Humanity, Not Politics

Humanity during hardship

I have been struggling to write this month’s blog. Not because I didn’t have ideas, but because none of them felt right. Every topic I reached for fell flat. Too small. Too neat. Too disconnected from what is actually happening.

Some moments demand more than commentary. They demand acknowledgment.

January was brutal from a humanity and morality standpoint. We observed people ripped from their cars. We saw a five-year-old child used as leverage against a parent. Through the relentless immediacy of social media, we watched two people shot and killed by members of the federal government. Then we watched again. And again. From different angles. In slow motion. Frame by frame.

Disbelief turned into shock.

Shock into horror.

Horror into rage.

It wasn’t only the killing. It was what came after.

The casual cruelty.

Jonathan Ross calling Renee Good a “f#cking b!tch” as her car drifted into a light pole. Agents refusing medical assistance when an on-site physician begged them to intervene. Officers counting bullet holes in Alex Pretti’s body instead of rendering care, some remarking it was “just like Call of Duty.”

Then came the official response. Both victims, people exercising their constitutional right to assemble, were labeled domestic terrorists. Responsibility was inverted. The dead were blamed for being dead.

Minneapolis answered.

In subzero temperatures, people showed up for one another. They marched. They called clergy from across the country to bear witness. They organized food drives for neighbors too afraid to leave their homes. They opened doors. They created safety. They acted collectively.

Some dismissed this as impossible. Too organized. Too cohesive. Surely people were being paid. No community is really like this.

But Minneapolis is.

When I worked with the Red Cross, we knew disaster response in the Upper Midwest was different. Maybe it’s the cold. Maybe it’s their Scandinavian roots. But when winter is unforgiving and survival depends on neighbors, community isn’t optional, it’s instinct. That interdependence has long made these communities resilient against nature. Now it is being drawn upon for something else.

In my leadership programs, we talk about four pillars of resilience: self-efficacy, integrity, purpose, and community. Community matters because it carries us when we are depleted. It lends strength when we don’t think we can go on. Real resilience is collective, it comes from shared skills, diverse perspectives, and mutual care.

The force rising out of Minneapolis comes from this well. What began as a Scandinavian settlement has evolved into a deeply multicultural city, and the solidarity shown there has rippled outward. Other cities and communities are finding their voices and saying: no more.

This is not politics.

This is humanity.

This is about inalienable rights - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Rights that cannot be denied without moral justification. And none has been shown. What we have witnessed instead is cruelty. Depravity. A chilling disregard for human life.

Fear, in moments like this, is powerful. It urges silence. It tells us to stay inward. To call this “just politics.” To avoid the discomfort of taking a stand. But that line was crossed long ago.

Now is the time to stand with your community. To draw on resilience. To use your voice and mean it. To remember the words we once recited: liberty and justice for all.

History, like gravity, is unforgiving.

Be on the right side of it.

Author’s Note

This piece is written from a place of moral clarity, grief, and anger. Silence felt like complicity. I chose to write anyway.