From masks to mixtinction: Covid's impact on Africanization
I'm sure many of you are as weary of this topic as I am, but upon reflecting a bit on the whole Covid episode, I suspect that it offers some worthwhile insights relevant to the theme of this blog. Generally speaking, Covid was obviously a bad time for interracialism; if you're encouraged to stay inside instead of exploring your sexual curiosities at Club Mandingo, not much is going to happen on that front. Clearly our glorious multicultural project was slowed down quite a bit by lockdowns.
However, it was fascinating to observe how Covid restrictions, despite or maybe because of the lifestyle sacrifices they entailed, weren't treated as an unavoidable nuisance like, say, your annual tax filing, but more as a thing to participate in. There were mask and vaccine selfies, social media campaigns, socially distanced Zoom parties; for many people, it apparently didn't feel like a burden imposed on them (even though it was), but a cause they could and did join.
Some of this was surely motivated by the desire to avoid Covid, but it doesn't explain the general enthusiasm behind it. I've touched on this a few times before, but today's nominally white societies are in a bit of a spiritual lull; they're rapidly aging, they procure much of their pop culture from non-white sources and, most importantly, they lack a clear goal or direction. Covid was able to temporarily fix that: now there was a common goal to rally behind and clearly people were touched by that.
The antiseptic nature of Covid containment gave this kind of purpose an expiration date though. You can't make virus avoidance the basis of your life forever; you'll go nuts. However, we can imagine other social purposes and goals that don't suffer from this shortcoming. Rather than sap your energy, they add to it and are self-sustaining by virtue of giving you pleasure and satisfaction. You know what I'm getting at.
This comparison isn't even particularly far off since, as you will remember, Covid containment enthusiasm was disrupted by BLM protests in summer 2020 which had a similar cause-like character capable of rallying people behind them, but were much more energetic, emotional and physical. And they, too, produced some fascinating cultural and behavioral changes. Kneeling in front of Black people and apologizing for your white privilege turned from a submissive sexual gesture on interracial blogs into something people just did when prompted. I wonder what that would've eventually turned into if it hadn't been eclipsed by more Covid in late 2020.
It's noteworthy though that BLM as a movement had originated much earlier than summer 2020, but its previous activism didn't elicit nearly the same awe-inspiring response. I suspect that our collective Covid action really did stir something in people and the desire for purpose and community transformation it produced won't totally go away and instead seek new outlets in the future. Why not run with that?
So far, Africanization has been more of a passive process driven by other social developments that people didn't usually think about too much, but simply accepted as inevitable, like migration and differential birth rates, globalization and increased racial equality. My whole blog was basically about describing this largely unacknowledged process and imagining where it might lead. In the right context though, it could well become something actively desirable for purpose seekers to unite behind.
Pure eroticism probably wouldn't be enough to rally them (though the sex appeal of interracial mixtinction does make for some inspirational aesthetics), but that's no problem, there are enough other narrative elements to choose from here. Accepting substantial African immigration as a way to amend problems related to climate change and demographic aging in Western countries would surely qualify as a just and important cause; it would create enough logistical issues to count as a challenge to overcome; and in the end, it holds the promise of a more vibrant, more equitable and also by chance sexier world for everyone. You can't tell me that's not the perfect cause to rally behind if you're looking for one.
In the past, my stance on this blog was that things simply have to continue on their trajectory for substantial ambi-racial changes to eventually manifest, and that's still true, but now that many people have apparently acquired a taste for larger meaning, it's giving me some daydreams. Spiritual Africanization should totally be the next thing.
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