Dear readers,
As we wrapped up production of last month’s issue of Chevy Chaser/Southsider, sometime in the middle of May, I was feeling an almost eerie sense of calm. Following a several-month period where COVID-19 had come to dismantle so many aspects of daily life, I felt like a semblance of normalcy was starting to return.
Isn’t it interesting to think about how warped our world views and perspectives can sometimes be?
In reality, the coronavirus had shown that it was not going away anytime soon. The numbers of new cases in our state and our community were hovering roughly around the same place that they had for weeks – that coveted plateau. Was this sense of “return to normalcy” actually the feeling of “new normalcy” – the sensation of our skin and nerves finally adjusting to the temperature of these strange new waters? Whatever the reason, the initial shock of fear that had consumed me during the initial weeks of the pandemic – that sense of ‘high alert’ that accompanies the anxiety of not knowing what’s going to happen next – had admittedly started to shrink, if only to allow more space for the feelings of comfort and complacency that my body craved.
As recent events – the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and other black Americans at the hands of police and former police officers – have sent new shockwaves and levels of high alert across our country, my attention has turned again to the concepts of “normalcy” and “complacency.” This period has felt unnerving to many of us, for a wide variety of reasons, and I think it’s important to pay close attention to what we’re feeling, and to try to figure out why we’re feeling that way.
Equally important – if not more – is paying attention to what other people are feeling, and trying to figure out why they are feeling that way. I’m confident that somewhere in those crevices lies at least one of the keys to growth and healing.
In June, an online Lexington City Council meeting took a chaotic and disturbing turn when a handful of anonymous trolls started spewing hate speech laced with racist, homophobic and antisemitic vocabulary, some of it targeted specifically toward council members of color. The remarks were clearly intended to shock, and were successful at that – many people who witnessed the meeting were, understandably, shaken and disturbed. But 6th district council member Angela Evans, who was among those who had specifically been targeted during the meeting, made a powerful comment that jolted me into realizing, again, how very distorted our perspectives can be.
“I think you all may need to hear this more than James or I,” Evans said, referencing fellow council member James Brown, who was also targeted in the meeting. “I hear this just walking down the street.”
I was disturbed by the comments out of deep frustration for their utter lack of compassion. But I realized much of the shock I felt was, frankly, due to the fact that I didn’t hear those words on a regular basis. I didn’t consider myself in denial about the hateful and oppressive language that many of our community
members experience on a regular basis. But a deeper introspective dive into why I felt so viscerally shocked at those words was a reminder of how warped and singularly informed our perspectives of normalcy can be.
Protestors aren’t revolting against the shock of the killings, but against their normalization.
The image on our cover represents a call to challenge divisive sentiments and to embrace “metta,” a concept that means “loving kindness,” as referenced in this issue by Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons, a Lexington psychologist founder of the Center for Healing Racial Trauma. The image comes from a project called “Unlearn Fear and Hate” started by Transylvania University professors Kurt Gohde and Kremena Todorova stemming back to 2015, another year marked by a number of other high profile murders of unarmed black people, including the racially charged massacre at a Charleston church that left five people dead. In Lexington, conversations at the time were focused on the future of the Confederate monuments at Cheapside Park, and after attending a handful of public forums called by Mayor Gray, Todorova and Gohde were struck by the sense that public debates, letters to the editor and similar conversations were not helping people understand each other.
“We wanted to create an artwork that helped humanize people to each other,” Todorova said. “We believed that art could intervene where carefully edited words could not.”
As an editor whose lifework revolves around carefully edited words – and who has admittedly struggled and strained significantly over finding the right words for this moment – I have reluctantly come to accept that words are not what this moment needs, and it especially doesn’t need my words. It needs personal commitments, large and small, to finding ways to use our lives to help unravel fear and hate. It needs commitments to spreading metta.
Community is at the heart of all that we do at Smiley Pete Publishing – we have built our business around highlighting, cultivating and celebrating community. Our idea of community is one that includes people of all colors and nationalities, all gender identities and religions, all political affiliations. Even though words are one of the things we do best, we recognize that words aren’t always enough. To that end, we are committed to continuing to seek ways, in our publications, events and in our personal daily lives, to cultivating metta, and to unraveling fear and hate.
We are proud of our community for standing up in this movement, and to our local leaders for listening and responding. We are looking forward to finding new ways to seek the keys that will move our community toward growth and healing.
I hope that this issue finds you well – but not complacent.
Sincerely,
Saraya Brewer, Editor
saraya@smileypete.com