Doomed to Repeat It?

Redeeming memory is a path to salvation

I couldn’t sleep last night.

ICE murdered Renee Nicole Good on a cold Minneapolis street yesterday. She was filming an ICE action and warning residents of their presence in her own neighborhood. She was protesting immoral actions by the United States government.

And an ICE agent shot her in the face two or three times at point-blank range, and then his associates refused to let a doctor on scene treat her as she died. According to reports, they wouldn’t even allow an ambulance on site. Paramedics had to carry her body out in their arms.

She was 37. A widow. A mother. And a prize-winning poet.

And then, they lied about her. About the shooting. Officials from the government called her a “domestic terrorist.” They showed no sadness, no regret, no remorse. They asked for prayers for the poor ICE agent — whom they claimed was wounded (contrary to visible evidence on cell phone video) — and belatedly said people might pray for the victim’s family as well.

The President led this chorus of lies.

And that’s why I couldn’t sleep. I imagine many Americans couldn’t sleep last night.

Protesting the government. Protecting one’s neighbors from harm. These are the most basic American rights. And they are the foundation of shared moral codes in political and religious systems across the world.

Yet, a young woman was killed by the government for doing so. We’ll probably never know who pulled the trigger. Because ICE agents hide their faces behind masks.

Tossing and turning, tossing and turning — my brain stuck in a chorus: Everything is horrible. This is the worst.

And then I remembered that I’d seen it before.

May 4, 1970 — the Kent State Massacre. On that day, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed student protesters at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine.

I was only a child when the picture below was on the front page of every American newspaper and on the cover of news magazines. I remember seeing the horrified students at the side of their dying friends and the uniformed soldiers with guns. President Nixon referred to the protesters as “bums,” and later called them “pawns” of the Communists. The guardsmen defended their actions saying they feared for their lives. Historians would later summarize the government response as “wanton insensitivity.”

Ten days later, a nearly identical incident occurred at Jackson State College, an historically black college in Jackson, Mississippi, where police killed two students and injured twelve. Authorities there, too, lied — claiming that the black students were pelting cars with rocks and that a sniper was present. Evidence did not support these claims.

No one was ever convicted of murder in either case. But judges in both condemned the actions of the National Guard and the police as indefensible and deplorable. I’ve always wondered what happened to those who pulled triggers that May.

We do, however, know what happened in America. The unjustified killings of unarmed student protesters led to more protests across the nation. Nixon was re-elected in 1972. But, eventually, the actions of his lawless, lying administration caught up with him. He was forced to resign the presidency in disgrace.

Although I was only 11 in 1970, I never forgot what happened that spring. I’ve never really trusted uniformed men with guns — or those who send them on to streets or into war. Instead, I carry memories of crying students and grieving parents, images seared into my soul of innocent people murdered by their own government for simply caring about their neighbors. I can’t imagine how many ways that one event affected my life and choices I’ve made.

George Santayana, the philosopher of history, famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

I remembered. Lots of us remembered. Millions of Americans were shaped by those memories. And millions of us had trouble sleeping last night.

But remembering alone isn’t enough. Santayana also said, “Sanity is a madness put to good uses.”

History, shameful and ugly and deplorable as it can be, must be transformed. Memory must spur action. Not violence. Not destruction. But creative, caring, moral response in the face of deception and callousness. We must put madness to good use. As we have thousands of times in American history.

We saw evil yesterday. We witnessed history. And yet good showed up as well.

A vigil gathered last night in Good’s neighborhood (and in other locations around the country). The Minnesota Star-Tribune reported:

Speakers at an evening vigil disclosed few details of Good’s life but were resolute in honoring her as a good neighbor who was protecting others.

“She was peaceful, she did the right thing,” said Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of CAIR-MN. “She died because she loved her neighbors.”

“She died because she loved her neighbors.”

Let’s take the horrible images of yesterday, the memory of Renee Nicole Good, and follow the wise advice of the late John Lewis, “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”

Because “sanity is a madness put to good uses.”

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The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.

― George Santayana

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We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible.

― George Santayana

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We will not march back to what was,
but move to what shall be:
a country that is bruised, but whole;
benevolent, but bold; fierce and free.
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation,
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain,
if we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy,
and change our children’s birthright.
So, let us leave behind a country
better than one we were left.

— Amanda Gorman