COVID SPRING: Jamal, African American Chicago Resident

Excerpt from "COVIDsteria: An Oral History of America's Great Reset" - see https://covidsteria.substack.com/p/covidsteria-table-of-contents

The chaos of the Great Die-Off, the purges, and COVID Spring devastated much of Chicago and led to a mass exodus of traumatized survivors. Many fled to surrounding counties, states, or further afield to Florida or Texas. Most of Chicago was then cordoned off from the rest of Illinois in the same manner that West Berlin was walled-off from East Germany or the Palestinian areas of the West Bank along with Gaza are sealed-off from Israel. 

I entered what was left of Chicago through the so-called “Checkpoint Whitey” to meet my local escorts into the city. I then interviewed Jamal – whose life has changed dramatically and mostly for the better since the COVIDsteria years…

I was born in South Side, Chicago. It’s what everyone calls the hood! I never knew my daddy. And my momma never talked about him at all. Well, I am not even sure if she knew who my daddy was. But that didn’t matter much. I could always rely on my momma to take good care of me – her baby boy Jamal!

Or at least take care of me as best she could bein’ we was poor black folks livin’ in the hood. Coz you see, life in the hood for black folks was always rough. Especially with all the bird shit’s crazy rules and his pigs that enforced ‘em!

But that didn’t matter. I had my momma lookin’ out for me and keepin’ me out of serious trouble. [He coughs.]

How did the COVIDsteria pandemic impact you and life in your South Side neighborhood?

When I first heard about that COVIDsteria pandemic, I didn’t think much about it. That's coz I lived on the South Side where I didn’t have time to worry about gettin’ no COVIDsteria virus. I was too busy tryin' to avoid gettin’ shot! 

On the South Side, everyone was always shootin’ at each other day and night! And when I wasn’t dodgin’ bullets from the other brothers tryin’ to kill me or each other, then I had to worry about the pigs shootin’ me! Or beatin' the shit out of me! Or purposely kneelin' on my neck until I couldn’t breathe! Or sendin' my ass to jail on some shit-ass drug or petty theft charge! [He coughs again and starts breathing heavily.]

But I started noticin' somethin’ real strange when I went downtown on the “L” to hang out with the brothers. All ‘em white folks, the kind we in the hood refer to as young uppity hip bird shits, were actin’ stranger than usual! 

I mean, bein’ a young black man from the hood, I was used to havin’ all ‘em bird shits stayin' well clear of me like I had Ebola or the Black Death or somethin’! But now ‘em bird shits and especially the young uppity hip bird shits wouldn’t even go near each other! It was as if everyone was a young black man from the hood or had Ebola! I thought that was some pretty weird-ass shit! [He blows his nose.]

So I said to my momma when I got home, “Why is all ’em bird shits and especially the young uppity hip bird shits, actin’ mighty strange? And why they all walkin’ around with their faces covered like they gonna rob a liquor store or somethin’?”

“Jamal, you dumb ass, haven’t you heard?” my momma snapped back at me. “All ‘em honkies are doin’ their social distancin’ coz there’s a virus they call COVIDsteria goin’ round. Although the President keeps callin’ it the ‘China Flu’ or ‘Kung Flu!’ or somethin’ racist! The honky media says this COVIDsteria virus is like an airborne Ebola and a Black Death with some Spanish flu mixed in that’s gonna require a great reset to contain! They also says there are no treatments for it until you need a hospital ventilator!”

I guess I was too busy smokin’ pot, hangin’ out with the brothers, and dodgin’ bullets to have much time to pay attention to the bird shit’s media! So I still didn’t think much of that COVIDsteria virus. 

Then the bird shit’s gubment decided everyone needed to be locked down. It was like we had all done somethin’ really bad-ass and now everyone had to go to jail or be collectively punished! And they even told all the businesses in the bird shit parts of town to shut down! That shocked all of us black folks livin’ in the hood! I mean, they never close businesses in the bird shit areas unless we black folks was havin’ a bigger than usual riot!

But in our hood, there weren’t many businesses to shut down. There were just some fast food places, liquor stores, and abortion clinics. And they all stayed open coz the bird shit’s gubment said those were essential businesses! 

And we always had to take a bus or the “L” over to a bird shit's neighborhood if we wanted to shop at one of those fancy places the young uppity hip bird shits call a supermarket. We also had to do the same if we wanted to eat somethin’ other than fast food. So life in the hood pretty much stayed the same for us poor black folks.