Life in the Time of Coronavirus: Upending the Tea Table

The coronavirus pandemic has done what generations of activism, reform, social justice, equity work, solidarity, dialogue, and diverse coalitions could not - have not done.

It has upended the tea table. The cracks, crevices, faults, fissures, chasms, and precipices have been enlarged and inflamed. What we once thought was impossible - whether because of the status quo, the cost, the apathy, or whatever - has suddenly, profoundly, become not just possible, but imperative. Not just reachable, but downright doable.

The shibboleths of our socio-political reality have been revealed to be little more than cobwebs and dust. Not even the death throes of an old system or its corpse. The detritus.

In the past couple of weeks, I've seen more radical change implemented at an institutional level than in all my of my education and career. Some that bent the arc of history towards justice. Others designed purely to satisfy the avarice of hegemons.

Regardless of what happens - or, actually, because of what happens - the next time someone tells me we can't do something because it's too hard or too expensive or too risky, I'll remember life in the time of coronavirus.