In my newsletter posts, “The People Who Love Never-Ending Lockdowns Have Jobs” and “Staying at home is a privilege,” I’ve noticed people who want to keep cities and states on “lockdown” indefinitely, tend to do so from their comfortable homes. They are the kinds of people who have income from a job or from other sources and aren’t stressed out about how they are going to pay next month’s rent or their health insurance premium.
They aren’t a working parent of a developmentally disabled, autistic, handicapped, or otherwise special needs child who depended on services offered in the public schools; those services his parents are not able or qualified to provide him.
They most likely aren’t a person close to retirement whose savings could be decimated or even just evaporate in an economic depression; making the difference between the dignified and comfortable retirement she expected, and a miserable, impoverished, and yes, attenuated old age.
I’m sure they aren’t an hourly worker who has been fired or laid off from a mostly cash job who soon won't be able to pay for their children's educations due to a prolonged shutdown.
Zeynep Tufekci is a contributing writer and an associate professor at the University of North Carolina wrote a new piece in The Atlantic called, “It’s Time to Hunker Down.” She feels “it’s time to buckle up and lock ourselves down again, and to do so with fresh vigilance.”
James Hamblin, another Debbie Downer at The Atlantic thinks we should all Cancel Thanksgiving. He says, “Theoretically everyone in a family could isolate for two weeks prior and get tested multiple times over that period, and the risk of a gathering would be low. There may be certain circumstances where families try this, for example, because a loved one is terminally ill, and this occasion carries particular significance. But the gathering can never be zero risk. Quarantining for two weeks after would be key as well. In all, this would mean a month of meticulous isolation in order to have a probably-safe indoor meal.”
“That’s a lot to ask. Many people are unlikely to be willing and able to go to those lengths. This doesn’t mean the day needs to be joyless.”
Ok kids, thanks for the advice! We’ll stay home, by ourselves for one month until this is over. We will not congregate with anyone, anywhere. The only way to stop this thing is to never see another soul until December, or maybe January.
Great! I’m sure that’s exactly what everyone is going to do. Stay the F*uck Home, like Samuel L. Jackson told us to do in April:
I saw this Twitter thread and thought I’d share.
Nah…I’m not staying home. I have to find work to feed my family and pay my bills. That means doing the kinds of work that’s outside of my apartment doors. Broadway, my last job, cannot be done from home.
If you are scared and don’t want to go outside for anything, no one is stopping you. The rest of us have to be essential workers for our families.
Only the privileged demand others to stay home.
Clayton Craddock is an independent thinker, father of two beautiful children in New York City. He is the drummer of the hit broadway musical Ain't Too Proud. He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Howard University's School of Business and is a 28 year veteran of the fast-paced New York City music scene. He has played drums in several hit broadway and off-broadway musicals, including "Tick, tick…BOOM!, Altar Boyz, Memphis The Musical, and Lady Day At Emerson's Bar and Grill. Also, Clayton has worked on: Footloose, Motown, The Color Purple, Rent, Little Shop of Horrors, Spongebob Squarepants The Musical, Evita, Cats, and Avenue Q.