Living In Very Normal Times

 

Protesters in support of Palestine glued their hands to the street in the middle of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, temporarily halting the event. There were other instances of protests on the sidelines as well ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/D0TWKrsdov

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 23, 2023

Usually, the husband and I have steak because wow. Turkey. Very boring. But we did have turkey this time--turkey liver! This was his surprise for me, because he knows I like organs. So wait up, before I lose anyone:

A lot of Boomers in the US have bad experiences of offals because they were cooked up by well-meaning parents who learned to cook during the Depression and didn't have full access to all the spices and whatnot organ meats deserve. Also, there's a notion that organ meats are just "dirty" and need all kinds of soaking and preservation, and for things like chitterlings--yeah! Tripes--sure! But stuff like kidneys and livers? Eh? I just care they are seasoned a lot and cooked thoroughly. Throw in lemon while sautéing--it more quickly does what soaking is supposed to do. 

This was paired with cauliflower in cheese sauce. Dinner for two. Cheese and fruit (not pie) for dessert. All the traditional things people do are basically optional. Me--I like stuffing and green bean casserole and have cooked traditional Thanksgiving dinners myself before. But do I have to? Do I prefer it? Does it represent my heritage and my husband's preferences? We do our own thing.

So, it should come as no surprise that I'm not "religiously watching a dumb commercial parade" people. Never really cared. Not my thing. But it is the thing for some people. And if you are stuffing, turkey, commercial parade, not thinking about colonialism or indigenous genocide folks, the above protest is just bizarre. What does the parade have to do with something happening aaalllll the way over there? 

This reminds me a lot of the museum soup people protesting climate change.  I'm as primed as a human can be to support a movement that wants to do something to stem the tide of reckless carbon release and goddamn it. I am not sure how throwing soup on classic paintings explains anything. They aren't saying what they want to do--except stuff like "Stop oil." Well, great. And replace it--how? Do what, now? Stop the genocide/apartheid, etc in Israel. Ok. What does it look like when you do it? Who do you really need to convince? 

Can you convince them with Calla Walsh? (Look this dumb kid up). You can't combat organized motherfuckery with lightweight performative shenanigans that not a single workaday soul takes seriously. This isn't tone-policing, this is me, my body full of organ meats, and my lifetime of experience talking.  Trapping people in a building and threatening them with fire is pretty well past "pictures of Chairman Mao" offensiveness. 

You don't win friends and influence anyone by pissing them all the way off. You just don't. And I don't know where or when this idea got twisted, but this is not me, buzzkill and normie. This is me, concerned citizen and half-assedtivist: you want to do something that works? 

Because telling the truth even if your voice shakes is sometimes more telling than all the fake blood in the world.