Our Focus is Elsewhere
I have not paid close attention to what happened in Minneapolis last Saturday morning, when ICE agents fatally shot a protestor. There’s much more to it than that, and how you describe the situation depends on which side of the political fence you’re on. But I have not seen video, have not watched more than a few moments of news conferences.
It’s not because I am avoiding the news; in this job, that’s not an option. But all the turmoil in the Twin Cities, just a few hours away from us, has not led to national imitations as was the case when a man died in police custody there in the summer of 2020, leading to massive demonstrations in major cities around the country.
Maybe it’s because this is in the middle of a brutal part of winter. Maybe it’s because the Administration is taking a harder stand against protests that get out of hand.
Or maybe we all just have other things to do. I say that not to diminish the issue, or the loss of live, or the fact that large numbers of people are in our country without benefit of legal standing, which is what started the whole thing.
But this is a deep part of winter, not just here but in parts of the country that are just not equipped for snow and ice of any amount. We’re starting to get our records together for taxes. We’re taking second and third jobs to keep up with the post-COVID spike in inflation—the rate of inflation is fine now, but that doesn’t mean we got back any of the ground lost with the spike. Children and grandchildren have sporting events and other activities. And this is the time of year when folks like to get sick and share their germs, so many of us limit hanging out in public.
In other words, perhaps the anger of the Twin Cities is not spreading because we’re all busy with our own lives. Perhaps all the media attention is too much, out of proportion with the relevance of the actual situation…or not in sync with how people across the country feel about the core issue.
And perhaps both sides are so amped up that no solution is readily available…and perhaps that’s why it does not hold our interest.
