The others (2015 & 2016) have been heart-wrenching (including just yesterday) but this one is feeling deeply personal. The shooting was miles from my home. It took place in a location where I spent lots of time as a student at Hamline. Just after college a good friend lived in the apartment building where outside the shooting happened. The police officer is from St. Anthony, a community 4 blocks from my home and where I spend lots of time including at my gym and where my daughters are in daycare everyday. My daughters. There was a four year old girl in the backseat – my daughter Nina is 4 years old. This happened in Ramsey County where my partner works in mental health crisis and works in partnership, is supported by, and is kept safe by police officers on many of her days at work.
This stretches my human capacity for empathy. I’ll never know what it is like – but no one is served by disconnecting (and privilege is reified by disconnection).This is why I watch all these videos. And why I won’t post it here and re-traumatize those already traumatized. If I looked like the victim(s) – I imagine I would be freaking out. If my daughters did – I literally don’t know what I would do. I imagine I would certainly be considering leveraging my class privilege to move to another country. Seriously. I don’t know how friends and colleagues of color managed commuting to work this morning. Or the drive home. Or to the grocery store. Or…everything.
I had some strange conversations with my daughters this morning, but none of them were about my survival or theirs.
