In the eruption that follows, there are no easy conclusions left. Protest schedules are abandoned, school is cancelled. There is no playgroup. There is no support group for women with postnatal depression and anxiety. The total number of teargas canisters fired reaches 10,000. My partner is teargassed stepping outside his office in the day, to check if the street is safe for his colleagues. Universities become battlegrounds. At the Polytechnic University, schoolchildren are among those caught inside the campus for days when the police seal off the exits.
Emma-Lee Moss, “Parenting here means checking the ingredients of teargas”
I’ve thought a lot about this essay over the past year, and especially over the past few weeks.
Being a parent gives you access to a new kind of geography, one where landmarks like parks, pools and community centers form your civic compass. What happens when these become the backdrop to watching brutality unfold?
