Here's what the merchants of hate and fear will never understand
Care, unlike terror, is a renewable resource
Renee Nicole Good was murdered for being a neighbor. The masked man who killed her is employed by an administration that is counting, for its survival, on us not being neighborly. They hope that we grow more fearful— both of them and each other. They hope that we will believe the lie that some of us deserve dignity, care and safety and that others don’t. They hope that we either cheer on their terror or keep our heads down.
When Renee Nicole Good was murdered, she wasn’t keeping her head down. She was trying to keep her neighbors safe. There were masked men running around her city, both products of and stewards of a narrative that Minneapolis or any other place would be better off with gated doors and closed hearts. That’s why she came out to the streets today. And that’s why she was killed.
After Renee Nicole Good was murdered, her assailant’s boss called her a domestic terrorist. A hack rhetorical move, a favorite of authoritarians everywhere, but a telling one. When you call somebody a terrorist, what you’re saying, in essence, is that they have disrupted something you hold sacred. For most of us, that’s peace and safety. For the masked man and his bosses, though, it’s the lie that we are neither connected to nor responsible for each other. That’s the religion they’ve chosen. That’s what they want us all to believe. And so yes, they are lying about Renee Nicole Good, but they are telling the truth about themselves.
I wish I could assure you that this will be the last time our hearts break like this, but I can’t make that guarantee. Ours has always been a country where safety and security is conditional, and Lord knows that the current regime will only grow more desperate. Muscles will be flexed, recklessly and tragically. I hope I am wrong, but I fear that we will mourn together again.
But there’s that word. Together. Because here’s what the masked men and their bosses can’t see. Our hearts don’t actually shrivel up each time we are asked to metabolize a new act of terror. They beat harder. They grow outward. They propel us, both forward and towards each other.
Renee Nicole Good’s heart beat for her neighbors. And whatever sound a nation of neighbors’ hearts are making right now, whether our thumps sound more like agonized wails or yelps of rage, there is no imaginable world in which we grow quieter.
When we ache, we care. When we rage, we care. When we mourn, we care.
We care in the streets. We care when we raise hell in corridors of power. We care when the cameras are off, and we remember that there are a million ways to love and keep one another safe.
Our care will sound like a protest chant, feel like an embrace, and taste like a potluck. It will be brave, in both the calamitous and quiet moments, because taking a risk on each other, in every possible way, is the most naked, vulnerable and therefore bravest thing human beings can do.
Our care will be frequently clumsy and misguided. We will continue to make mistakes and get on each other’s nerves. Our meetings will drag on too long. We will have to pass batons, because some actions will be safer for some of us than others, because some days we will grow tired, and because that’s just one more thing neighbors do for each other.
We mourn tonight, shout tomorrow, build the next day, and love every single day.
For Renee Nicole Good. For her neighbors. For each other. We are just getting started.
End note (updated 1/9):
Here are a few recommendations for organizations that are both worth supporting and that will provide updates on what is happening and what is needed in the Twin Cities right now. As I shared in this short video (Instagram link), Minneapolis is full of activists and organizers I love deeply, and while that town is in shock and mourning, it is also deeply practiced in the art of showing up. I’d start with this incredible compendium of links and resources here (thanks to SWAE for putting it together). It includes a number of important and timely fundraisers for affected community members. I also highly recommend all of the following orgs:
Beautiful. Thanks for taking the time this evening to write this.
beautifully written, thank you Garrett for holding our hearts through so much violence.