Memorial Day, 2020

This week has been devastating. I don’t know of a single person that is not feeling emotions ranging from fear, anger and rage to disbelief, sorrow, helplessness, and anxiety. Yet, these feelings that a majority of us are feeling will never compare to the feelings that many of our fellow American brothers and sisters feel every day of their lives. It is a privilege to only have these feelings during this historically tragic time. Multiply it by some unmeasurable variable and you may eventually reach the product of the hundreds of years of those feelings that the black community has lived through in our nation’s history.

In the discussion about these events there is not going to be a “they are all…” statement that can be made. Also, As a reminder, “THEY” used in this context can be extremely problematic as it generalizes a very diverse group of people, beliefs, backgrounds, and life experiences into one entity. There are protesters, there are agitators, there are white supremacists, and many other groups of people all involved in the events that are leading to a potential reckoning and extreme stress test of our democracy and whether it can survive the social injustice coronavirus era.

I firmly believe we are at a turning point in our country’s history. Choices need to be made between the path our country is currently on, and the paths of equality and justice.

I am proud of the state I call home, Minnesota. If you had told anyone in this country that a national conversation on racial injustices and police brutality would begin in Minnesota, a state that is roughly 83% white, nobody would have believed you. However, it is amazingly sad that it took the murder of George Floyd to rekindle that conversation. However, the crowds of people from every race, background and religion have been a beautiful and encouraging sight, and give glimmers of hope that we are able to come together, as a community and as human beings. I hope that George would be proud of seeing people coming together and pushing for justice in his memory.

In all the events that have transpired, and that may continue there are people from Minnesota, and within the Twin Cities involved. There are outside (and likely inside) instigators involved. Nowhere in the country or in the greater global society, do we live in a vacuum. The sad state of affairs in our country is that there is still a high prevalence of institutionalized racism. There are also those that want anarchy, and potentially even advocate for another civil war. I would like to believe that no one within the Twin Cities “wants” to see their own city or neighborhoods burn, although there are countless motives for those that are choosing to cause this destruction. I want to be clear that I think that I am an advocate for peace, the right to public protest, and to also make the decisions on our country’s destiny at the ballot box and through other social activism.

"We cannot police our way out of police brutality."

We have long come to a point, however, where if you are not anti-racist, then you are racist. There is no such thing as being neutral in this fight towards justice and equality. Check your conscience and if you are not speaking out primarily about the justice that needs to be served and supporting those that are speaking up, then maybe some self-reflection on which group you want to be associated with is warranted. And remember, that current events are a reaction to and symptom of the larger issue. We cannot police our way out of police brutality.

“Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Photo credit – David La Forest