HOW LONELY SITS OUR CITY…

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