Prospects

On beauty, fear, rage, and sadness while walking through Brooklyn's Prospect Park

I’ve become immune to it, but listening to the video above, I can hear it: There are always—always—sirens going off in New York City. Like an unyielding warning, a persistent presence of danger. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the sirens were on overdrive. Quiet (and, I suppose, safety) comes at a premium in this city. I’m a person who enjoys quiet. I find that the older I get, the more I actually need quiet. When I have the chance to experience it: bliss.

I stopped, somewhat in awe, to film those shimmering waters during my recent walk through Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. I needed to take a walk after the 2024 presidential election because I had to clear my mind and be as alone as one can be in a city of nearly nine million people. I wanted to walk around, relatively free—while it’s still legal (at least on paper) for me to do so. I needed to be someplace where beauty was apparent: an antidote to white Americans doing something unimaginably ugly in re-electing Donald Trump. But that act was merely the latest in their tradition of grotesque behavior, which stretches back at least to the 15th century (maybe even longer) to when they hadn’t even conceived of whiteness yet, but were gearing up for its invention as a justification to enslave, rape, and murder the world.

Me on October 16, 2024, in response to

Marlon Weems

, regarding Donald Trump’s clownery and subpar performances during his 2024 reelection campaign.

They have re-released a demonic presence that will haunt even our great-grandchildren’s great-grandchildren. But it will also haunt theirs because, in the end, demons are no respecters of bodies. They can possess any living thing.

And inevitably:

All evil returns to its source.