Onward, Toward Humanity.
Notes from Minneapolis on the radical act of refusing to look away.
If you’ve clicked to read for clarity, for new ideas, or for analysis, I’m sorry to disappoint. Here are thoughts from my hurting heart.
I left Minneapolis last week for almost a week on a vacation that was planned months ago, back in the before times—before we knew we’d have to dust off the Covid/George Floyd–era hypervigilance and defensive stance against attacks on our beloved city.
There were many things that were wonderful about our trip—ideas for Less Thinking, More Living that I will be happy to share when things don’t feel so dark. But it was hard to leave. Hard to set down the fear that my absence meant I abandoned my school community, my neighbors, left my kids to experience things I wasn’t able to explain.
It’s not much of a comfort to realize I’m not sure how to explain it now that I’m back either.
Sadness feels like a constant accessory; shock at the continued brutality shown toward Minneapolitans feels like a rock in my pocket; hopelessness, a shawl around my shoulders.
Becoming a mother made me a follower of the church of humanity. When a new life is placed on your chest and your job is to learn their every expression, noise, and personality quirk, you realize how magical it is that each of us is born.
And more importantly, that each of us is born with an interior light—deserving of love and opportunity, dignity and respect.
Being a psychologist converted me to a disciple of humanity, too. Spending hundreds of hours sitting in a small, cozy room with individual clients will radicalize you. The slow and sometimes arduous process of gaining someone’s trust so they can share their pain, their hopes, dreams, and fears is holy to me.
I am the lucky recipient of an education in the myriad manifestations of the entirety of the human experience—the horrors inflicted by and upon us, and the remarkable resilience of the human spirit.
This is why what’s happening in Minneapolis, in my absolute immediate surroundings, feels so offensive to my spirit. To my soul.
People—children—are being treated without dignity, without respect, and those carrying out this harm are being encouraged by those in power to leave their own humanity behind, too.
I refuse to talk about which direction the wheels were turned.
I will not debate immigration policy right now.
I only want to speak about the wildly radical perspective that human dignity is non-negotiable.
Even for those who hide their faces—and their humanity—behind masks of masculinity. They, too, were placed on their mother’s chest, deserving of love and opportunity, dignity and respect.
Sometimes someone’s humanity is worn brightly, a booster-button pronouncement pinned to their lapel. Sometimes we need to unearth it, straining to see the dim hue of their glowing inner light, covered by their attempts to feel powerful and strong.
Sometimes we must bare our own humanness—declaring our pain and our fear—in order to stay close to what it means to be a person in this world, absorbing all the beauty and all the suffering rather than closing ourselves off to it all.
The waves of emotion crash on my shores all day long. I attempt to explain why our kitchen is filled with groceries that will go to others. I witness the fierce enthusiasm of the organizers I’m handing them off to, surrounded by the beauty of dozens of gallons of milk, the sea of white reflecting the polar sparkles of the January sun.
And then there is the image of a small boy, his sweet brown cheeks just under the flaps of his blue winter hat, confused about why those men are taking him away.
Onward, toward humanity.
