Love Now, Peace Later

Spotify threw me some Doobie Brothers this morning. It's in my playlists because I was a kid in the 1970s and I still love this song, but I also wonder whether they tweaked the algorithms today.

You, telling me the things
You're gonna do for me
I ain't blind and I don't like
What I think I see

I cannot stand to watch the video from Minneapolis, but I am not allowing myself to look away. If you're here to wring your hands about how sad it is for people to be burning down their own neighborhoods, you can click away right now. Because all that's happening in Minneapolis is that the physical world is manifesting what's been going on institutionally, economically, psychologically, and spiritually for too damn long, and now we're finally seeing it in a way we can no longer ignore.

How much work do we — do I — put in to ignoring the pain and injustice that surround us every day? How many of the people around us — around me — are invisible because they don't look like us or sound like us?

The stories I write almost all turn out to be about the power of invisible women in a world that disregards them. But I don't have any idea what it really means to be invisible, because if I ever wanted to, I — like most middle-aged white women — could transform myself into Karen, the Woman Who Wants to Talk to the Manager. (And I say that with all apologies to at least three—no, four— dear friends named Karen. Sorry!)

The Karen superpower exists for reasons that I could defend on another day, but it's always used to punch down, which is never, ever, ever okay. It's rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of this society's power dynamics, and that misunderstanding is no longer excusable.

The people on the streets of Minneapolis are demanding, What will it take for you to see us? Do we have to set things on fire? Apparently they do. Apparently, that is what it took. God help us all if we don't figure out a way to see each other.

You can donate to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which is bailing protestors out of jail, here. Support for that organization has been so strong that they suggest you donate to these other local organizations:

• Black Visions Collective
• Reclaim the Block
• Northstar Health Collective (medics)

You can buy a book from Moon Palace Books, which is right in the middle of the conflict zone, here.

The front page of the Minnesota Freedom Fund says, "Love Now, Peace Later." That's a prayer I can get behind.

Love now.

Peace later.