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Panicking in Panem: This isn’t Hunger Games


It’s been a month since Trump has been in office. Many people are still riled up, and some want to incite the revolution. Some of us are chilling, just doing what we can.

I am one of those people.

The day after the election, in a mixture of emotions I called my mother in tears. She nonchalantly said, “it may not be alright but someone of us have experienced worse,” which got me thinking, some people have seen worse. For the last few weeks that sentiment has stuck with me in my frustration with the election but also the sudden outrage. As a person of color who has been politically engaged in several movements during my undergrad career, I have to keep myself from side eying this new, sudden urgency post election season coming from my white peers.

Where were ya’ll for Black Lives Matter? Or Not One More? What were you all doing besides criticizing the uprising, and critiquing activists of color for being outspoken against state sanctioned violence? Some of the comments I’ve seen offline and online have alluded to the next revolution. Okay, Billy and Sarah, I hate to break it to you but… this ain’t the Hunger Games and you are not Katniss and Peeta. Some of us have been waking up to Panem everyday of our lives. The state doesn’t frighten us as much as it does you. Your complacency and terror is what’s most harmful.

Dystopia is a genre of fiction that has become popularized in the last century, calling attention to the state of the political climates . Common scenarios in dystopian novels are dictatorships, mass poverty, and surveillance. Dystopia staples have most recently resurged in pop culture with franchises such as the Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Maze Runner.

The day after the election, there was a deafening silence on my school’s campus, and I got one one of the most liberal university in the united states. We pride ourselves on diversity and progressive ideals. You could feel the tension in the air. I remember going into my class and feeling so hurt and disappointed. America really had me fucked up. I felt that the day before I affirmed something I knew deep inside. My black life didn’t matter. The fact that there could be widespread panic toiling over in the next few months. I remember seeing so many people shame third party voters. I understand that thought process, but many people in this country would not be safe regardless of who would have won the election. In the next coming day as it seemed that my life solely became like the dystopian novels that were so popular the few years. I at the moment, had become increasingly aware of how desensitized we were.

Many of my friends cried the day after. Unsure where to go or whom to go to. We had each other, yet going to campus each day seemed like a struggle. “ We should give him a chance,” “Hilary was unqualified,” “It’s not gonna be that bad” quotes that would seemingly appear both online and offline. Yet what does that mean? The nonchalance of it all sounded more like “quit whining we’re in america, we have it good” while I constantly struggle with this citizenship. I felt like someone just hit the lottery and some unexpected youth will be sent to fight to their deaths. I think of the countless labor that will ensue, in the near future. I’m mostly upset at the nonchalance out with the prison industrial complex punishing children for zip codes.

The ignorance from my classmates who were shocked that their comfort would ultimately be shifted. Yet some of us know state sanctioned violence too well; the law officers, the metal detectors, and search dogs in their classrooms. Many of my classmates revealed that their families voted for Trump but they did not. That didn’t reassure me. It is not to say it’s your fault, but I suddenly feel unsafe. The increase on white uprisings, when just years priors we saw black and brown people victimized for asserting their right to exist. Whiteness is protected by white privilege. The house may not be burning for white people but it’s became engrossed in even more flames for poc.

I am not ready to catch fire. I hear my white classmates speak freely of “revolution,” yet how is it a fight when is rigged. There are no mocking jays in the hood. Survival is more important. So many marginalized communities feel tense because of the unwillingness of white america to acknowledge its discretion. When you have initiatives like the muslim ban or immigrant bans that enforce policies that target populations it often feels like you are living in a world crafted by a sci-fi author. As of late I haven’t turned on the news, for a variety of self care and the fact i am trying to graduate. I know what’s at risk and the only thing i can do is out my best foot forward ,however it’s hard to be optimistic. Quite frankly I’m tired. Exhausted.

The lack of accountability each day is annoying, fam. However it would be wrong if I said that this just started with the election of “45”. We know white millenials love dystopian novels. They love the fearlessness of Katniss Everdeen, the gung-ho to start the revolution is just annoying. I saw their discontempt for black poor people on the front lines of Ferguson. I can’t not recall all the comments I heard when I returned to my college campus, a slight wave of uneasiness i felt. The victim blaming, the lack of understanding of capitalism. If it wasn’t Ferguson, it was Baltimore. It was property of people. Not the fact that there’s drones zooming over people, not the fact that police squadrons line the street, the enforced curfews. Iremember protesting in Baltimore , more confused at what I witnessed. The news misconstrued the stories, the panic the terror... I hated the idea that in a country that prides itself on progress, some of the heinous crimes during contemporary time was publicized. How absurd is it to empathize with an inert system and wealth controlled by the elite? This was everything I read about in Bradbury coming to life.

One thing that was missing from these conversations: don't blame the oppressed for their oppression. Blaming marginalized people rather than the system itself, is problematic. People really think that voting was gonna help fix America. Before the predator-in-chief took office, America was already going to hell in a handbasket. When you blame the oppressed, and not the structures or people who have caused the oppression you are solely victim blaming, re-envisioning the history that got us into these circumstances. America has never been great. The whole premises of this country is based on colonization of indigenous people and the birth of capitalism by the Trans Atlantic Slave trade.

When the election happened, people asked if I was gonna march at the protest. I just didn’t respond. It wasn’t that I didn’t see the merit in marching, but I felt that often to many times White millennials romanticize revolution but bestow organizing responsibility to their peers of color. Where were these rallying cries for support when it came to the aforementioned POC centered movement. Why did people call my friends and I anti white when we wanted to assert our humanity. Why is that we we have to wait till shit the fan, for white youth to wake up?

Being selectively outraged and distancing yourself from whiteness when you want to be is something that irks me. Even as a Blerd, i often come into contact with white nerds who don’t see the problem with having white heroes all the time. Yet let a character that’s normally white be portrayed as a person of color hell ensues. If the fantasy world that people occupy can have dragons, elves, and zombies why is English the norm in reality? Of course the answer is colonialism and capitalism but what would white people do colonize a fictional planet like Jedha in Star Wars or the Lost Woods of Zelda? What does that mean for black and Brown children who dive into these fantasy worlds as escapism. We forget that some children wake up to Panem each day. Where grocery stores are nowhere near home, their communities are surveyed by police, and curfews are instilled. Where’s the outrage for those children and the conditions for those children?

I am happy that people are excited. I really am but I am tired. Exhausted. Revolution is not a game. The world should not be thrown around. There’s no need for photo op activism. Revolution is not rooted in capitalism. It’s not shirts, hats, or catchy slogans. It’s not escapism made into 20 million dollar Hollywood productions. Revolution is what freedom feels like that, it’s recognizing we can create a better world. However we shouldn’t bestow this task to marginalized communities to lead this fight. White people shouldn’t try to speak over marginalized form there has to be balance Things are uncertain right now,With alternative facts,shady politicians, and mass hysteria. We can not be foolish to think we can overthrow the government like our favorite Dystopian protagonist, but that doesn’t mean we can’t impact the world.

This piece was submitted by Brittney Maddox of the Black Minds Matter Project which seeks to bring attention to the mental health of black people.

1 Comments

  1. 10/10- This piece really speaks volumes.

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