It’s a staggering job to process such a glaring example of political injustice as was the murder of Renee Nicole Good. We all process in our own ways, but the most important thing right now is to find community and find the action that lessens the feeling of abject helplessness.
Personally I found that social media instantly sensationalized her murder in ways that were so triggering to me that I had to step away. I couldn’t look at her slumped over body, pixilated or not.
I used to live in a neighborhood in Rochester that was often dangerous. And what I learned was that watching two thugs beat a man with lead pipes in the middle of the night while you are frantically trying to urge the police to hurry, is not remotely like watching violence on TV. I was not only feeling for Renee, but feeling for all those who watched it happen.
I was a senior in high school when the shootings at Kent State happened. Most of the kids in my school didn’t even know. I was so grateful when I got to my social studies class that a friend of mine, and my teacher, Mr. Maus, were there to experience the grief with me, maybe my first experience of finding community. If my memory holds we didn’t have class that day, we talked. Most of the other students didn’t participate or care, but my teacher did, and that meant a lot.
I reflect on what it means to hold space in our heart for someone whom we have never met, to grieve for her family that we will never know. I realized that through social media we are able to make connections with others as we always have through books, as an example. Even fiction, such as Frankenstein by Mary Shelly or House of Mirth by Edith Wharton tell us in unveiled terms of the human condition, of mans inhumanity to man. Wharton’s Lily Bart’s imminent death had me sobbing for our collective loss of innocence.
The grief of unjust death, actual murder, can and does hobble us. What are our recourses? What can be our safely? How on earth can we make a difference?
For myself, I had to close down all my devices for a while. Breathe. Meditate. Think about those monks walking across the country for peace. I lit candles, and took walks with my dog, I painted. I fixed broken things. I ate citrus and made tea with honey.
And then I made signs, and contacted others, and organized, and got ready to be in the world again. Because we have to, we must hold hands. So that none of us sink to the bottom.
We all found the protests we needed to attend. I was profoundly moved by our little weekly protest in Fairport that usually has about 15 people. We had 50. We had marshals at every corner, and despite the howling winds that evening that threatened to send our signs flying we gave others a place to voice their sorrow and grief and outrage through honking and yelling affirmations at us.
We were among the many in the country that declared that Renee Good’s death will not be forgotten, and that we will not be silent until there is a murder conviction.
We will not be silent.