Frank: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.
Kramer: What happened to the doll?
Frank: It was destroyed. But out of that a new holiday was born. A Festivus for the rest of us.
Kramer: That must have been some kind of doll.
Frank: She was.
So here we are. 2020 is swiftly coming to an end (unless, of course, my recurring nightmare comes true, and on midnight of New Year’s Eve, the clock strikes March 307th, which seems like a fitting thing for this year). What a year it has been! There are so many things that have occurred this year that I never could have explained to 2010 me. I picture 2020 me telling 2010 me that I had to resist impulse buying a face mask for a global pandemic decorated with lyrics from my favorite hip-hop musical about the first secretary of the treasury, that Donald Trump and Kanye West both lost the presidential election, or that I recommend investing heavily in Charmin and “Zoom.” I think the only thing 2010 me would have believed is that 2020 me had apparently picked up a really bad LSD habit.
Let’s be honest. This year has been awful. If this year were a drink, it would be ipecac. If this year were a dessert, it would be lima bean ice cream. If it were a song, it would be anything by Nickelback. If this year were a sports team, it would be Michigan. I mean, remember back in January, when it seemed like Australia burning and war with Iran may be the major stories of 2020? No? Because that may have been in 2020, but it feels like a lifetime ago. I mean, shoot, in any normal year, “murder hornets” would have been a big deal, but many of you laughed about them in the spring and never gave them another thought. Not me. I am still keeping my eyes peeled because I feel like they have big “that episode of Black Mirror where robot bees kill people” energy.
There has been a lot this year to deal with and process, and plenty has absolutely driven me crazy with rage. I was thinking maybe I should just swallow my anger, pour an extra drink, and let it go. Then an idea occurred to me as I started to look forward to the holiday season. Many people are joyful for things like Christmas, New Years, Hanukkah, and Kwanza, and these are happy celebrations. I, however, started to think about Frank Costanza and my favorite sitcom-inspired holiday, the December 23rd holiday of Festivus, and just like Frank raining blows down upon another shopper’s head, I realized there must be a better way.
For those of you not familiar with Festivus, it’s worth watching the whole episode of Seinfeld. But, if you don’t feel like doing that, I will let Frank explain the relevant part for my blog post.
Frank: And at the Festivus dinner you gather your family around and tell them all the ways they have disappointed you over the past year.
Yes. An airing of grievances. That is what I need to end my year, a catharsis to let it all out, so I can move on to 2021 with that weight off my shoulders. Like a mispronounced Peanuts character, you can call me Peppermint Petty, because no grievance is too tiny for me to air, no grudge too small to let go of since March. However, I’m also going to speak on some things that are a bigger deal than Ron Burgundy hitting on Veronica Corningstone at a party. I’m covering multiple grievances and calling out a variety of bad behavior, so plenty of you may find yourselves the target of my ire. I would say that I feel badly about that, but unfortunately, after this unprecedented year, much like my kids’ alphabet toys when they lose some letters, I am all out of F’s to give. If we were playing Go Fish and you asked me if I had any F’s, I’d tell you to go fish (yourself).
So, in the words of the late, great Jerry Stiller, “Welcome, newcomers. The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people and now you’re gonna hear about it.”
Let’s start with yukking other peoples’ yums. Ultimately, this is small potatoes, and I realize I am probably just as guilty as anyone else, as I think this is something we all struggle with. Still, the middle of a global pandemic seems like a poor time to dump on the things helping someone make it through by bringing them joy. I didn’t watch Tiger King because I didn’t see the appeal, but if making Carol Baskin references makes you happy, have at it, all you cool cats and kittens. I love pumpkin spice everything, and if that makes me a basic bro, then call me Chad. Perhaps a hip-hop musical about the founding fathers isn’t your style. If you don’t like WAP, then enjoy your arid desert of a private part, listen to a different bop, and leave Cardi B and her equine partner in rhyme thee hell alone. I could keep going, but you get the point. When it comes to things we all feel differently about but ultimately are a matter of taste: if you don’t enjoy it, then don’t indulge. But perhaps find a different hill to die on than whether or not someone’s favorite movie, show, book, treat, artist, song, etc. is not to your liking.
Another relatively minor grievance I would like to air is with people posting dumb memes and then getting defensive and backpedaling, or obfuscating and being evasive and playing coy, when someone calls them out. However, in trying to keep with the spirit of my first grievance above, I’m not talking about just any meme. If cute animal pics or bad puns are your jam, then jam on, my dude. No, I’m specifically calling out folks using memes to share racist/sexist/xenophobic/homophobic/transphobic/etc. ideas, or to share misinformation, or to share both at the same time in a bigoted, ignorant two-for-one special. For example, the whole genre of “if you aren’t breaking the law, the police leave you alone” memes, memes pillorying BLM, memes about socialism, and memes about how COVID isn’t a big deal all come to mind as examples of bad takes that have made my blood boil. Maybe even if it was a joke, it wasn’t very funny and you might want to think about how it hurts other people, assuming you do care. Maybe do a little research and see if the data actually checks out, rather than sharing falsehoods that give oxygen to lies and untruths. But maybe more so, don’t post something if you’re not willing to defend it a little more vigorously. God gave you a brain, so maybe think before you speak and consider actions have consequences.
Another minor grievance that has been growing for some years but has come to a head in 2020 is that I hate when people use “woke” and “virtue signaling” as insults. This is a grievance that I think may have an easy fix. I propose that any person who wants to use these terms as insults needs to be able to define them first, because I think it will say lot more about the person accusing folks of being woke or virtue signaling. I like to picture Gene Wilder in full Willy Wonka mode leaning his head on his hand and saying things like “Oh, you think it is a good idea to deride people who seek to cultivate a personal awareness of systemic injustice and who care about working towards equity for people because you can’t imagine caring about anyone who isn’t like you? Tell me more,” or “You think people doing good things and trying to set a good example to normalize that behavior is something worthy of contempt because you can’t conceive of doing the right thing for the right reasons? Fascinating.”
Speaking of word-based grievances, I have more beef than a Brazilian steak house with people tossing out words like fascism, communism, socialism, and authoritarian without any real sense of their actual, historical and contextually seated meanings. We have actual grown folks trying to pass off the Nazis as socialists just because they had the name “socialist” in their party name. As if the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, aka North Korea, aka one of the more brutal dictatorship regimes in the world, is a democracy (or a republic, not a democracy, if you prefer). All election season I had to listen to scare tactics acting as if socialism and communism are the exact same thing, or as if Joe Biden, a man many democratic socialists made clear during the primary was not their dude, is somehow the second coming of Joseph Stalin. Sure, Jan. I also love how fearful some people seem to be of being provided with free healthcare, free education, and other public services already available in many other well-resourced nations across the world. If you think the word authoritarian or fascist applies equally both to the use of law enforcement to treat brown and black people demonstrating for justice like foreign enemy combatants and to the government providing services people need because it interferes with your freedom to be sick and uneducated, then I think you might want to crack open a dictionary and a history book and get to reading. Also, as a recent addition in this category, if you have a problem with someone calling themselves doctor because they have a doctorate, then you really don’t seem to understand words and maybe should consult your physician to see if you have suffered a stroke. Don’t worry, there are those of us would who like for you to be able to get the medical care you need at no cost.
In the grand scheme of things, the grievances I have listed above probably amount to pretty minor things. However, there certainly have been some big deals in 2020, and I’m saving them for last here. Everything I’ve mentioned so far isn’t that hard for me to get over. So you criticize someone’s favorite thing, you shared some stupid things on the Internet, and you aren’t 100% precise and scholarly 100% of the time in your word choices; it isn’t too hard for me to say, “There but for the grace of God go I,” recognize I’ve done that too, and forgive and get past it. My big three grievances for 2020 are qualitatively different. I value forgiveness and love, and I hate to hold on to bitterness and grudges against people because it runs counters to my religion, my spirituality, and my morals. Yet, there are some things that have happened in 2020 that I don’t know that I’ll be able to wholly forgive and move on from for any time in the immediate future.
I don’t know that I can really rate these three grievances. Much like my children, I love all my grudges the same. So, I’ll move through them chronologically, in the same order they featured prominently in the national discourse this year.
I hate COVID. I hate that it exists and that it has robbed so many of so much. But, it is just a virus and doing what viruses do, so I can’t be nearly as mad at it as I am at how the leadership in our country has failed to address it adequately. Kakistocracy is a new word I learned in 2020, but boy have I used it a lot since I learned it. Like a teenage boy who has discovered the joys of time alone in the bathroom or the bedroom with his favorite sock, I have probably used the word more than is healthy and may be risking blindness soon, but I can’t stop because it feels so good and so right. From misleading the public on the virus and its dangers, to failing to listen to scientists and experts, to failing to set a good example in promoting best practices like mask wearing, to not adequately investing in things needed to help us all get through this, our leaders have failed us. I get that business owners are hurting. I’m not thrilled about them pushing to reopen their businesses in ways that may not be safe, but ultimately, they’ve been placed in this position by a government that has been indifferent to helping people make it through. I get people being upset about highly restrictive and prolonged lockdowns, regulations, stay-at-home orders, curfews, schools changes and closures, and a variety of orders and regulations that sometimes do not match the best available evidence, or when they are ordered by leaders not following their own rules. I think a lot of that blame rests with a failure to have consistent messaging and a plan of action with appropriate investment and financial support all the way from the top levels of the federal government down to our local governments. No one is responsible for or could have fully prepared for and prevented this virus, and I do not blame any one government or government official for it existing. But, I do blame government officials for an awful response, and for failing us in ways that led to much worse sickness and death per capita than other nations. No nation has been spared, and all nations have struggled at times. But how is it that other nations, especially as time goes on, have managed to do so much better than we have? It’s because our leaders, particularly at the federal level, have failed us.
However, as much as I think the largest share of the blame should be on the shoulders of those we elected to lead us and have failed in their jobs, I can’t help but have some grievance juice (don’t worry, it is organic grievance juice with no sugar added) left over for individuals who are playing their own role in making this all worse. I recognize I am incredibly blinded and buffered by my privilege, and I am trying to take that into account here as best as I can, and to recognize that some of what I see is driven by pain and struggles I cannot see. But what I see, repeatedly, day after day, is people behaving selfishly, with no sense of care for the health and well-being of their fellow human beings, and in many cases, with no regard for experts who have more knowledge in science, virology, public health, epidemiology, and COVID. Am I an expert in any of these things? No, my doctorate is in NONE of those things. However, there seems to be some real confusion for folks as to the difference between an opinion and a fact, and when you may or may not defer to the critics about matters of taste versus when you should listen to the people who know more than you. For example, NPR ranked WAP as the number one song of 2020 (I know I mentioned it already, but it deserves mentioning again because it slaps). You may disagree with that, and you’re entitled to that opinion (and your moistureless, parched genitalia). On the other hand, there is wide-spread agreement among experts that masks help reduce the spread of COVID. But, there are a bunch of jokesters on my timeline who want to rage about there being no evidence and who seem to believe they know better than people who have dedicated their lives to studying these topics. And, no, you didn’t do your own research on vaccines, Louis Pas-turd. You didn’t bust out the lab coat, or the microscope, or the data analysis software to study transmission of COVID. You found the obscure screwball with a YouTube video or blog that confirmed what you already believed, and you ran with it. As an obscure screwball with a blog myself, I wonder if you will believe me if I tell you confirmation bias is a hell of a drug but not a great way to increase your knowledge and understanding? While we’re at it, since I’m a random crackpot on the internet with no professional qualification to speak on the matter, will you believe me if I tell you COVID and the flu are not the same, COVID is deadlier than the flu, masks help control the spread of COVID, and the COVID vaccine works with safety similar to that of other viral vaccines? No? Worth a shot; just trying to speak your arrogant, ignorant love language. If you think you may know more than me about COVID, you could very well be right. I spent a significant portion of my sophomore year of high school wearing a felt bucket hat because I thought it was cool, so my judgment is admittedly highly suspect. So, don’t believe me; believe the experts who know way more than me. And with all due respect, if you think you know better than professionals who have dedicated their careers to your health and well-being, you’re clowning yourself. Which wouldn’t be so bad, except your clowning is sickening and killing people, so I don’t find it too funny, Bozo the Asymptomatic Super Spreader (doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, but people who make bad choices don’t always get the privilege of catchy nicknames).
Also, the number of people living their own personal fable like some adolescent who believes nothing bad can ever happen to them is equally frustrating. I see a bunch of people who may not claim to disbelieve what they’re being advised to do to help stop the spread of COVID, but they act as if the guidelines and rules don’t apply to them, as if they can make an exception for themselves and things will still be okay. The cognitive dissonance that should have been caused for thousands to millions of people who could have told you that gathering for Thanksgiving was unwise and likely to spread COVID, and who then turned right around and did that is staggering. And when we saw infections and hospitalizations skyrocket in the days and weeks after Thanksgiving, we saw the consequences for a bunch of bad decisions. I would wager that most of these people didn’t gather on Thanksgiving saying that they didn’t care if they got COVID (although some did), but they simply believed that somehow they would be safe. I expect that kind of thing from kids who don’t know any better, but that is some next level magical thinking for a bunch of grown-ups. I hate to break it to you, David COVID-field, but your invincibility is an illusion rivaling walking through the Great Wall or making the Statue of Liberty disappear. (Side note: loved and watched a lot of magic as a kid, which I’m sure had absolutely no relation to my being a HUGE nerd. The payoff came as a parent who can blow my kids’ minds with some basic card tricks).
Finally, there are the people who want to whine about individual liberty and freedom when it comes to COVID. Look, patriot lad or proud boy or whatever cos-play militia sidekick name you’re going by these: I’m so terribly sorry that being asked to wear a piece of cloth over your face and take steps to help not sicken or kill others or yourself is apparently such a big ask, but I didn’t realize that being able to gather together for super spreader events at TGI Fridays, the concert venue hosting the Nickelback cover-band, or the tax-exempt megachurch was central to your religion or patriotism (although I’m increasingly alarmed at how many people’s religion is synonymous with their patriotism, but that’s a topic for a different day). I would have figured keeping yourself and fellow Americans well would have been a central tenet of your spirituality and your love of country, but apparently your concept of freedom means being able to do whatever you want no matter the risk to others, to get yours and give an Atlas shrug if that means harm for someone else less able to protect themselves. To be honest, I don’t know how to have a discussion with you about this because I feel like the problem we are facing is that I’m not really sure how to get you to care about other people even if it inconveniences you.
Speaking of not knowing how to get you to care about other people, we come to my next big grievance of 2020, and that is people who still cannot seem to get it through their skulls that Black Lives Matter, that racial injustice continues exist as a significant problem in the United States (our original sin as a nation, in many ways), and that pursuing equity for people of color remains incredibly relevant and important. Even in the early days of the pandemic back in the spring, we saw yet another manifestation of how centuries of systemic injustice have set up the most marginalized people in our country to be harmed the most, with the least protection, as COVID disproportionately impacted and killed Black people. And then when the match of a police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck lit the powder keg of centuries of racial injustice, I was disappointed, though not surprised, at the number of people showing up to “yes, but…” every aspect of BLM. There have always been those whose not-racist reflex demands they respond “all lives matter,” because they seem to like to intentionally miss the point. But, the number of people who say they agree with the idea that Black Lives Matter but find all sorts of ways to discount it in reality is infuriating. “I agree with their cause, but why do they have to riot?” “They’re a bunch of thugs and trouble-makers who ruin it for everyone else protesting peacefully.” “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” I could go on and on with examples like these. But, basically, they all boil down to the same general idea: Black people and their allies are only allowed to protest in ways that don’t make white people too uncomfortable, and the moment white people feel uncomfortable, it discounts the whole movement.
Ultimately, I would prefer to use my voice and privilege to elevate BIPOC people who have said this all way better than I ever could. If you really say you care about racial justice, and especially if you have ever found yourself yes but-ing BLM, may I suggest you read up on works by people like James Baldwin and Audre Lord, to people like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ijeoma Oluo, Ibram X Kendi, and Austin Channing Brown? And then when you read them, look at the people they cite and quote, and read them too, and so on. Do the foundational work of engaging with the ideas that make you uncomfortable, that make you question your assumptions, that help lay the foundation for doing better by helping you to know better. I feel like that might be a way better use of your time than continuing to be a not-a-racist whose lack of a racist bone in your body apparently includes having lost your spine to stand up to injustice and whose inability to see color apparently also blinds you to evil.
Before I move on to last my last big grievance of 2020, though, may I at least ask that if you can’t actually be bothered to do the work of anti-racism, at least don’t go around pedaling a bunch of drivel that simply isn’t true. Although I doubt the sincerity of your concern about COVID when you won’t bother to take it seriously yourself, stop acting like BLM protests caused a surge of COVID cases; they didn’t (likely because they were usually outdoors and with masks). When you talk about the BLM protests of 2020, rather than acting like they were incredibly violent, remember that by far the majority were peaceful (if you don’t want to read the full report, summary here). Finally, stop equating left-leaning movements like BLM (or every other conservative’s favorite boogeyman, Antifa) with white supremacist groups and acting like they pose the same level of threat; according to this report from CSIS, white supremacist groups by far are behind the most domestic terrorism in the United States in 2020. Basically, I know it is asking a lot, but could you at least get your facts straight if you’re going to be hella racist?
Finally, my last grievance for 2020, and it is a doozy, is people who can’t accept that Joe Biden won the presidential election and push the dangerous and false idea that there was massive voter or election fraud. I realize no amount of truth and facts will ever convince them, but it is laughably sad to see people turn on person after person who doesn’t support their alternate reality and has the audacity to speak about the real world in which the rest of us live. Folks from Homeland Security say there is no evidence the election was compromised and claim the election was secure? Fire one of those officials. Your own Department of Justice says there is no evidence of wide-spread election fraud affecting the outcome of the 2020 election? Suddenly your Attorney General is resigning before Christmas.
There are so many myths, so much misinformation, so many falsehoods about fraud in the 2020 election that fact-checking websites have been working overtime to collate them into giant lists of BS battling. I realize I’m wasting time arguing, but even a stunning series of defeats in the courts has not deterred people from believing in this delusional conspiracy theory. Some people have opted to just go on believing this lie, even when presented with the reality that when the time came for Trump’s team to present their case and to offer legal challenges with supposedly Kraken levels of evidence, they could barely win a single case, let alone change a single vote. Then again, what else are we to expect from people dumb enough to utter “release the Kraken” like it is a threat? Spoiler alert if you haven’t seen Clash of the Titans; it does not go well for the Kraken.
On the one hand, we have all the available credible evidence to suggest Joe Biden won the electoral college, let alone the popular vote by a convincing margin. On the other hand, we have a significant minority of people who choose to believe reality cannot be true because they don’t like it, many of whom can’t seem to accept the legitimacy of the votes of a bunch of Black and Brown people living urban areas, that somehow because they’re people of color and/or living in cities that they’re not real Americans with real votes. In fact, for some people, the argument has seemed to morph into simply being that if enough people believe something to be true, we should take them seriously and disregard the actual facts and evidence. There also are a bunch of people who are birthers (including plenty of people who ostensibly should know better), and the number of people who believe in Big Foot is similar to the number of people who believe in the Big Bang. Should I start questioning Obama’s birth certificate or proportioning my belief in sasquatch to be the same as my belief in one of science’s best current theories of the origin of the universe? It is really something to see a bunch of people deluding themselves into believing something to be true just because they wish it to be so.
All of this would be laughable, except words and ideas have consequences. This is the type of thinking that props up military coups of duly elected officials, this is the type of thinking that justifies militia members plotting kidnappings of governors, and this is the type of thinking that will be behind efforts to restrict the access of people to the ballot box in the future. Ultimately, what I see it boiling down to though is quite simple: a belief that only some people deserve to be in charge and only some political views of some Americans deserve to be privileged above others, so if a bunch of white voters in rural Southern and Midwestern states want to cling to their version of identity politics, we should respect that more than anything else.
Whew! It took almost 5000 words, but we’ve finally hit the end of my list. I’ll be honest, I had no idea when I got the idea and started writing this post a few weeks ago that it would end up being this long. Then again, I think I probably underestimated the amount of anger I’ve been carrying around all year. Apparently my secret to managing my inner Hulk and not freaking out on everyone who pushes my buttons at every turn is much like that of Bruce Banner in the Avengers; I’m always angry. I suppose that’s what happens when the typical minor insults of daily life are compounded by people who can’t be bothered to take a deadly pandemic seriously, to respect the lives of Black people, or to accept the results of a free and fair election because their guy didn’t win. If you actually made it to the end of this blog post, you’re likely either just as angry (either as me or at me, or both), and I hope you find an outlet for your anger we move into 2021. If you’re looking for a funny sit-com to distract, you could do worse than Seinfeld. May God protect you and your loved ones, and for the love of all that is Festivus, please get your COVID vaccine as soon as you have a chance.
scholarandgentleman 