I Am a Minneapolis Mother and Pastor, and I Know Where I Stand |
In 2026 America, we are being sold a cheap, brutish, ugly, superficial, violent view of the world.
We are told that our world is one in which you #FAFO. One in which failure to obey a man with a gun means certain, justifiable death.
We are told that this world is the only world possible. And sometimes that seems true, as I write to you from Minneapolis, where on Thursday I found myself retracing my steps: driving the less than five miles from my Minneapolis home to a nearby neighborhood in South Minneapolis. Less than six years ago I biked here, wearing my clergy collar, to attend a clergy protest and prayer service after the murder of George Floyd.
Half a mile away from that murder, this week brought another killing by a uniformed officer. This time, they killed a 37-year-old white mother. Then they descended upon the high school next to my church, where students were tear-gassed and two teachers were taken away, school windows broken, teenagers in tears.
We lit candles that night at church. Again, the next day, on Thursday, we donned our clericals and stoles and bowed our heads. How could we? How could we not? Even though my kids are home from school because the Minneapolis School District deemed our streets to be unsafe for children due to ICE. Even though as I write these words, I am late to pick up my son.
We are told that there is not enough for everyone, and so you have to take as much as you can for as long as you can, and if that means cheating other people—well, then you’re the smart one and the other people, the ones who can’t afford their heating bill: They’re suckers.
We are told that our only protection comes in dollar bills and hunks of metal, that our best knowledge and wisdom are housed in cold and costly data centers. That what is most beautiful is most expensive and most altered, by surgeons’ knives or digital filters.
We are told we don’t know any better and that there are........