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“Postscript: Contempt as a Virus” reminded me of a tenet of Critical Race Theory. This tenet explains that racial equality cannot be achieved if white people do not want to contribute to the change. I’ll rephrase this idea in the context of the chapter: people know that they have the virus, but refuse to get tested. That is to say, people know that they have racism ingrained in them, but they refuse to confront it. Smith touches on this idea, where people think that “‘blacking out’ their social media, reading all-black books, and ‘educating’ themselves on black issues” is enough to expel the virus from them (80). Doing such will achieve very little; these are all self-serving actions, committed for the purpose of feeling like a “good person.” In addition, Smith’s note that the “virus infects not only individuals but entire power structures” reminded me of Trinity (82). Trinity is an institution founded on oppression; contempt has long affected it. The virus has hardly weakened at Trinity, instead manifesting itself as different variants. I think of the role technology plays in the spread of the virus. The Instagram account, @whiteattrin, is one example of technological contempt. More recent crimes of contempt, such as a white student taping a banana peel to a black student’s door, exemplify Trinity’s contempt. Echoing “A Provocation at the Park,” such crimes are not “expressions of ‘ideologies,’” but of centuries of racism (68). “Hate” is too shallow of a word to encapsulate these injustices. Can Trinity ever “reach some kind of herd immunity?” (82). Or is the institution too unwilling to change?

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I interpreted “intimations” as synonymous with “signs.” More specially, I thought that “intimations” signified the warning signs for both COVID and contempt. Both diseases are pertinent to each essay, intersecting with one another. As COVID arises, so do horrific acts of contempt, like the murder of George Floyd and white supremacists storming the Capitol. The last essay led me to this definition, as Smith parallels COVID to contempt. All of her essays relate to one or the other (or for the most part, both of them); here, Smith summarizes the main points of her writing.

I struggled to understand the cover. To me, the parallel lines reflect the previously-mentioned parallel between COVID and contempt. These two diseases sit before a black void-like wall, signifying the unknown. As Smith describes, the future for both looks bleak. Smith voices her concern that we will never “reach some kind of herd immunity” (82). While this might be a bit of a stretch to say, the black wall could represent the uncertain, empty path to the future.

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One of the most memorable lines, to me, was from the essay "Postscript: Contempt as a Virus" that stated, "You do not represent capital, and therefore you do not represent power" (44). Here references the object of contempt and racism falling to a level below humanity, where individuals are of "no consequence" (44). It struck me because as terrible as an effect these concepts can have on power structures and human interaction, its harm can be inadvertent yet blatantly dehumanizing. The bluntness of these lines struck me, as they spoke to a skewed sense of importance our society puts on money as opposed to actual care for humans and our communities. 

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One of the most memorable lines, to me, was from the essay "Postscript: Contempt as a Virus" that stated, "You do not represent capital, and therefore you do not represent power" (44). Here references the object of contempt and racism falling to a level below humanity, where individuals are of "no consequence" (44). It struck me because as terrible as an effect these concepts can have on power structures and human interaction, its harm can be inadvertent yet blatantly dehumanizing. The bluntness of these lines struck me, as they spoke to a skewed sense of importance our society puts on money as opposed to actual care for humans and our communities. 

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Yes--and this starts when people become valued solely based on the labor they can perform--they are not equal nor are they fully human.

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The essays I focused on greatly emphasized community and togetherness; “A Woman with a Little Dog,” “A Hovering Young Man,” and “An Elder at the 98 Bus Stop” all contained elements of unity. It made me think of the underlying unification that occurred in result of the pandemic, where on a very basic level, individuals all experienced the same lockdowns and deadly virus as one another and formed select bonds and ways to stay connected in result of this. Although, most of the other essays that I was not assigned highlighted the contrasts and divisions of the pandemic as opposed to the unification: highlighting injustices, social and racial, that were exacerbated by the pandemic, community divisions, and existing power structures.

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The essays I focused on greatly emphasized community and togetherness; “A Woman with a Little Dog,” “A Hovering Young Man,” and “An Elder at the 98 Bus Stop” all contained elements of unity. It made me think of the underlying unification that occurred in result of the pandemic, where on a very basic level, individuals all experienced the same lockdowns and deadly virus as one another and formed select bonds and ways to stay connected in result of this. Although, most of the other essays that I was not assigned highlighted the contrasts and divisions of the pandemic as opposed to the unification: highlighting injustices, social and racial, that were exacerbated by the pandemic, community divisions, and existing power structures.

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There were certain pop-culture terms that I did not quite understand before looking into them. For instance, in "A Hovering Young Man," Smith references "Atari joysticks" and Marty McFly "riding a pink flying skateboard over a municipal pond" that I did not understand. I was able to follow the events that occurred and followed the overall stories, but some references like these took a quick Google search to understand.

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I most identified with select aspects of Smith's "Peonies" piece where she references a battle with her own internalized misogyny and in turn alludes to subjecting herself to the male gaze and traditional gender roles. I most related to the line, "What I didn’t like was what I thought it signified: that I was tied to my

“nature,” to my animal body—to the whole simian realm of instinct—and far more elementally so than, say, my brothers" (9). I felt this struggle with body image and faltering femininity, where your body feels like its own separate entity; Smith then discovers herself through writing and authorship, but this is something that I see myself still struggle with too (locating a true sense of 'me' within myself).

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As I stated in my last response, I am a white woman who has not and will not ever endure what Smith speaks on. That being said, I was unfamiliar with the experiences and feelings Smith describes. For example, Smith’s questions of racial identity and alienation are none that I could ever know (“Do you feel ever more distant from the world? Or has the world, in its new extremity, finally come to you?”, page 69). One part of the same essay I was confused on was, “No, the killer took a base urge—hate—and robbed it in clichés” (69). What are the cliches Smith refers to? Are these cliches just killing, or trying to support their horrific acts through “ideologies”? 

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As I stated in my last response, I am a white woman who has not and will not ever endure what Smith speaks on. That being said, I was unfamiliar with the experiences and feelings Smith describes. For example, Smith’s questions of racial identity and alienation are none that I could ever know (“Do you feel ever more distant from the world? Or has the world, in its new extremity, finally come to you?”, page 69). One part of the same essay I was confused on was, “No, the killer took a base urge—hate—and robbed it in clichés” (69). What are the cliches Smith refers to? Are these cliches just killing, or trying to support their horrific acts through “ideologies”? 

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I think of intimate /intimacy – like murmurs to the self; I viewed the cover as an illusion of pathways, or the choice of differently-imagined pathways; it is also black and white with the lines never blending into a gray but staying each within certain proportions. Are these color lines?

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I loved Peonies, especially the way that it contemplates existence.  It made me think of how often I contemplate existence in my own life (every day) and I was grateful to hear it described by another person. I like that she finds choice, "...in my story they are peonies."

Also the concept that all writers are either liars or perhaps truth-tellers of the highest form...

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Her description of Love as being at the core of mostly all things was in fact very realistic.  Her descriptions are able to maintain an objective realism even as they discuss romantic concepts.  She has mastered self-restraint in order to build clarity.  I agree with her – that love is the only graft of meaning onto the world.  She achieved this in a fresh way, in which it made complete sense without sounding cliché.  She has experienced forms of absolute love in her own life to be able to write about it this objectively.

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Something about the way America was thrust into a system by the pandemic, which mirrors the experience of being a black woman in America and the ongoing plight that has already been lived out in traumatic ways.  The way that the virus  is  a panic only to those whom have never experienced pressure on the comfort of their own lives.

Also, in feeling comfort when the two women of color give their opinions in public – making this moment come into dialogue with ones' own thoughts – and her feelings of joy from it

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The aspects of London. I am not as familiar with the ways London has dealt with the pandemic – or with race/gender - politically.

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-America’s insistence on its own ideals in comparison to others.
-The reflections on writers/writing/what it “means” to “write.”
-The weekly interaction with the nail salon and the description of experiences there; noticing the people we frequently pass in our lives and how constrained those interactions are.  And how they can mean so much more when written about and examined reflectively. Who "knows" us best?
- The forward movement of a schedule and the workforce before COVID.
-The mental impacts of being in lockdown for even the seemingly "safe" groupings of people i.e. couples, families with children, artists, etc... those that we think would be fine, but to see how the stress plays out in differently for each unique set of circumstances.

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I would say that the author's message is of universality, community, and understanding. Therefore, Smith's message relates not solely to the Black woman but every community. She does emphasize the Black community, though, in drawing parallels between the coronavirus pandemic and racism, speaking to structural racism, and commending and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, of which all Black women are highly impacted.

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Intimations refers to subtle hint or signs. I believe that this title is best represented in the first essay, Peonies, because we can see the small signs of femininity and womanhood interwoven with the beginnings of the pandemic, in her other essays. Intimations also refers to "the action of making something known in an indirect way," which I believe Smith also addresses throughout her book.

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The essay, “A Man With Strong Hands,” made me focus on human connection in a known environment. I moved to Connecticut in February of 2020 and was working at Trinity for nineteen days before COVID shut everything down on campus.

Reading about her connection, however inconsequential, with the massuese at a bustling location she sees every day in NYC made me feel a bit disconnected from my own life, lacking any substantive links with Hartford at the time. Knowing how Zadie Smith, in her escape back to London, lost a more tangible connection to a home life, and it feels as if those feelings come just after the essay ends.

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The two pieces that I read were short bursts of stories, one that referred to other stories that Smith had previously written, and one that contemplated the humanness of pleasant conversation and also referenced Smith's own privilege.

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One memorable aspect of "A Character in a Wheelchair in the Vestibule," that I thought was memorable was her contrasting ideas of survival. She mentions that in an apocalypse scenario, she would not have the will to survive and basically lay down in a field and allow herself to be gunned down. However, confronted with this real-life apocalypse scenario, she chose to flee out of a hot spot. She also mocks a man who chose to do just that--stay in one place while the world went crazy.

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“And I make good use of my time there, if the purpose of time is to fill it always with activity, never to just be in it, nor ever to acknowledge its fundamental independence from your conceptions of it," is a line from, "A Man With Strong Hands."

With the entire world forced to lose time during the pandemic, the retrospective thought of actively not using time in the most effective manner is horrifying. In her next essay, “A Character in a Wheelchair,” Smith pretty flippantly admits to being ready to die should anything go catastrophically wrong in the world, and that coupled with the idea of not maximizing your time with things that matter paint an unflattering picture of what I do not want my own life to become.

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I found that often Smith would address her own privilege in her writing as a black woman. She frequently spoke about the closeness she felt to other women of color, such as in the Subway referencing "iPad kids," yet I also felt that due to her status and wealth she did feel a bit removed. She is connected with her womanhood, although at many points she also distances herself, such as in "The Man with the Strong Hands" where she renounces things that "women do."

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The most relatable essay for me was "Something to Do." During the pandemic, I had no classes, no work, and nothing really to be stressed about. I was living in this place of privilege where I could prioritize my health and stay inside. And while I was inside I found myself simply "filling the time." I also really related to her ideas of life being just "serving time" without love and companionship. This resonated with me because the times that I have felt most like I am "serving time" have been when I feel alone, and when I am surrounded by love I feel like that time is worth something.

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The ending of the essay, "A Character in a Wheelchair" was difficult for me to decipher. The text vacillates between her not caring if the world was ending, instead passively accepting her death, to the mass flight from New York, to her imagined character decrying the fear over the virus.

After a few readings, I feel as if she is fighting back against her own apathy by seeing her character espouse similar thoughts to her own, thus showcasing the ridiculousness of her earlier indifference. This was a tough one for me to nail down regarding Smith’s intentions.

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After reading Zadie Smith’s Intimations, I believe the title correlates well with Smith’s writing style – offering “suggestions” that help guide the reader to answer/grasp some of the points driven through. I found comfort in being able to follow the language, and discomfort when I realized the depth of Smith’s statements. For example, in “A Provocation in The Park,” Smith writes, “I know, for example, that I am meant to see very clearly that the man who mowed people down in a van on the West Side was an ideological terrorist while the man who mowed people down at the Las Vegas country music festival was ‘crazy.’” (67). Without introducing race to the conversation, race is present here – the “crazy man” in Las Vegas was classified as such due to his white complexion. That is a “suggestion” I noticed which connects back to the title, Intimations – the “suggestion” is there and it’s up to the reader to grasp it.

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The essays I focused on made me think of hate and hating oneself for accepting the presence of hate. In “A Provocation in The Park,” there was a section on “madness” that resonated with me. I believe we have all navigated (and are still navigating) our collective sense of the “new normal” we call today. There were moments when COVID-19 first began, for example, where I felt the “madness” Smith references – but the essay touched deeper than just the surface. Smith writes, “…I find myself wondering what the effect is on those who never in the first place experienced a smooth relation between the phenomena of the world and their own minds. Who have always felt an explanatory gap.” (70). On a more personal note, I am conscious of the disconnect between my “bubble” and the world, where I continue to fail to understand the complexity of hate (not only in our nation, but also on our planet). I feel “mad” because I want to understand and contribute to impactful change – no longer words of reassurance, but words of action.

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One of the most memorable lines reads, “Why would they still––even now, even in the bluest states in America––only consider a neighborhood worthy of their presence when its percentage of black residents falls low enough that they can feel confident in the impossibility of infection? This mentality looks over the fence and sees a plague people: plagued by poverty, first and foremost…my child will catch their virus.” (79). I feel displaced by the use of infection, as it carries such heavy forms of hate and disgust – I genuinely dislike and cannot comprehend the “why” behind referencing a race as such. This passage stuck with me because it was the first time I had followed along so closely, to such smooth-flowing language, that I realized the virus being discussed wasn’t one that originated from a cough or a sneeze…it originated from flat-out hate.

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If someone were to ask me how the essays engage with Black women’s experiences and lives, I would say that Smith incorporates a sense of communal understanding of difference in her pieces. What I mean by this is there is a presence of “listening” that bleeds through the pages – not just hearing someone but also understanding them. One section that sparked this tangent reads, “By comparing your relative privilege with that of others you may be able to modify both your world and the worlds outside of your world––if the will is there to do it.” (34). The deep-rooted understanding of “will” makes me think of strength and, throughout every piece, there are moments where strength presents itself and is understood.

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I was really intrigued by the essay, “A Hovering Young Man,” and I have yet to fully understand the underlying meaning of the essay as a whole. I think I grasped the surface level, but I believe this section strongly connects to the title of the book – I just need to figure out that “how,” and I’m looking forward to hearing what some of my peers have to say on “A Hovering Young Man.”

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The most familiar part of the book, unfortunately, was the day-to-day constantly adjusting mindset to battle COVID-19. For a while my family was quite extreme with the FAMILY REGULATIONS (nobody in the house, no seeing friends, wipe down the gas pump, and use Purell so much that it becomes an artificial layer of skin). I am still adjusting and navigating – this virus isn’t going away anytime soon.

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Bright light seeps into a serpentine corridor, causing white strips (bars perhaps, that mimic a cage) to separate the viewer from a tall doorway shrouded in darkness. To get to the other end of the hall, the viewer must pace through the white bars. Their shadow will be cast on the walls, so they become caged. Yet, the cage is not tangible. The light seeping in cascades against the right side of the vertical rectangle of darkness ahead. To get to the darkness, which is where I assume the viewer aims to go, s/he must enshroud her/himself in the cage. I think the cover represents slices of "intimations;" hints of light. Like "Incidents of a Slave Girl," we don't get the whole story of each of the stories Smith shares. We get the necessary slices we need in order to interpret the deeper truth of what Smith is harking to in each passage.

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"Contempt as a Virus" struck a cord in my past and present. In my past, I found myself holding contempt for the descendants of patient zero. I would dehumanize them and ridicule them because it was (and is, even though I no longer do so in spite) easy to do so on Black Twitter and Instagram. I hated knowing that the Black and Brown communities have howled the ingredients to the vaccine, only to be met with silence or pity or false promises. This passage made me think of Paulo Freire, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed." It is up to the oppressed to free the oppressor, who is also constricted by the process of oppression. BUT the oppressor is cozy, even s/he who is aware of her/his privilege and the fact that her/his wealth/success/bounty was/is possible due to the back of non-white recipients of oppression. Frankly, I am tired of educating the oppressor. I am tired of requesting a seat at the table and of not having the resources (currently) to make my own table.

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"White college kids would not smoke weed in their dorms while their black peers caught mandatory sentences for selling it to them." To be blunt, it is frustrating to be from a nation where white people can profit off of marijuana in empirical ways, whereas non-white people have been systematically demonized and imprisoned for doing exactly what white peers are doing. How do I explain to my white peers the flame of frustration that this forms within me? Is it effective for me to do so? Is it my job to educate? To my last question, of course it is. But I'm far from happy about it. So, I repatriate temporarily to Brazil once a year. However, I can't run from this truth because it is global. So, I use my voice to constantly remind white people to speak up because they will be heard and listened to and their word will be valued more than mine is in most institutions and all police departments.

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"Peonies" wonderfully universalizes the women's experience. And, like all her passages, hints to the unsaid. I read this passage thinking of the disproportionate deaths experienced by Black mothers in hospitals across the USA, in comparison to white mothers. I also thought of my privileges as a man. Biologically, even though I wish I could birth my child(ren), I do not have to endure the trials Black women face when growing a baby. Performatively, even though I am effeminate, my body does not signify nature as does a woman's. There is an exotifying tone to this notion that I believe Smith was hinting to. There is also a de-womanizing tone to the notion of woman not wanting to procreate meaning she is undergoing internalized misogyny. Smith challenges this beautifully. "Submission and resistance have no predetermined shape." (p.10) So, she writes; creates; controls.

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It was honestly a bit difficult for me to accept that suffering is not relative, that it is absolute. In my past, I have compared the suffering of individuals. Yet, I know now (and the passage referring to the young woman who committed suicide due to loneliness helped me re-affirm my stance) that one's suffering is relative to their own past and NOT the life of another.

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"Contempt as a Virus" helped me put language to sadness, mad-ness, madness, and loneliness I have felt as a light-skinned Black Boricua femme man who has never fit perfectly into any of his identities. Well, except for being Gay. I am very that. Smith helped me release internalized pain that I held onto because I didn't have the words to explain why I was holding contempt for the communities who othered me: white people, Black masculine men, Boricuas who speak perfect Spanish, Gay men seeking masculine energy, women who define my assertiveness as "aggressive, toxic masculinity," and more. Did I victimize myself in my encounters with them? Did I stay true to the intersectionality of my identities? Did I create antagonists where there were none? These questions burdened me. Today, I don't victimize myself; I stand in the truth of all the I am; I listen to understand another's perspective. I may be labeled as aggressive, or not [fill in the blank] enough, but I choose to no longer feel shame for not being what another thinks I should be. My passion and my body are both inherently valid.