How lonely
sits our city…
That was
all I wrote on my Face Book page this morning.
It follows after the first verse of Lamentations: “How lonely sits the
city that was once full of people”.
Our city of
Minneapolis is full of rage, violence, fear, anger, hatred and deep, deep
sorrow. At some moments, it doesn’t feel
as if the city can hold it all.
I want to
reach out my arms and hug, but we are physical distancing.
I want to
reach out my hands and heal, but we still haven’t completely opened the wound.
If you want moral clarity, this is what I got:
George Floyd was murdered by the police.
George Floyd was murdered by the police.
One policeman knelt on his neck while three policemen watched and
did nothing while George Floyd was gasping for breath and crying out for help.
The anger and frustration of the African American community, and
other people of color is not going away, it is justified and it demands justice
and compassion. Those who have endured
the lynching of its people over decades, over centuries—by a system that
devalues people of color, in order to maintain a system that privileges white
people (and not all of them) and the rich—they deserve justice. Reconciliation and healing are not possible
without it.
That’s what
I have for moral clarity right now.
Other
things are not so black and white (forgive the play on words)
The neighborhood
that was so severely damaged last night is my neighborhood. It is the most diverse neighborhood in the
city, one that has suffered under police brutality and poverty, and now have
been slapped in the face by destruction of its food supply, economic base and
safety.
I
understand that frustration can lead to rage and desperation can lead to
violence. All violence leads to more
violence. That doesn’t mean that all
violence is equal. The spark for this
terrible fire was the police murder, in plain daylight of a man who allegedly
tried to pass a forged $20 bill. We may
never be able to pinpoint the exact moment that the violence began in the
street; but the police department made a decision before a PEACEFUL march that
they were going to engage it with riot gear, chemical weapons and rubber
bullets. As far as I can tell, no
attempt was made by the police to negotiate or deescalate. As usual, the people
our police are called to serve and protect were seen simply as a threat.
But the
looting, torching of buildings, gunshots and acts of physical violence against
others is not justified.
Some will
say—and have said already, “but you can’t equate torching of a store or looting
as the same as the murder of an unarmed black man.” I am not equating them. But one can be horrified and enraged at
police murder and be horrified and enraged at looting and arson.
“But they
only torched big corporations’ stores,” some say. Not true.
Many of the stores that were damaged were minority owned, many built by
immigrants, some of whom do not have enough insurance to cover the loss. And
who worked at the Wendy’s, the Target, the Cub Foods? Mostly people of color, who have lost their
jobs. Many of them do not qualify for
unemployment or any government help. How
does that help the cause of justice?
“People
should obey the police.” But the police
are the ones who take an oath to protect and serve the people, not the other
way around. We taught our children to
obey and respect civil authorities, partly so they would survive and because it
is right to do so. But we also taught
them to question civil authorities when they are destructive of human beings.
One irony
of last night was that the police shot rubber bullets from the rooftops on
mostly peaceful protestors and did nothing to stop the looting and arson.
Another
irony is that it’s becoming clear that some of the instigators of violence came
prepared to do that, and had nothing to do with the protest.
A third
irony: we’ve fought for years to combat gang and individual graffiti in our
neighborhood, one of the hardest hit by vandalism. It started to creep back this last year. On building after building today, you can see
“Fuck the Cops” alongside newly painted gang tags. Put that in your progressive or conservative
pipe and smoke it.
I will
protest today and tomorrow. I helped clean
up broken glass and looted goods this morning.
I will pray for justice and I will work for it, but I must confess I am
tired and sad and angry and feeling a loneliness though I am surrounded by
people who love and who are putting their lives on the line.
This is a
portion of a post this morning from a friend, Kari Slade:
“I wish for us all the ability
to light up like the skies of Minneapolis last night.
With a fire for justice and the
ability to see that this
was the trauma and pain of
Racism ignored for far too long.”
Kari leads
the Health Careers Program at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, where both our
daughters graduated. We have been
working with her and her students on a public art project that was suspended by
the pandemic. A major theme of that work
was using art as a way to understand and heal from trauma—individual, communal,
generational. It saddens me that we won’t
be able to complete this project this school year. It saddens me more that the students in her
program have a lot more trauma to work with going forward.
Be
justice. Be beauty. Be lonely, but be lonely together.
Patrick
