Homing Instinct
2021; American studies; Volume: 60; Issue: 3-4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/ams.2021.0026
ISSN2153-6856
Autores Tópico(s)Youth Development and Social Support
ResumoHoming Instinct Dani McClain Originally published in Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements, AK Press, 2015. Reprinted by permission. "Greedy" is the word that comes to mind. As the announcement's meaning sunk in, I got greedy for the 70-degree days in the middle of February and the way sunlight bounces off the leaves of jade green succulents no matter what time of year. How the air—even in the middle of downtown Oakland—smells like flowers (yes, and weed and sometimes urine). The options always presenting themselves: Look toward the hills and see yellows and browns and the promise of a place where the wind blows a little less. Look toward the bay and see it glistening like a sheet of light, dotted with sails and bits of sky. I got greedy for things that likely wouldn't be around much longer anyway. As I listened to Breslow speak, my mind wandered to the parties at the New Parish and, before that, Oasis, places where old Stevie Wonder jams and Chaka Khan remixes brought back memories of childhood. The Malcolm X Jazz Festival in East Oakland and the Ashby flea market, the same people always turning up at all the same places. When EO 3735 came down, I got nostalgic for the things around me. It should have made the decision easy, but it didn't. Paloma, on the other hand, knew immediately. "I'm staying here," she told me just moments after the press conference at which the executive order was announced. Because the situation was so dire, the president had said, everyone would have ninety days to reposition themselves. [End Page 55] That was the word she had used: "reposition." "They couldn't even put it to a vote?" I said to Paloma, realizing that this would be the only conversation that mattered for the foreseeable future. "Why? So the people who still believe all that snow proves the climate isn't changing can get on TV? If it had gone through Congress, we'd have to listen to their ignorant rants get equal time with the scientists and the people who won't let their fear override what's in plain sight." We'd watched the speech together and talked it over from every angle we could think of once the president had answered her final question and walked offstage and away from the press corps. "I'm glad Breslow just went ahead and said, 'Here's what's up: Figure out where you want to be and get there. And quit all this jumping on planes, trains, and automobiles all the time like your presence is so desperately needed at this meeting and that conference and this family reunion and that weekend getaway.'" She was from Chicago but she knew her home was Oakland. It didn't feel so cut and dry to me. ________ I walked home thinking that if the Breslow administration were smart, it would hire Paloma to do a series of PSAs. For the print ads, it could just be her face, serious and resolute, eyes staring straight ahead. The caption in bold, block text would read, "COMMIT." For the online and broadcast versions, it could be her voice saying something like, "When you move"—and the phrase would hang in the air while you watched quick takes from footage of the latest disasters: a shot from the Outer Banks of North Carolina when they still existed, the wind whipping giant waves into the cottages and splintering their stilts to shreds—"you prove"—and now the stampede on the Venetian Causeway during the Miami Beach exodus—"that you don't get it." The now iconic images of people swimming in the streets of New Orleans would fill the screen as Paloma said, her voice heavy with disappointment and judgment, "You still don't get it." Playing off of people's fear, their memories of the disasters no one even bothered calling "natural" anymore, was key here. The relationships between water and land, between humans and the weather, had changed dramatically. And, yes, it was long overdue for a political leader to demand that people stop living...
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