“What are you watching?” asked my daughter, as I stood in our kitchen staring at my phone.
In a moment, I had to decide how to explain racism and riots to an 8-year old. Or, I could turn off my phone and let the moment go. Isn’t that so much easier? To believe whatever is happening on a screen is far away and someone else has to live with it?
I was watching Pastor Ingrid C. A. Rasumussen on Facebook walk through the neighborhood of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in South Minneapolis. Touring littered streets, she explained the true identity of the damaged buildings that exposed generations of anger. Like vapor, smoke rose up here and there, like injustice that rises up here and there and here and there.
“I am watching a pastor show us a neighborhood where there was a riot.”
“Did they wreck things?” she demanded to know. “Someone is going to owe a lot of money! Why did they do that?”
“His name,” I slowly began, “was George Floyd. And he was murdered by a police officer, and many people are angry about it.”
With my husband, we tried to explain there are police whose job is to keep people safe, and there are people who are black and there is an ugly history we can’t seem to shake off.
In the end, dear daughter, this world is not yet as it should be. People who happen to be black are not as safe as people who happen to be white. Last week was one of many moments the vapor of injustice rose up in a city we know well and love very much.
There is no perfect dialogue to explain George Floyd’s murder to an 8-year old. It would be perfectly easy to believe his story need not be tied up with our story. But I want my kids to know some hurts in the world are not easy to explain, and those hurts are our hurts, too.
Lisa Lewton 