Hello, hi. Every time I post a photo of a public space in the Netherlands, people want to know why nobody is wearing masks. I end up writing the same ten sentences I’ve written twenty times before, which is getting a little old, and people seem genuinely interested in what’s happening here, so I’m writing this post.

But first, let’s get three things out of the way:

–I did not make these rules. I am not personally responsible for the manner in which the Netherlands arrived at its approach. Please do not attack the fucking messenger.

–I am not an infectious disease expert, physician, economist, or even a person who spends her whole life researching this shit. If you want exact dates and timelines on how the Dutch handled this, feel free to google. This is a general summary.

–I am a woman and mother and American living in a new country, using my own critical thinking capacity, intuition, and reasonableness to synthesize information and make decent choices. I neither believe everything I’m told nor disbelieve it all on principle. I can tell you that as a whole, I trust the Dutch government to use and accept science, support their most vulnerable citizens, and generally work toward a balanced and sane approach. This is an entirely new feeling after spending three years in the States with a regime in power that does none of these things.

Okay, so, here we go.

The Netherlands closed schools for three months but children have never been required to socially distance. As in, they were always allowed to go outside, be around whomever, play together in the park, etc. This is based on science that showed very small infection and transmission rates among children. I DID NOT CREATE THIS SCIENCE so don’t fucking blame me, and don’t email me about how it’s wrong. You can read about it here.

About eight weeks ago, they opened the schools in a slow process, and here’s how they did that:

For two weeks kids under 12 went to school two days and then three days, alternating weeks, and they were let out an hour or so early. Adults were not allowed in the school building. Kids distanced from their teachers but not from each other. Recesses were still allowed. Hand-washing was required every two hours. Masks were not required. Kids over 12 were not allowed to attend school yet.

Since corona numbers continued to drop during this time, they opened up the schools to four days and older kids could begin attending three days a week. A couple of weeks after that (July 1, I believe), distancing was no longer required between teachers and students. Restaurants opened with social distancing requirements, and masks were required on public transportation. You were not allowed to sit at a restaurant table with more than one person from outside your home. They asked questions about your health when you arrived. Our dentist’s office took our temperature in the doorway. There are big plastic panels separating customers from check-out people in almost every establishment.

Now, July 14, 2020, social distancing is still required everywhere. Any event or location where social distancing can’t be achieved has other requirements: Only allowing a certain number of people in the establishment, masks, etc. Masks on public transportation are still required. You’re allowed to sit with more people at restaurants. Testing is free and available to anyone who wants it.

It is, more or less, opened up for normal life. All of this is contingent upon the curve remaining flat. If cases increase, which everyone expects them to do in the fall/winter, there will be restrictions again.

Now, why is it so “chill” here, relatively speaking?

Here are my theories:

1.) There are 17 million people here. The USA has 328 million people. It is easier to get 17 million people to do something than nineteen times that many people. However, the Netherlands is tiny, and one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, so the potential for shitshow is vast. It is easier, however, to create a relatively unified message, approach, and understanding in a smaller country. We will get to the rest of this story shortly.

2.) The Prime Minister acted quickly and isn’t at fundamental odds with his own goddamn infectious disease experts and is not telling everybody the media is the enemy of the people and he’s the only speaker of Truth. As in, he’s not sitting there framing himself in opposition to SCIENCE, so there is, more or less, a unified approach, story, narrative, understanding coming from the Dutch government, and we can all read about this approach and the reasons behind it openly on the internet. It’s like, clear communication and shit. I know. I know. Weird.

3.) Does everyone here agree on the restrictions? Of course not, which brings us to number 3: Coronavirus is not highly politicized and thus polarizing in that fancy American black-and-white sense of: ECONOMY or LOCKDOWN. Republican or Democrat. Trump or Fauci. Fake news or real news or alternative facts, whatever the hell those are. There aren’t news stations telling half the country one thing and half the country whatever nonsense Hannity and Breitbart pulled out of their flaming neofascist assholes.

Sorry. That went south (ha ha ha) quickly. No but seriously. The virus is the virus is the virus and everybody has to work together to get this shit under control. There is a basic understanding of “Do your part and we get out of this nonsense faster.” You aren’t a fucking freedom fighter by refusing to do what the Dutch government says. There are no tweets like this one, from the President, indicating that you can choose science or you can choose Trump:

YOU ARE NOT A DEMOCRAT FOR WEARING A MASK.

You are not “weak” for trusting science. You are not a snowflake liberal for thinking doctors know things. You are not a snowflake liberal for thinking infectious disease experts probably know more about novel viruses than a washed-up, corrupt, reality-TV star who lies a lot.

There is a humane, measured, and clear-eyed message from the Prime Minister, which is communicated through the news in a relatively objective way, and people, like, listen to it and more or less do what it says.

You and your 100-person protest in the Hague is adorable, and high five, but also, nobody cares. 

4.) There is a sense here of common good outweighing personal desire. Americans are notorious for their Me First/Fuck the Rest mentality. Get what you can then die, right? From bootstraps to Jeff-Bezos-super-capitalism, we equate selfish individualism (me first) with liberty.  Some people, especially those who endured two world wars on their own soil in a short time, understand that without collective liberation there is no individual freedom. Without looking out for the whole, there is no personal safety. Everyone is at risk if the WHOLE is not protected.

Let me remind everyone that the Netherlands was occupied by the Nazis. So Trumpers, don’t fucking talk to me about “personal liberty.” The Dutch are RABIDLY FREE. Read a book.

Anyway, my point is: You think they like the government telling them where they can and can’t go, who they can see, who they can touch? No, they do not. But most people do it anyway, or at least stay relatively quiet about it—instead of, say, licking public windows or throwing COVID parties—because they understand that while they personally may not agree, this is a virus, not an arbitrary, violent usurping of their freedom, so we have to deal with it for the larger community.

To give you an idea of how nervous the measures make some Dutchies, friends of ours said: “We’ll give them until June. If they keep us locked down past that, we’re all heading into the streets.”

This seemed reasonable: Let’s give them a chance to not fuck with us. And if they do fuck with us, let’s burn shit down. I may be paraphrasing.

5.) PAID FUCKING SICK DAYS ARE FEDERALLY FUCKING MANDATED. Whew. Let’s think about this. Every employee here—from fast-food workers to corporate suits—has guaranteed paid sick leave. They are also guaranteed paid “care days” (days to take care of others). I don’t know if we realize what a difference this makes: If you vaguely have the sniffles, you stay home. If your kid vaguely has the sniffles, you keep your kid home and stay with them. Both parents in families have this paid leave. So if a kid is sorta maybe kinda sick, you can play it safe and stay home and still get paid and your boss doesn’t really care because they, too, had this right. Scarcity breeds scarcity. Fairness breeds fairness.

Of course you’d stay home with your kid is the mentality here, and it’s been this way for a long, long time. You don’t have to give your kid Tylenol, send them to school, and hope for the best because you can’t afford, literally, financially, to miss work. You can keep your kid home the suggested days after a fever rather than fudging it. You don’t have to think about it and you aren’t penalized for it. In general, the Dutch have a ridiculously more sane and humane approach to work-life balance. I know it’s crazy talk but people do not expect you to work while ill. 

6.) Oh, and universal healthcare.

Here’s Mac and a tiny espresso.

Also, my readers, friends, and loved ones in America: I love you. I’m thinking of you constantly.

***

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Write Anyway is a 6-week, online workshop for the writer who: 

• has a nagging feeling of “I should write this,” but isn’t;
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• is too afraid to write what they’re really feeling/thinking/experiencing;
• is bored with their current writing practice;
• is agonizing over what people will think;
• is obsessing over perfection; and/or
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I have two 50% scholarships available for Black, Brown, Indigenous writers who would like to participate and could use some financial assistance.

Lately I’ve been hearing, “It’s different this time.” “Something is really changing.”

Our Trump-supporting family members are using the word “murder” in reference to George Floyd. Those of us with Trump-supporting family members know what a big deal this is. People we would expect to really come to the rescue of Target are sharing MLK Jr.’s “language of the unheard” quote.

Sure, everybody’s favorite Florida boomer still pops into the thread to bring up the fact that Floyd did coke and wasn’t exactly a model citizen—because model citizenry is apparently the baseline requirement for not being murdered by police—but now, Florida boomer just seems pathetic. The desperate gasps of a dying racist.

Makes me think of Bob Dylan singing, “Get out of the new road if you can’t lend a hand.”

In other words, we are moving on with or without your NASCAR-weeping ass.

Statues are toppled. Kids are done asking cities for permission they’ll never get. Kaepernick was told, “There are other ways to protest.” 2020 agrees.

Eight minutes, 46 seconds. Handcuffed, face-down. Two officers kneeling on his legs. One man casually kneeling on his neck—one hand in his pocket, serenity washed across his vaguely smiling eyes. The face of evil? Nah, the face of white supremacy. Also evil, but not uniquely so.

White people, tell me, do we not recognize that smirk? Just a little? In our uncles? In ourselves? Deep down in our blood, the smirk that rests in the knowing that most likely the state is on our side.

Our ancestors took their children to watch lynchings of Black Americans. They dressed in their Sunday best and drank Southern cocktails while young Black men hung from trees behind them. They took photos and sent them to family members who had moved out west. You know, to remind them of how things were back home. Model citizenry, etc.

They grinned. They smirked. Their eyes casually rested in the knowing that the state is on their side.

It lives in our blood though we hate to admit it. We hate to see it.

Uprisings in every city of America and 200 countries worldwide. NASCAR bans confederate flags. Ben & Jerry’s somehow pens a manifesto. Mitt Romney marches with Black Lives Matter. We tilt our heads to one side and try to process.

The whole world in a tidal wave: You will join us or we’ll roll on without you. Make a choice.
Here we are, witnessing the moment many of our white family, friends, and acquaintances are scooting off the fence. Family and friends wondering if there’s “maybe something to this Black Lives Matter thing.” Lord.

And we, we are the ones at the crossroads. We are the people they will encounter first. We are the ones on the other side of the fence, and our job is to get uncomfortable and get inconvenienced. Our job is to remember that white supremacy is woven through the fabric of our brains and bodies and lives. The water we swim in and never have to see. The smirk that knows.

In other words, we are the ones who need to deal with their bullshit. Who else could it be?

And yet, in my travels around the internet, I hear a lot of attacking of people quite clearly grappling with the extrication of what they’ve always known to be true. Sure, it’s fucked up. It’s also real. Is the goal to help move out of racism or is it for us to be the wokest in the room?

And friends, I see it in myself: Some idea that I’m better than, elevated. Hey, Janelle, shall we remind you of how you wanted to know why there was no “white club” in your high school? That happened, that was real. You really meant that.

YOU LEARNED SHIT IN GRAD SCHOOL, ya fuckin revolutionary.

We talk about how we want to be “allies,” we want to help, we want to do something, but the second our third-cousin twice-removed starts mentioning mixed feelings about the statues being toppled but shows genuine concern and openness, we attack the motherfucker for failing to embody the lexicon we learned in our Race & Gender class at UC Berkeley back in 2007.

Do we need to talk for a moment about the bullshit Black people endure every day not only overt racists and middle-of-the-road racists but also Super Woke White Women who figure it’d be best if they just kinda, you know, took over the local Black Lives Matter chapter?

They read Ta-Nehisi Coates, okay? They know things. And yet we somehow can’t work with the clunky, awkward friend who discovered she’s white a week ago?

I’m not talking about Florida boomer. Fuck that guy. Wrap him in his confederate flag and bury him. But there is racism and a refusal to listen, and there is a moving away from racism and a former refusal to listen.

If anyone is required to make this distinction, it’s us.

Times are either changing or not. We are undergoing a mass expansion of white minds or we are not. We see ourselves as the problem or we don’t.

How can we see the face of George Floyd against pavement, claim to be allies, yet lack the stamina and patience to understand that the road to a new way of thinking is awkward, clunky, and downright “offensive.”

ARE.WE.SO.DELICATE.

Before I taught my first university class on my own—which was an English class I divided into four sections (race, gender, class, and power), featuring the writing of Baldwin, X, hooks, and others—my advising professor told me this: “Your students are going to say inappropriate things. They are grappling with hard ideas and they do not yet have the vocabulary for it. Don’t attack them. Ask them questions. Keep asking questions until they are forced to trace their idea back to its beginning.”

These are not students who said overtly racist things. Slurs, etc. That’s different.

What I’m saying is that the road out will be messy, complicated, and nuanced, and it is our job to open doors, get out of ourselves, help others the way we were helped. I don’t think it’s our right or place to adopt the justified anger that may exist in people of color who are absolutely done dealing with white nonsense, and extend it into our own interactions as if we are the same.

We are the people who need to humble ourselves and remember the person who woke us up.

Because somebody somewhere woke you up. If it was your parents, somebody woke them up. If it was your grandparents or great-grandparents, well, somebody handed those badasses a pamphlet. Nice work. But still, at some point, we had to be pulled, possibly dragged, from our soothing pool of white.

We are the people whose ancestors took their kids to lynchings. We are the descendants of slaveowners. We are the ones who told Martin Luther King, Jr. that though we agree with his cause, we just wish he’d wait.

We are the ones who could wait.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT GUILT. This is about seeing ourselves as a member of a vast history, a larger whole, a single voice responsible for lifting our brothers, sisters, friends, family, and acquaintances, out of the web of a brutal lineage. We need to get into the new road and lend a fucking hand. It won’t be clean and it won’t be easy.

In 1962, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his nephew just before the Civil Rights Act, on his nephew’s 15th birthday.

In it, he wrote the following:

“In this case the danger in the minds and hearts of most white Americans is the loss of their identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shivering and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one’s sense of one’s own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man’s world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar, and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations.”

Heaven and earth shaken to their foundations. A world recognizing the smirk of a white man during a lynching, some of us within ourselves. It is a terrible witness, a piercing truth, but it is ours, and we can welcome the shivering sun.