It’s like the abuse is so intense but there’s nowhere to go. I feel trapped and alone. I know intellectually that this abuse affects us all. I’m used to being able to think my way out of situations - to reframe and find optimal solutions.

Okay. So in the existing paradigm, he (they) have won. He (they) were able to force themselves through the front door of our democracy by whatever means, and very quickly grab all the marbles before we even knew what hit us.

While we were in shock and licking our wounds, they were stealing all the marbles and barricading the front door. Then demanding fealty from all they let into the clubhouse.

Part of my own susceptability to this was the belief that ultimately the world would be fair and just, honest and balanced, rational and kind. These were the values with which I was raised and taught to believe would endure. Dad and Mom are rolling over in their urns.

Dad, Mom you had it wrong. You never saw or acknowledged your own priviledge. This was, perhaps, the world you wanted to see. A world that placed you near the top (based on ethnicity and education) for a time, where you could be kind and magnanimous to others while still subtly claiming educational, financial, cultural, and racial advantage. A world where you got to be the leaders and make the rules from a place of both compassion and superiority, seeing only the pieces of it that you wanted to see. Placing your own security in that world order and hierarchy, turning a blind eye to the all but a small subset of the suffering.

You landed on top through skin color and intellectual achievement, and taught us to do the same. Meritocracy as thinly veiled racism. I saw the intellectual/ academic striving. I lived it. I did not see the racism and classism so easily.

And I was taught that good things would come to me on account of my education, my accomplishments, my resume. And I put all my eggs into that basket. And it worked for quite a while. Playing the PhD card. Enjoying the many rewards.

I did not see that the door was wide open, unguarded. And I did not see all those that were excluded from the comforts I enjoyed (I deserved all I had!) Even now I cling to those comforts, as if they could save me like a personal life-raft during a massive flood.

Is this a true evolve or die moment? Because the “me”- the “us” - that got us here does not seem sufficient for what will carry us forward.

Those of us in the intellectual class. We were trained to be thinkers not fighters. We were trained to receive rewards for the quality of our thoughts and the persistence of our intellectual efforts.

Can we think our way through this? Use our favorite, most-exercised, most reinforced tool to emerge from this quagmire with a world that is ordered and predictible in a way that does not tweak us? That allows us to continue being “comfortable” while tangentially “contributing” to those around us? Or is that world now obsolete? If something new is created, can it improve on that world I used to know, creating greater good for a larger number of us?

Let’s sit with these questions for now.