Say Her Name

Minneapolis

I don’t want to write at the moment, but I need to.

I work from home, but I see off my husband and daughter every morning in my robe. I make his coffee and her lunch, and I start work the second they leave and don’t stop working until I am forced to.

Today is different.

I had a text from my husband about 10am, checking in and asking what I was up to…I was still in my robe. I was sitting in his recliner. I started some laundry and had two cups of coffee, and a banana. I don’t like bananas, but my stomach gets upset with my vitamins if I don’t eat one.

I told my husband the truth — I feel paralyzed today, and I can’t get the momentum or the gumption or the discipline to kick in so I can get to work.

I have a weight sitting on me…like a weighted blanket, but instead of enveloping my body in a nice sensation, it’s thrown over my head, and I feel anxious and uncomfortable.

So, I thought I would write this instead of doing my work. I thought I would tell you how I feel after watching a widowed mother being shot in the head yesterday while she attempted to film an ICE raid in Minneapolis. I thought some of you may feel like I do.

Sick. Raw. Sad. Pissed.

I was in Kansas City yesterday to pick up my grandkids from school.

Their dad, my son, had a late meeting and he had no one else to get the kids. I drove the 1.5 hours down with the intention of arriving early so I could thrift at some of my favorite stores in the city and have time to grab Happy Meals for the kids before I picked them up. I planned to take them to the park until dark, so their dad wouldn’t have to think of supper, and they could run off the chicken nugget calories on the jungle gym.

After my first store, I didn’t feel like the thrift gods were looking down on me. I found a pair of sweats for my husband and a few books for my daughter, but no art and no brass knick-knacks and no fun finds.

I was thinking about my next thrift stop, and while I was digging in my purse for hand sanitizer, I looked at my phone. My friend texted: Did you see what’s going on in Minneapolis?

No. Please. I don’t want to know…

But that’s not how my brain works. I opened up Google. My god.

I watched a video, and I knew I was done thrifting. I was done with the day.

I watched videos from several different angles of a state-sanctioned execution.

I watched a woman trying to leave the scene of an ICE raid. I saw her try to back up. I saw her turn her wheels away from masked thugs with little training and big guns. I saw an “agent” get in front of her car and shoot through her windshield.

I heard the scream and groans. I heard the victim’s wife let out a sound that can only be described as the sound of agony — guttural. I saw the wounded woman’s car hit a pole. I saw a gold SUV swoop in and grab the masked shooter and whisk him off while a woman died alone with no medical intervention on a street in an American city.

I put my phone away, but not before I wrote “Fuck ICE” on Facebook. I lost a few followers for that crass post, but I’m fresh out of nice words for the regime and the masked cowards killing people on the street.

I picked up my grandkids at school dismissal, and I had Happy Meals in tow. We walked to the park, and the kids ate a nugget and ran to play. They came back every few minutes to get a drink of milk, grab a fry, and then run back to play.

They played hide-and-seek, which made me constantly scream out a name and ask where they were hiding. The kids told me I was ruining the game. I see their point, but I hope they know that I’m fearful every time I lose sight of them.

Going from mom to Mimi is a wild transition. My kids used to hide from me, and I’d take a break and have a snack before I looked for them.

The sun went down, and I took the kids back home. My son arrived a little later, and I left soon after. On the drive home, I turned on MSNBC on the radio and heard more about the Minneapolis shooting.

I heard from an eyewitness who said she didn’t want to be on the air, but she couldn’t be silent while the regime and Kristi Noem lied about the events that happened on her street. In front of her eyes.

I heard the victim’s name for the first time: Renee Nicole Good. She was just 37. She was a mom.

The eye-witness said bystanders begged to give aid, but they were threatened by the armed thugs. When medics did arrive, witnesses said they couldn’t get through the street because of the ICE vehicles blocking the road. The paramedics assessed the woman and pronounced her dead.

They were said to pick her up by her limbs and carry her dead body to an ambulance down the street. No stretcher. One person said they looked like they were carrying a sack of potatoes.

The inhumanity of the scene. Of this country.

Devastating.

I turned the radio from MSNBC to the 70s on 7 station. I couldn’t take it another minute.

I looked down to see my death grip on the steering wheel. I was holding on for dear life — my jaw was aching from clenching it so hard. I had a headache. It was dark, and I wasn’t about to cry. I was in a rage.

Pure rage.

And I assume that’s what’s wrong with me today — and it may be plaguing you as well. The surge of adrenaline and rage while watching an innocent woman being murdered in front of dozens of others and captured from so many angles and played over and over again.

The masked thugs with no compassion. They were more worried about the shooter than the woman he shot.

The feeling of terror at knowing that this has happened before and was likely inevitable under the regime. The horror of knowing a little boy just became an orphan, and that his mom and her name will be dragged through the mud for doing nothing but standing with her community.

Trump and Noem and the rest of this disgusting regime have already started the lies…the right-wing grifters are frothing at the mouth to do as much damage to this family as they can.

I don’t know if I can open the news or my emails today. I don’t know if this essay will do anything except make my brain feel less foggy.

But I will say her name today. Renee Good.

Today I will mourn a woman I didn’t know. Today I am sick. Raw. Sad. Pissed.

For her and her loved ones. For her community. For our country.

Tomorrow I will be loud. Present. Focused. Unafraid.

Fuck ICE.

~Jess