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I’ve been sitting with this newsletter for days, and truthfully, I haven’t known what to say. I don’t feel particularly inspired. I don’t have a story to tell that makes any of this easier. I can’t tie a bow around it or make it make sense.
What I can do is be honest:
Two people are gone. My city is hurting. And the space between us, as neighbors, as strangers, as citizens, feels tender and raw.
So instead of trying to fix or explain, I’m just going to write from that place. The one where grief meets decency. The one where I just want to connect with you because I don't know what else to do.
Because I still believe there’s something worth holding onto.
Here in Minneapolis, two of our neighbors, Alex Pretti and Renée Good, were killed by federal agents. One was a son, a neighbor, an ICU nurse, a concerned citizen. One was a woman, a mother, a poet, a wife, and both have families now grieving in the fog of shock. Both were human. That should be the headline. It almost never is.
When something like this happens, something that unsettles not just your sense of safety, but your sense of reality, it’s hard to know how to respond. People rush to react, to comment, to claim the narrative. Some do it with care. Some don’t. But in the noise, it’s easy to forget the most basic truth: these were people. Not talking points. Not hashtags. Not collateral.
And that truth, that quiet, unshakeable truth, is the place I keep returning to. Because if we can’t start there, what are we even doing?
I’m not here to argue politics. I don’t care about what team you’re on. I care about the space between us. I care about the systems we’ve built and ignored. I care about what happens when power becomes so automatic, so normalized, that a nurse gets shot on a Saturday morning, and people still ask, “What did he do?”
What did he do?
How is that still our first question?
This isn’t about guilt or innocence. This is about orientation. It’s about what kind of world we’ve agreed to participate in, and what kind of world we’re willing to interrupt. And no, that doesn’t mean you have to burn your life down and rebuild it overnight. But it does mean noticing. And choosing to care about your fellow humans. Even a little.
Some people protest. Others offer rides, or food, or a warm place to land. Some people write. Others call. Some just show up for vigils, for conversations, for their own discomfort. These are not acts of heroism. They’re acts of humanity. And they add up.
You don’t need a degree in justice or a perfect social media post to respond with decency. You just need to pay attention. To lead with care. To ask better questions than “What did they do?” Maybe start with, “What do we owe each other?” Or, “What will I not look away from?”
I’ve heard people say “it’s just too complicated.” That’s a lie we tell ourselves when we’re afraid of what clarity demands. Because actually, some things are pretty simple:
People deserve to live.
People deserve to be safe.
People deserve to be treated humanely.
That’s not radical or political. It's just basic decency.
So maybe this week, instead of trying to solve it all, we just pick a direction that moves us closer to that kind of world. Maybe that means listening when we’d rather scroll past. Maybe it means offering support, quietly or tangibly, or both. Maybe it means admitting that we don’t know what to say, but we’re here anyway.
Because being “here anyway” is something. It’s a lot, actually.
And in a time when so much feels fractured, maybe that’s our way back: not through certainty, or outrage, or noise, but through presence. Through a small act of attention. Through one person treating another like they matter.
Human first and always.
If You’re Wondering What You Can Do
You don’t need to live in Minneapolis to care. And if you do live here, you don’t need to do it all. You just need to start somewhere. Here's how:
Show up locally
Speak out from anywhere
Support the helpers
This isn’t about grand gestures. It’s about daily human gestures. It’s about action.
Whatever you do, let your actions be rooted in care. Let your actions remind us that we belong to each other. Because, in spite of how everything feels right now, we do.
From every corner of this state, people marched peacefully and side by side on January 23rd in Minneapolis, in support of our immigrant neighbors. A reminder of who we are when we show up for each other.
February is bustling. My heart will be in Minnesota. But the rest of me will be in:
"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." — Elie Wiesel
