Prioritize humanity and life
In a(nother) violent week, we seek the true strength of compassion, restraint, love, and justice.
Oh my friends, another week that brought violence and loss to too many of our communities. We are well past the moment when we can pretend these incidents are isolated anomalies. They are, instead, reminders of our need for a deep revolution of values that prioritizes humanity and life.
My intention this week was to write about the inclusion of caregiving as essential infrastructure in the current administration’s American Jobs Act. The inclusion of caregiving - parents caring for kids, adults children caring for aging parents, spouses and partners caring for one another - in essential infrastructure has the potential to be revolutionary. The unpaid labor of caregiving keeps our economy, and our families, alive. Paid caregiving is equally essential, and both are deserving of prioritization along with bridges and roads.
But this essay took a different turn, considering the events in Indianapolis and Chicago and Minneapolis, among too many others.
We must come to grips with the facts that our system, as constructed, puts too many folk at high risk of violent death. This is not a question of freedom or individual rights, or the protection of law enforcement. It is a question of whether freedom is best represented by flooding the market with guns; and whether simply coming to the attention of law enforcement should put a person at the mercy of the individual officers on the call.
If we believe in the sanctity of life, we must address the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction within our communities. And if we believe in equal justice before the law, we must not put the victims of police violence on trial.
It is our society’s fetishization of a narrow, stereotypical version of “strength” that makes us so vulnerable to violence. It’s time to change the paradigm that strength is best demonstrated through dominance. Dominance is, in fact, the desperate tactic of those too weak to tolerate the uncertainty and challenge of building equitable, thriving relationships.
Our task is to see and give voice to the profound strength in compassion, restraint, kindness, and love. If justice is love in action, then we must love those we bring to justice, and ensure justice for those we love.
As always, I am deeply grateful for your company on this path.