The Twin Cities on Fire: Two Kinds of Despair

5/29/20

Yesterday, looters attacked the Target store four blocks from our home.  This is where I do most of my shopping.  They smashed windows at the GameStop where my son buys and sells his favorite video games.  They smashed windows at the Birchwood Café, where we go for vegetarian food; Gandhi Mahal, our favorite Indian restaurant; and Bole, the Ethiopian restaurant down the street.  They burned down the AutoZone store, and looted up and down University Avenue: the CVS, the liquor stores, pawn shops, banks, etc. etc.  The neighborhood pharmacy I’ve used for the past 30 years has been burned to the ground.  

The 3^rd precinct Mpls. Police Department building was stormed and set ablaze last night.  Hundreds of people, mostly young, celebrated in front of it with dancing, drinking, and fireworks.  Dark vans cruised up Grand Ave in St. Paul, stopping now and then to dump their passengers, who would break into stores, take whatever they could carry, hop back in the car, and travel to the next site.  Cars full of teenagers were speeding through our neighborhood, honking in jubilation.

This is my beautiful city.  I feel as if some part of myself has been attacked.

 

I’m furious.  Furious at the four police officers who took the life of a black man over a minor, unproven infraction: a fake $20 bill.   The video is damning; there is no reason on earth why that cop should be pressing his knee into the neck of a man already cuffed and on the ground. That cop should be in jail now, not sitting at home free for the weeks and months it may take for the legal gears to grind.

I understand the fury that erupts out of hopelessness and fear and injustice.  But looting and burning not only reinforce the worst stereotypes of young black men (even though plenty of white people participated as well).  It also destroys the communities we live in and the businesses we all depend on.

I’ve never felt more compelled to just pack up and leave.  Move to Canada or Switzerland.  Or Ely, way up in the Boundary Waters wilderness.  Or at least Northfield, an hour out of the city, or some smaller town, where not even Covid has reared its ugly head.

Sirens are blaring again outside my window.  Yesterday, it seemed they never stopped.  Choppers flew back and forth overhead all day long.  It felt like a war zone.  No bombs or snipers, just the crumbling of the relied-upon social order.  A crumbling of my belief that we would be protected by our highly-educated populace, superior medical systems, network of world-class universities, or famously progressive politics.

Where is God? There is no comfort in “faith” if no one and nothing intervenes in the face of evil.  The pandemic, the race riots, the climate destruction, the mass shootings, the unemployment … The list keeps getting longer.  I’m not sure how long I can keep going under the weight of despair. 

I guess that’s how the black community feels.  

God isn’t stepping in.  There’s no one here but us.