While I was road tripping across America last week, I saw this road sign and its irony hit me hard in the wake of all that has happened within the state. I wish I could look at things and simply see them. Instead, I am usually plunged into some depth of disappointment, despair or rage as James Baldwin aptly states. He is far more eloquent than me. The link has his entire interview….
In 1961, author James Baldwin was asked by a radio host about being Black in America. He said: To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time — and in one's work. And part of the rage is this: It isn't only what is happening to you. But it's what's happening all around you and all of the time in the face of the most extraordinary and criminal indifference, indifference of most white people in this country, and their ignorance. Now, since this is so, it's a great temptation to simplify the issues under the illusion that if you simplify them enough, people will recognize them. I think this illusion is very dangerous because, in fact, it isn't the way it works. A complex thing can't be made simple. You simply have to try to deal with it in all its complexity and hope to get that complexity across.
Rest well George Floyd, Daunte Wright and all those we don’t know about…