Hurricane Season
This year it feels different
From the Gulf Coast to the East Coast, June is the start of hurricane season. It’s the dark side of summer, the price of a day at the beach.
Hurricane season is the opposite of baseless fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Hurricane season is not opinion or belief. Hurricanes happen. Things get destroyed. People suffer. People die.
This year, hurricane season feels different. The pandemic makes the logistics of coping with a hurricane more challenging, but that’s a functional difference, not an emotional difference.
This year, hurricane season provokes different gut feelings. It resonates with racial injustice.
A hurricane making landfall is a moment of truth. If the storm misses you, you breathe a sigh of relief, tainted with the knowledge that you are rejoicing while others suffer. If the storm hits you, you hold your breath, hunker down, ride it out.
Either way, there is a feeling in your gut, a personal blend of rationality and addiction to meaning. Your mind tells you the storm is just chance, a statistical probability. Your heart asks for meaning. Was I spared for a reason? Am I being punished? Why me? Why now?
If you’re white, like me, this hurricane season is a time to feel the ever-present danger of being black…
