
Unlike past crises, this one comes on top of others and at a time when everyone is already experiencing some of the worst anxiety about our future as a nation that we’ve felt in decades. It also comes at a divided time, with an election upcoming, when leaders on both sides seem as focused on scoring political points as solving problems.
Already, I’ve seen breweries criticized for taking stands, and criticized for not taking stands. We’re in an era where everyone has to have a take, and while I am generally pro-discussion (see our values… we’re big fans of the respectful barroom debate), times like these make any type of communication hard. This is a time where empathy - usually a tool on which I rely for clarity - seems only to make everything hurt more.
The big winner of quarantine - aside from dogs and the Dunning-Kruger effect - has unquestionably been platitudes. “We are here for you,” say ads telling us to buy cars; “We thank you,” say billboards from companies that say providing hazard pay to essential employees is too expensive; “We’ll get through this together,” intones a voice promoting a business that has nothing in common with mine. On some level, I understand it. There’s not much more to do (for some of us) than say nice things and hope for the best. But for those of us facing the possibility of losing our businesses, it feels disingenuous to say we know what someone else is going through, because it’s become incredibly clear that most people don’t, really.
I honestly can’t imagine what it’s like to live in a country where those that are supposed to protect and serve pose a real threat to your life for potentially no reason. I also can’t imagine what it’s like to live in a job where life is under threat on a routine basis. I can’t imagine being so angry at everything that throwing a brick through an unrelated window makes sense, and while I can imagine what it might be like to own the window the brick went through, I’m not sure I can imagine the mix of sympathy, empathy and anger that would engender in me if I knew it was part of a protest against absolutely intolerable conditions.
There was a great piece in the Atlantic a week ago, I’m a Chef in a Seaside Town. I’m not an Epidemiologist, in which Rob Anderson details the complete impossibility of trying to figure out the “right” thing to do in this time. What does it say that that feels like 10 years ago, and in a simpler time when all we had to worry about was the existential threat of a global pandemic. His point was that we’re all being asked to be things we are not trained to be: public health experts, city planning specialists, and now civil rights advocates.
We make weird booze, for crying out loud. And while we’ve never taken ourselves very seriously, currently it would feel insane to even take the business seriously, if it weren’t for the hundreds of thousands of real dollars affecting our real families.
And so on we push, like everyone else, and if it seems unbearable to us right now, imagine what it must feel like for the family of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. So if they can go on and have shared humanity, then so should we be able to.
Someone as privileged as me has no right to tell other people it’ll be okay when I’m not even sure of it myself, so I’ll defer to two people who have witnessed things I wish no one would ever have to:
“It’s OK to be angry, but channel your anger to do something positive or make a change another way because we’ve been down this road already,” - Terrence Floyd
“Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - "God damn it, you've got to be kind.” - Kurt Vonnegut
Be decent to each other.
-GHL
