Heavy Thoughts After a Long Car Ride | Leslie
Wayland
I’m concerned about where things are at right now in this country. Every day is dealing with the assault of new news that is scary and overwhelming, and as a gay woman, I really am scared. It’s a lot of anxiety, I think, that’s how I’ve felt all since November. I’m not in an industry that’s been particularly affected, but I have lots of friends who have research-funded jobs and kids in college who will be affected by this.
I was just in a long car ride so I was actually thinking about this a lot while I was driving. I was coming from Philadelphia. I’m not from there, I was visiting my family. So I was thinking about it on the ride home just because I was listening to the radio a little bit. And just… constant barrage of bad information. And sad little things that make people not feel safe and comfortable in the world.
I just spent three months in Arizona doing medical treatment and it was really scary. Ads on TV where like, ‘Black man breaks in a window, puts his hand over a white girl’s, who’s seven years old, mouth. And then he goes to jail,’ and I’m like, what is this? The younger people are scared. That makes people scared and they don’t understand that that’s not reality. Most sexual assaults are not perpetrated by Black men.
My trip to Philly was at least really nice. My niece is there. We went to the flower show, which was, like, the biggest flower show in the country. It was huge. It was indoor. It was a civic center or whatever. It was huge. A hundred thousand people went there over the last week. It was a big show, but it was fun. It was her birthday.
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