Trying to Make Sense of It All

 There are so many things true about the moment we are in as a nation.

Of course, all the political, historical, legal, religious, and social pundits have already weighted on on the events of January 7, 2026 in Minneapolis.

Like so many who either saw the original footage or the many repostings of it on social media, I was beyond shocked at the sheer depraved indifference of humanity that was displayed in broad daylight.

But then, should I have been shocked?

Since time immortal, women's lives have mattered next-to-nothing to the systems of power.  

From the way the women were disregarded in the ancient scriptures - Rahab, Tamar, for instance, to the woman "caught in the act of adultery", to the way women's bodies have been used an abused for the benefit of others - from African American women being the literal producer of capitalist dreams to the recent story I read of a 15 year old Jewish girl named Ruth who was sold in marriage to a man 43 years her senior because (1) her mother was a widow in debt and (2) he was the rich landlord. He proceeded to spend the next 28 years raping and impregnating her to the point of destroying her body. Then, when he died, he left everything to his first wife's kids and she died destitute, broken, and forgotten until her Great Granddaughter stumbled upon her story and decided to do justice for Ruth.

So it is not without understanding of the disregard that we sadly are familiar with the sentiment of that fragile ego little man who shot this woman three times in the face, at point blank range, in broad daylight, in full and sheer depravity.

We already knew that demon.

African American women, in particular, have been trying desperately to wrangle some tiny bit of solidarity out of the other women in the country.

We have tried to get them to see beyond their patriarchy and misogny and adaptive bargaining (Cloud Dancer women) to hear the voices of those crying out in the wilderness.

We've been here before, in times of recent memory.

Remember Memorial Day Weekend 2020 and just four blocks from this state-sanctioned-murder was another one. That one was a Black man that could easily have been disregarded had it not been for the steely bravery of a teenage Black girl to record it for all to see.

But America has seen it all before.

And looked away.

And when they did pay attention for a time, it was only to assuage the emotional high of walking with others, the thrill of railing against the system, and then collectively, one-by-one, they returned to their lives. This, most pronounced among the Cloud Dancers™ whose proximity to power, whose privilege, and whose comfort meant more to them than the shared and collective humanity of all the voices crying out for justice.

I'm not sure what it will take now.

I know we knew it was going to have to take them unaliving a Cloud Dancer™ woman to get some to finally listen and look beyond the carnival barker reality TV and hear what the nation has been saying.

This is unattainable.

$6.49 for a 12 oz box of cereal.

$12.49 for store brand toilet paper.

$7.99 for a loaf of bread.

When will the collective with privilege realize they have much more in common with the rest of the 290 million who did not vote on the side of hate, than they do with the 340 billionaires who are hellbent on extracting every once of life from those who can not longer afford to live. When will the collective Cloud Dancers™ join in with everyone else, similar to Bacon's Rebellion, and realize they have more power together with us than they do with the false notion of their mayonnaise-WonderBread complexion promises them?

I'm a student of history and have read a lot.

I pray that we reach some recognition of not only our shared humanity but our shared responsibility.

In the meantime, though, I'm going to keep developing my mutual aid, keep advocating in my lane, reading my books, sipping my lattes, and keeping  my sanity.

I can't protest anymore like I used to, like back in 2008-2016 at the height of some of my activist years. They taught me a lot and refocused me a lot.

What I have come to understand is that Cloud Dancer™ women hold the power to make a change, but often choose not to. Now that one of their own was unalived by the very forces we tried to warn them about, maybe they will listen.

Not sure, don't know.

But I know this is not sustainable.

And we can build better, different, stronger.

As long as people don't try to hoard all the marbles for themselves,

As long as people realize that in the end, we all want and deserve the same things - safety in our homes and not armed masked thugs busting down our doors to intimidate us; descent and affordable housing; food uncontaminated by poisons; healthcare that really centers on our lives being whole; education that leads us to possibilities; retirement from our labors without poverty; peace in our hearts and minds. In the end, all of us want the same things, to not be afraid of our government unaliving us for the depraved indifference of madmen.

Until then, I can only hope.

©2026. Trying to make sense of it while packing boxes for our next possibilities/