Irreversible Motion

The future is always coming

One of my best friends is caught in a vicious employment cycle. Their job relies on government funding via grants. Those fall through with alarming regularity. When the money isn’t there, neither is employment.

Lucky enough, a new job has come along before things got dire. Looking for a job right now is horrifying. This is one of the worst employment landscapes I’ve encountered and I’m not even looking. Even legit job postings vanish at the whims of employers. It is maddening.

The bright side of that rather alarming pitfall is that we got to play a lot of video games together during the recent lapse. It was awesome. Job hunting was 8-2 M-F. After that, we’d get online and play a game for a few hours. Catch up, reconnect. Distance is not the impediment to friendship it used to be.

On one of our play sessions, we talked about black conservatives. How so many white people exist with preconceived notions about the politics of people of color. About the barrier between the idea of a black conservative and really knowing any.

A short time later, we had a movie night at our house with some Richmond friends and watched the excellent comedy Bottoms.

The movie sparked conversation. One of my politically active friends started asking how we enact change. My response was conversation. I said that just talking to people was the best way to create positive change in the world. That talking point seemed to be falling flat until the politically minded friend asked another person their perspective.

That perspective, of being a biracial conservative and the factors that lead them on the journey was enlightening. I knew some of it, as these people are my friends, but there was a measure of vulnerability present that is gained through trust. Trust built from years of talking to each other.

A lot of people ask what could cause a person to work against their own interests. I see it in person. In internet conversation. Josie (the immensely talented Ayo Edebiri, most famous for The Bear) makes a comment about black Republicans being the smartest in the movie. What a loaded statement.

We talked a lot that night. About political identity and what shapes it. About who we are. I won’t share those stories, because they aren’t mine to share. But what is mine to share is what I took from that night. What I take from any conversation I can have with someone who shares their life experience. We are all the intersection of our experiences.

There’s no single path to any school of thought, but the best I’ve found is to engage in conversation. Talk to people who will engage in good faith. Listen to their experience and find their perspective. I lack the hubris to declare any path the way to our salvation, but I have known a lot of good people who are conservative in my life. I have been a bad conservative.

This is a little more haphazard than my normal posting, but I am long overdue in writing. I’m working on getting back into a routine with my new life. I suspect Monday will no longer be my writing day.