Originally published on LinkedIn on June 5, 2020

This week, I’m reminded of the dystopian movie Soylent Green, which takes place in 2022 (two years from now). The cumulative effects of overpopulation, pollution, and climate change created a worldwide shortage of food, water, and housing. Meanwhile, the privileged live in palatial apartments and have access to clean water and natural foods. When there’s a shortage of Soylent Green, a wafer supposedly made from plankton, people riot and are brutally relocated by police vehicles, which scoop up rioters with large shovels, and dump them in containers.

Soylent Green ventured into my purview after watching Trumbo, a movie about screenwriter Dalton Trumbo who was blacklisted for his political beliefs that property should be publicly owned, and citizens should be compensated based on their contributions and needs. Trumbo was not alone. Around 300 other “Hollywood” film and entertainment industry screenwriters, directors, actors, radio commentators, musicians, and other artists were blacklisted in the 1950’s.

While Trumbo was a member of the Communist Party of the USA, others were singled out by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee for their alleged disloyalty and subversive activities. Edward G. Robinson who’d been an actor for twenty years, was caught up in the fracas, spending the next five years clearing his name. His last movie was Soylent Green, dying from bladder cancer twelve days after filming was completed, which is ironic since his role concluded with his euthanasia.

Soylent Green was released two years before the disbandment of McCarthy’s lopsided committee to seek out and accuse citizens of trumped up treason and disloyalty to the American way-of-life. Today, McCarthyism is associated with campaigns or practices that make allegations without proper evidence, kinda’ like accusing Democrats as being the enemy, and rioters as anarchists, looters, thugs, and lowlifes.

What’s old is new again

The startling riot scene in Soylent Green, which burned a hole in my impressionable teen brain, is reminiscent of what played out this week with several New York Police Department officers driving cars into protestors, rubber bullets, tear gas, and low-flying helicopters being used to disperse peaceful crowds in Washington D.C., pepper spray and flashbangs at a Seattle protest, National Guard being deployed around the country to quell protests, and members of the military being equipped with bayonets to intimidate protestors, carrying cardboard signs.

While there isn’t per se a worldwide shortage of food, there are issues in America with one in nine people unable to secure enough food for their daily needs. Food insecurities have quickly worsened with nearly 41 million people filing for unemployment since mid-March. Food banks can’t keep up. El Pasoans Flighting Hunger went from delivering food to partner pantries and preparing food boxes for seniors to distributing, thus far, 20,000 boxes of food to 60,000 families. The equivalent of 12 tractor trailers per day.

People who a few months ago were fully employed and never considered having to use food banks and other community resources are now at the mercy of municipal and social service programs. It follows, with no money coming in and savings dwindling, these same people are at risk of losing their housing, vehicles, and other mortgaged assets. More startling, many have also lost their healthcare coverage and other employee benefits.

Recipe for unrest.

What’s most disturbing is the “them” versus “us” mindset, which isn’t much different than McCarthyism. A quick click on news or social media sites reveals this egotistical point-of-view. Even something as minor as wearing a mask is viewed as an unreasonable request to protect “them,” the elderly and those with existing health risks. The spotlight is consequently shown on mask-wearers as wimps, overly fearful, and unnecessarily reactive.

The need to quarantine and socially distance is equally tied to an unwarranted expectation of “them.” There’s no argument. Measures to protect people from getting coronavirus have caused a domino effect of economic upheavals—more akin torpedoes—that could take years to remedy. The blame rests not with the measures, however, but the reason why they had to be instituted in the first place, that being public health agencies were eliminated, depleted, and essentially neutered.

Instead of these agencies having the resources to quickly identify and react to outbreaks, they along with state governors scrambled to cobble-together responses, which were insufficient, especially compared to other countries’ judiciously orchestrated approaches. As a result, the pandemic exponentially increased, while the person ultimately responsible for the welfare of all Americans made excuses and deferred responsibility.

One thing is clear. The ineffective response to coronavirus along with the despair caused by poverty, systemic racism, gun violence, militarized police, inaccessible healthcare, and unaffordable housing and higher education are born of one-sided, inhumane policies both by government and corporations.

Prior to COVID-19: 40 million Americans lived in poverty, almost 28 million Americans had no healthcare insurance, seven in ten low-income workers and a quarter of private sector workers had no paid sick time, over 560,000 Americans were homeless, and the approximate costs of a 4-year degree was $122,000.

It’s easy to disregard the numbers until they take to the streets. They’re not thugs, hoodlums, looters, arsonists, anarchists, and other perceived miscreants. They’re average Americans who’ve been pushed down, ignored, brutalized, discriminated, exploited, and most of all, dehumanized. It’s time to recognize the cumulative effects of our dystopian policies and stop labeling people because they don’t ascribe to our thinking, demographic or ethnicity.

It’s time to toss aside “them” versus “us,” and come together to solve our many issues.

Thanks to Jason Sung for his wonderful photo on Unsplash