Surprise! Weirdo shut-in will miss the pandemic

The latest column from our (non-)roving correspondent on all things intersecting law, race, and candy:

I’ve said, here and elsewhere, that one of the principal benefits of the pandemic is how I’ve been able to exclude racism and whiteness generally from my day-to-day life. 

 There's no denying that the pandemic has severely curtailed nearly everyone's interactions with other humans, but can you really say the pandemic has reduced racism in your life if your "job" and generally sedentary lifestyle never require you to leave the home anyway?

White people haven’t improved; I’ve just been able to limit my exposure to them. I’ve turned my house into Wakanda: a technically advanced, globally isolated home base from which I can pick and choose when and how often to interact with white people.

 Like a lot of kids transfixed by the film Black Panther, Elie enjoys pretending to be the ruler of a fictional kingdom. But it's not clear how "white people" pre-pandemic were keeping him from arranging his action figures on the rim of the tub during bath time. Oh, the adventures he's had during lockdown!

Still, we can all agree the pandemic hasn't all been positive. But Elie doesn't mention the fact that black and Latino people have been dying of Covid at twice the rate of white people. Why should Elie talk about that when the pandemic has exacted even greater inequities? Like the time he was sitting in a car outside the CVS while his wife ventured inside to buy Easter candy and he saw an elderly white woman ask a black teenager if the store was administering Covid vaccinations -- but his rhetorical skills had deteriorated such that he couldn't think of anything devastating to say to put the elderly woman in her place.

Pre-Covid, I’d have been ready with some witticism which both answered the lady’s question and made clear that I disapproved of her haranguing a young person. But I’ve been living in my white-free castle for a year.

Indeed. When your "white-free castle" is rarely "White Castle-free," it tends to make you slow on the draw.

 And then I was left with the other side effect of racism that people don’t always see: the shame. Did I fail to show solidarity with this young Black stranger?

 So, his failure to "show solidarity" with his fellow black person is white people's fault. Which would have to mean that Elie needs white people to be racist so that he can always, as he claims, "be ready with some witticism" to remind them that they are racist.

 Such is the toll the lockdown has taken on our cognitive abilities. Time for it to end.