Kim McLarin

Community is deeply lacking in the United States; like our savage form of capitalism, our cult of individualism long ago became monstrous, metastasizing into a cancer of selfishness. Toni Morrison once pointed out how even the words used by politicians and marketers have pushed this progression toward me-ism: “The complexity of the so-called individual that’s been praised for decades in America somehow has narrowed itself to the ‘me’. When I was a young girl we were called citizens — American citizens. We were second-class citizens, but that was the word. In the ’50s and ’60s they started calling us consumers. So we did — consume. Now they don’t use those words any more — it’s the American taxpayer, and those are different attitudes.”

Throwing a party is my way of reminding the people in my circles that we are in this thing together, and that even in the midst of crisis, there is room for simple, human joy.
-Kim McLarin

Article