Okay. Point taken. I see it primarily as a health issue, but I’m not discounting that it is also a race issue, as many things (and perhaps even MOST things?) are. I am well aware that the lens of white privilege fails to see deeply rooted systemic oppressions and abuses, and, even worse, these failings continue to perpetuate through direct actions and oblivious nonchalance—which is equally damaging.

But many of us DO care and DO try to see the wrongs and make things right. We abhor the horrible history to which we are also born, but as its beneficiaries. It’s a sickening conundrum.

I sometimes find it ironic that I’m a photographer who ardently strives to see the larger world through my eyes and my heart, but I’m forced to capture it through yet another narrow lens. I find my voice by focusing and framing and cropping, but sometimes what I leave out may be more important than what stays in. You have reminded me of that. Thank you.

I will keep an open mind. Hopefully, together, somehow, we can find a way to unite our perspectives and heal from the muck of this pandemic and the societal ills that are indelicately embedded within the politics of its solution.

Peace?