In the event that I am killed in such a way that the President of the United States finds it necessary to comment on my life and death

I would like this to be on the record as well

That title’s pretty self-aggrandizing, so let’s make a few things clear. I’m just a dad in Milwaukee. I’m not much of a fatalist, nor do I have any delusions of grandeur. I’ve gotten death threats, because I’m a writer on the Internet, but that’s far more common than you’d think. I’m not significantly more likely to find myself on a list of tragically famous names than any of you. I hope, oh God do I hope, that we are done adding any more names to lists like that.

Yes, true, and also…

The most notable thing about me is that I’m trying my best to be a neighbor. In that sense, I’ve got at least a bit in common with Keith Porter Jr., Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

A lot of us have a bit in common with those three.

Yesterday, I dropped my daughter off for another day of third grade. I won’t go into too many details about her school, for reasons that should be obvious, but I will say that if my town was Minneapolis, this school and the vast majority of families that love it would not be safe. To be clear, many families in our school community already aren’t safe, but there are levels to this, or so we’re discovering.

I hugged my nine-year-old and offered various what’s ups and Buenos Díases to fellow parents. I high fived a couple neighbor kids. I was overwhelmed, not for the first time, by the transcendent poetry of elementary drop off: a tender flood of “love you” and “te amos” and hurried embraces; oversized Paw Patrol backpacks threatening to topple over their tiny owners; muttered grunts from newly surly pre-teens; hot pink winter jackets zipped up by grown ups who can still remember, just yesterday it seems, when these growing bodies fit into the crooks of our arms.

“If they come here,” I thought, as I walked away, “how could I not be in front of this school every morning? how could I not be on every street in this town, day and night, until they finally leave us alone?”

It wasn’t a heroic thought. I wasn’t picturing myself stopping anything, and surely not saving anybody. It was a selfish instinct, if anything. How could I live with myself if I didn’t?

I assume that many of you reading this have had the same thoughts. For some, because the worst has already come to your town, those thoughts have already led you to intersections and meracdos and elementary drop off lines. Nothing about this makes me special. Not the fact that I feel moved, less by logic than love, to show up. Not the fact that showing up, in a way that runs counter to the whims of the powerful, is often punished harshly.

I am a neighbor, just as we are all just neighbors. And many neighbors make it home safe at night, even during times such as this, but not all of us.

And so…

If, some day in the future, they kill me in such a newsworthy manner that it warrants a Presidential statement, Donald Trump will say all sorts of terrible things about my life and motivations. J.D. Vance will mock me on social media. I will be made a monster by Executive Proclamation. A pantheon of cretins will line up on Fox News to get their digs in. They will fire their posthumous shots, not for the sake of people who loved me, but for those who need to be assured that they are allowed to hate me. They will do their best to make me unmournable, which is fine. I’m not interested in defending my mournability.

If the worst happens for me, and you are somebody who abhors both my politics and guys like me in general (betas, cucks, commies, arrogant leftist pricks, take your pick), let me at least share this.

As I lay dead, the President and his hangers on will proclaim that I hated you and wanted you to suffer.

It’s not true.

On my worst days, I admit, I am driven by all sorts of less-than-helpful thoughts: ego, self-consciousness, anxiety, despair. Not hate, though.

I do not know you, but I know that at some point you too were dropped off at school wearing a comically oversized backpack, ideally by somebody who loved you deeply. Every year you had a birthday, and you beamed as you blew out the candles.

I do not know you, but I have thought about you, as I suspect you’ve thought about people like me. I’m incredibly angry at you right now, at your politics and the story of the world that you’ve come to believe. I am despondent at your justifications and your apathy. Those are strong emotions, sure, but my heart is busted right now because of an enormity of suffering in the world, not an absence of it. Why would I waste my time wishing for more punishment?

Repair, yes. Reparations, absolutely. Neither concept, you’ll note, rooted in hate.

What do I want for you?

I don’t know whether you’ve been hoisted to the top or kicked to the bottom of our country’s various caste systems. In any case, I think you deserve so much better than the world we’ve inherited. It is true, I am a far left radical, but mostly because I think that you should have an abundance of delicious food and affirming healthcare and a safe, delightful place to live, and that your kids should go to a school that loves them. I don’t think you should pay for those things individually, because that’s our job, together, to figure out. If you are rich, I don't think you should have nearly as much money as you have. If you’re poor, I think you should have much more. That’s not an epistemology of punishment and reward, mind you, just a logical way to keep people from dying.

That won’t keep the President from saying that I hate you. His proof, I assume, is that I am not willing to punish other people on your behalf. I am not willing to deplore somebody who came from a different country without papers. I am not willing to disregard women or Black and Brown people when they say “actually, there are a whole lot of reasons why life is harder for me than it is for you, Garrett.” I have no interest in making life a living hell for somebody whose gender isn’t what it was declared to be at birth, nor somebody who loves people of any gender.

I think you deserve a decent life, but not just you.

It is also true, by the way, that I love people who have made mistakes. People in prison. People who harm themselves. People who’ve harmed me and people I love. I hope it makes the news, if I die in a way that requires public comment, that I too was an imperfect person. In my experience, being pockmarked with flaws and fallibilities makes loving other people easier.

More than anything, this regime will tell you, if they kill me, that I hated you because I stood against them, a small cabal of vainglorious cowards addicted to their own lies. They will argue that because they alone are keeping you safe—- by throwing some human beings in jail and shipping others halfway across the world and enveloping entire cities in gunfire and tear gas— that myself and anybody else who opposes them somehow wants you to suffer.

It would be simpler if I hated you, wouldn’t it? It would justify everything you’ve supported. The gun thugs would be heroes, and my sullied memory would be one more victory for the patriots.

It is frightening, I know, to give up on a story. It is so much easier to metabolize every new piece of paradigm-challenging information by shoving it to the farthest corner of your consciousness and slamming the door shut. It is so much more comforting to give yourself over to the narcotizing assurances of celebrity grifters. It’s so much more efficient to just label me a f** or a r***** and call it a day.

I have been a writer for long enough to know that prose, no matter how flowery or incendiary, doesn’t usually persuade anybody. The most powerful words in the world don’t crash down from the heavens like a jolt of holy lightning. That’s just another story we tell ourselves. Some days, hearts and minds do change, but often mysteriously, and not as quickly or as frequently as we’d hope.

I don’t pretend that these words will turn the tide, that they will soften brittle hearts now or in the future. I wrote this for myself, far more prayer than polemic.

But also…

As of right now, I am still alive and you are still alive and, in both cases, what a goddamned miracle. Today you hate me and want terrible things to happen to myself and people I love. I wish that weren’t the case, so damned much. But because I am alive, I get a choice as to how to keep living.

Man, I will keep mucking it up, I’m sure. But I will do my best to be a neighbor. Some days you will see me yelling like a banshee in the streets and other days I’ll be handcuffed and thrown to the ground by officers of the law, and other days I will speak very poor Spanish to other parents at drop off. On every day, I will share a joke with a friend and laugh so hard, so loud. Some days I will do all right, and other days I will need to mend a relationship I’ve broken.

Allow me one dream, though, even if right now it seems fantastical. One day in the near future, maybe this too can be true. I’ll be ladling out soup at a long potluck table, lost in the ritual of a familiar act. My face will light up, because I spotted you out of the corner of my eye. You too will have been doing some repairing. I’ll drop my ladle and run over to your side. A hug. A couple shouts. A reunion.

“I love that you’re here.”

“Here, grab a seat. Let’s eat together.”

End notes:

1. You may read this essay and say “not me, I do in fact hate folks on the other side, and I don’t like any of this mealy mouthed love nonsense, especially from somebody as privileged as you, Garret” and boy I hear that and I am more than happy, always, to hear your perspective of why that’s the case for you. This essay is about what is true for me, and I don’t need you to be with me all the way to be a partner in building a better world. What i’m saying is that I love you, too, my righteously livid friends.

2. Rallies today, everywhere. Against I.C.E. Love, as always, is in the streets. I know people are calling it a General Strike. That’s not a term I use lightly, and I don’t think we’ve organized enough for that, but that doesn’t mean I’m not all in for a day of action. It’s a good day to march, if you’re able.

3. Minnesota needs an eviction moratorium, because a ton of neighbors there are too scared to go to work and therefore don’t have money for rent. This past week, we’ve been raising as much money as possible to pay the damn rent. So far, folks have sent me and Erin Boyle proof of more than $25,000 in donations. Holy cow, I love you all. Let’s keep going. I’m immensely proud of our progress, but so many families are facing immense hardship right now. Keep. Chipping. IN!

4. Speaking of projects that have been fun to do, have you checked out loveletterstominnesota.com yet? Have you added yours in?

5. I made a pitch earlier in the week, but if you’ve ever considered becoming a paid subscriber to The White Pages, these next few weeks are especially meaningful in keeping this ship running, because one year ago a ton of new folks came on, and some of them are in a position to keep going, but some aren’t. If you could chip in, it would help a bunch in me having a stable income (and also I keep the cost cheap and give out fun merch for free).

6. I’m really proud of a lot of things I created this week, and I hope you take some time with them (and perhaps even share them):

   1. This essay, from Tuesday, about two places I love that are often pitted against each other (a companion for today’s piece? very much so).

   2. An honor of a lifetime, a guest piece for one of my favorite publications, Katie Heindl ‘s BASKETBALL FEELINGS. It is about community organizing and hope and mediocre basketball teams and how everything we do together, as human beings, is super cheesy but also pretty rad. I talk a lot about various dudes whop played for the Milwaukee Bucks a decade ago, in a fun way I swear to God.

   3. Sarah Wheeler and I recorded an episode of our podcast that was supposed to be about the Oscars and ended up being about parenting under fascism and why we think that the question “how do you talk to your kids about _____?” is way less helpful than “what do your kids seeing you doing? what do you welcome them to do by your side?” I really think you should listen, and not just if you’re a parent. It might just help your angst.