On the news tonight, there was a video of ICE violently overtaking my hometown, Minneapolis. I watched a scene that left me shaking. I still am. My fingers miss keys. My brain is about to explode.
A man – at least I think it was a man – lay on the frozen street, being beaten by a group of masked men with guns as Bovino hurled canisters of gas at protesters, breaking the recent ruling. The houses looked familiar. Then the street sign. 25th and Bryant Avenue. I once lived on Bryant and 25th. My husband lived across 25th Street in his apartment. We barely knew each other then. I watched a white cat jump and wriggle and die after being hit by a car at that corner. The comparison is not lost on me.
This is my town. I grew up by the lake, I walked to Kenwood Elementary School, and I was in the opening scene of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I graduated from the University of Minnesota; I spent a lifetime watching Minneapolis bands. I fell in love a bunch of times. I was married. My husband and I became parents to two little boys in an Uptown brownstone apartment.
My family lives there. My friends live there. I should be there.
We are watching human beings violently and illegally attacked by our own government, and our leaders are silent. They are leaving it to the people who have been shot and killed, beaten, and threatened to sort this out on their own. Our Democratic leaders are not unified, not banded together, not standing on the Capitol steps condemning such savagery. This might just be the most alarming part of this nightmare: the lack of adhesive Democrat leadership. How disgraceful. How utterly disappointing.
In a Word 