KRISTINA WONG  FIRESIDE CHAT 2020

My fellow Americans…

And that includes all of you—whether you are documented or not. For no matter where the vagina you were pushed out of was located at the moment of your birth, we are all in this together. As your newly elected President you have entrusted me to lead us out of this turmoil. With your help, we will prevail…or at least find the drugs and alcohol to make us think we prevailed.

The era of the two-party system of Masks versus Anti-Maskers is over. We are all Mask-eraders now…eh eh, get it? 

Yes we have a long road ahead of us. Many things will change—not all of them for the better.

Your favorite mom and pop neighborhood restaurant? Probably not coming back.

Getting your roots professionally touched up? Now everyone will know your real hair color. 

You’ll never know the feeling of grazing for an hour until you want to puke at an all-you-can-eat buffet again.

Your kids best hope of learning math and science might be a catchy Tik Tok video.

You’ll never swagger again with that middle-class, unobtrusive style because guess what—J.C. Penney’s? Not coming back.

You’ll never know human touch beyond your girlfriend Palmela Handerson.

 (Holds up fist decorated like a girl’s mouth).

And at the rate we’re going, a meteor will be hitting the planet any moment now to take down you and your loved ones.

Because if it’s not this pandemic that kills us it sure as hell will be something else just as cinematically catastrophic. 

But don’t worry. It will get better. 

It’s not just the economic and health systems that are collapsing. It’s the systemic injustice built into this country’s foundations that are finally being revealed. 

Even theater, live arts and cultural events that are meant to be a space of revelation and celebration are revealed as deeply flawed. Predominantly white arts institutions can’t just sit back and take a pause. They have been forced to stop and consider how the structure of their art making, which has been dependent on a mostly white donor and subscription base, has actually held up the system of white supremacy. When theater returns, which might not be until 2022, it will have changed for the better giving voice to those who for too long have gone unheard, both in front of and behind the scenes.

Okay, that’s my uplifting message. Now let’s get down and dirty. 

I’m not here to calm you. If that’s what you want, take a Zoom Yoga class. I’m here to instill more panic and more uncertainty. —the world is falling apart; no, the world’s okay, whatever. 

It’s up to you how you want to see the world—and be part of it. Do you want to passively listen and Netflix and chill? Or do you want to take action and fix the biggest structural problems settler colonialism has to offer? And then go Netflix and chill. With Palmala Handerson!

It’s clear there was never a normal to return to. It’s all been a hamster wheel existence that we kept running because we had to. 

It’s time to stop that wheel and create a new reality. 

It starts NOW—with YOU! Yeah, you.

If the world’s going to end, let’s go down fighting. Let’s go down demanding real justice and not the scraps diversity programming offers. Let’s tell our white friends to stop touting their black besties as reasons they aren’t racist. Let’s get reparations for every descendent of slavery and for everyone who was moved off their native land onto a reservation. Let’s smash capitalism.

I know what you’re thinking. President Kristina Wong, that’s a big ask.

No! All it takes is a simple action. Vote. Not just in the presidential or state elections but every election. And if the options feel like the same old whitewashed thing, then run for office yourself. You can wreak the havoc we need and undo the wreckage caused by the leaders we had.  It’s time that we as a country reflected all of our beautiful diversity. 

Make your voice heard. Because you never know. It’s not as big a leap as you think to go from performance artist to neighborhood council member to President.