Since the lockdown has begun to ease, the residents in my neighborhood have started living in broad daylight.
The public space is packed with people working on their laptops on a bench, families holding parties next to picnic tables, and yoga and fitness groups occupying the open fields.
I also saw someone using her sewing machine in public to repair a worn-out dress. It was nice seeing businesspeople share the same domain with teachers or delivery people. For a fleeting moment, I even began to think that it was true: Perhaps the virus has united everyone because it does not discriminate against anyone; perhaps a new society – or even a new world – can emerge.
With great anticipation, I arranged a meeting at the nearby park with friends that I had not seen for two months.
But several days before the meeting, there was an event that shocked America: George Floyd, an African American man, was killed by white cops.
This led to unrest in the cities, which led to clashes and riots. The festive event that was designed to mark the return to normalcy was suddenly marred with bad news. The warm sun at the park could not compare to the burning flames all across the United States.
Rather than share our experiences over the past two months, we talked about racism plaguing America since its inception; the virus that had reached every corner of the country, even in liberal New York: About a week ago, in Central Park, a birdwatcher asked a white woman to put a leash on her dog, and she chose to call the police and report him as threatening. The automatic, knee-jerk way in which she used the dark pigment of his skin as a chip in her favor shows that this is an ingrained thing, perhaps innate, to America.
Only a week ago, it appeared that the coronavirus was everywhere, but here we are with something much stronger, even though it appears that it has always been simmering beneath the surface. The solidarity that the pandemic has promised was shattered overnight together with the display windows.
We could meet at the park because public spaces were declared safe again. When we sat comfortably and safely, I asked myself, "Who is this actually safe for?"
There are some people for whom the public space is always hostile, with or without a pandemic. The very act of walking down the street poses danger because of the color of their skin or their status. There are also people who did not have the option of staying at home, and most of the deaths of the coronavirus were claimed among the weaker populations, in the suburban areas where people had to commute to and from work. Refugees, immigrants, cleaning crews, delivery people. The people who were already invisible but now became a statistic.
After the sun had set, and people began to disperse, I wondered: Perhaps the solidarity was strong only so long as we were holed up in our homes, so long as we did not share the public space with someone different.
Perhaps the virus has taught us that every man can have a secret virus that may become symptomatic in the public sphere with all of its conflicts. Perhaps solidarity should not be dependent on the wishful thinking that we are all one entity, but on the difficult realization that we all have the potential to hurt someone else.
Perhaps, I thought to myself as I walked home, the ills of society can be compared to coronavirus: No single person is particularly to blame, but we all have the same duty to uphold.
