99Days Later
A Parting Note
When we launched 99Days our intent was to broaden the discussion around the turbulent last gasp of annus horribilis 2020 and what we had already assumed would be an alarming introduction into 2021 (though we had no idea how alarming). The goal was to move the conversation beyond the day to day/tit for tat/“watch what happens” coverage being practiced, in our opinion, by the vast majority of the mainstream media outlets
So we pulled together a loosely knit, relatively impromptu gathering of independent writers of color given the task to remind people that there are more important issues than Donald Trump and what he’s done to America”. Like art. Music. Books. Culture. Health. Climate Change. Africa. And how the issues of the day might be impacting people other than Americans.
We did our best, for a hot minute, but it turned out not to be so easy. The existence of all of the best things were so very intertwined with the worst. Between the cult of Trump and the impact of COVID, loneliness, isolation, fear and collective malaise, cultural exploration began to feel oddly out of touch, at once hugely necessary and incredibly frivolous. The desire to laugh, appreciate, invent, create quickly became overwhelmed by the need to analyze, re-define, break down and try to make just some small degree of sense of a pandemic, the emerging boldness of hidden white supremacy, a global con by the world’s most powerful and naked grifter, an attempted coup and the palpable reduction of American democracy, pride and influence. Those 99Days were more serious and more reflective than we wanted them to be. But our take is on record. As we said when we launched — a time capsule of sorts.
There is now a sense of new opportunity amidst a myriad of challenges. Yet, despite all of our friends asking “Doesn’t it feel great to just finally take a breath?”, the answer is yes — and no.
Exhaling doubt and inhaling hope is a shallow breathing exercise at best, at least for now. Maybe it’s PTSD, maybe it’s pessimism. Maybe it’s just a realistic assessment of the repair job that lies ahead, for the Biden Administration, for the world, for all of us, individually and collectively. A realization that you have to fix the hole in a sinking ship and bail the water before you can even think about navigating to a new direction.
99Days have come and gone, and the publication was an interesting and valuable experiment. But the next 100 days will be equally revealing, if not more so.
So we end on a hopeful note, but restart with a new effort, The Next100, meant to be closer to our original purpose, examining the impact of culture and policy on the politics of this moment and all of the reverse, and making an even deeper dive, with new voices and new insight into the effort to transition this nation that is, hopefully, not back to anyone’s normal, but onward to something fresh and different.
