Do Not Rest In Peace

When I was in the seventh grade in 1968 I had a wonderful teacher named Mrs. Wilson. She was from Canada and we giggled whenever she pronounced “been” as “bean.” For the last thirty minutes of every day she read to us from Tolkien's The Hobbit. She taught us how to fold paper sacks to cover our books, then liberally distributed crayons and markers so we could decorate them. I covered mine with swastikas. I loved the shape, the way the lines bent away from each other, the way it wasn’t square on the page, but tipped on one end. I had no idea what the shape meant and I have no memory of anyone telling me its meaning. I just thought it was an irresistibly beautiful design. 

During the first part of that year, Mrs. Wilson had a unit on public speaking. Each student explored a topic of interest and delivered a two minute speech. She took us to the library, taught us about research, about beginning, middle and end, about outlining, about how to use notecards as a prompt rather than something to read verbatim. 

I researched the Nazis. I don’t remember how I came to choose that topic. I had no idea who the Nazis were. Then I learned about the trains, about the separation of families, about the Jews and the people who were crippled. I learned about the showers. 

When it came time to deliver my speech, I couldn’t get through it. I stood in front of my classmates and cried, snot pouring down my face, my hands shaking so hard I squeezed my soggy notecards into a wad. I don’t recall how Mrs. Wilson handled any of this. 

But every day since, when I take my morning shower, I think of the Nazis gassing fellow humans. I see it. I feel the horror. I don’t conjure these images—they arrive on their own. Nor do I resent them. I’m grateful that the past carves its cruel lesson deep into my soul daily. Never, never again. 

And then an ICE agent kills Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother dropping off her child at school in Minneapolis. And then the state justifies her death with lies and hyperbole. And then state-sponsored moral depravity is no longer a lesson from the past but the content of today’s news. I cried with the same heartsickness of my twelve-year old self, felled by the knowledge of what we are not only capable of, but willing to do. Willing to do today.

We are a nation depraved, our depravity sanctioned not just by a mentally ill President, but, worse, by sane members of the House of Representatives and the Senate who are too weak to take a moral stand for fear of retribution. 

Our depravity is further sanctioned by corporate executives who don’t say no for fear of punitive action. They could afford a stand for moral clarity to cost them a few bucks, or a few million bucks, or a few billion. It would be worth every dime. Our corporate dividends are not what is at stake here. Our humanity is at stake. 

I hope Renee Good does not rest in peace. I hope she rises, bloody and bawling, to haunt the nightmares of every legislator, of every Trump appointee, of every person who cannot find a way to act in accordance with a clear, collective moral code. I hope no one gets a moment of peace until we change.