Oh Mama/I Am Done
Scientists apply something called nonlinear dynamics to track how a system responds when it is prodded by an external disturbance. In the ordinary natural world it can be seen as a phase transition e.g. thirty-two degree water turns to ice with a further one degree drop or at two hundred twelve degrees into steam with a one degree rise. Then there is the extraordinary where, for example, two gargantuan subterranean tectonic plates slide by each other at a pace measured in terms of millimeters per century, unseen and unheard, until the dynamic suddenly erupts in an earthquake that wipes out cities.
Social systems can exhibit the same phenomenon. An aggregate of small, virtually undetectable, changes beneath the placid surface can likewise suddenly erupt in a spasm of nonlinear turmoil, whether it's referred to as cascading failure, chaos theory, domino effect, the straw that broke the camel's back, the hundredth monkey, or Gladwell's tipping point. Despite what you read in the history books, the assasination of Archduke Ferdinand was not the cause of the first world war, it was only its nonlinear trigger. The principle applies as well to the seeming suddenness of the BLM movement, the subject of an excellent background article, click: The Slow Road To Rapid Change. George Floyd was the Archduke Ferdinand of racial consciousness.
Yet, the focus article for our Member Monday (2/25/21) is about a different, simmering pre-spasm, phenomenon. Making the rounds is a guest post by OHMama titled "I Am Done" ( I Am Done), amounting to an Edvard Munch scream from another sort of disenfranchised group. Ignore at your peril this Gen X/Millennial white woman and her equivalent of "I can't breath." She represents a potential fault line of a different sort.
Oh, please, one might say, how on earth can you equate the plight of a white woman in America with the historic and systemic subjugation of Blacks. Well, the answer to that might help explain why seventy million votes just went to the party led by someone many regard as a rather repugnant standard bearer. Key to any thoughtful discussion of the issues presented is to read her account after swapping your hat that reads White Privilege for one that simply reads Privilege. Empathy is not always a matter of color. Hers is a voice beneath a placid surface.