A beloved nephew sends an invitation. He’s getting married in January.

In Minneapolis.

I do wish they’d chosen a warmer month to get hitched. Or a warmer state.

I grumble. I tell Secret Service I’m not flying coach to Minneapolis in January. He has enough points to purchase Comfort Plus.

Our flight leaves January 9^th.

Two days before departure, Renee Good is fatally shot by a member of ICE in Minneapolis.

Perhaps because I’ve been a victim of a violent crime, I don’t automatically assume every police shooting is murder.

I’m from an area where for decades, deputies had to ride alone in cars; there wasn’t enough funding for them to ride in pairs. And in a state where gun control laws are the barest of minimums, every time one of these officers approaches a driver, they must assume they’re armed.

This is the country in which we live. People have guns. It doesn’t just affect our citizenry; policing is more dangerous as a result.

“I’m not mad at you,” says Renee Good.

Then she backs up her car and turns the wheel to the right, to drive away.

I watch witness videos from more than one angle, including the shooter’s phone.

In the United States, people are innocent until proven guilty. After watching the footage, I’m convinced of a few things.

If we still lived in the United States, the ICE officer would be arrested and charged with murder and a hate crime.

It appears Renee Good was shot in part because she and her wife are lesbians. Our shooter could not stand thirty seconds of lighthearted teasing. His manhood is too fragile to endure such hardship.

After shooting her three times—twice through her driver’s window— the officer mutters,

“Fucking bitch.”

Trump can’t stand being teased either. In Trump’s America, the penalty for teasing a white guy is death.

I was a National Disaster Responder for the American Red Cross. I flew into Houston four days after Katrina. I drove a team into Louisiana.

I used to play poker for a living. I’ve traveled alone to Vegas, Atlantic City, and deep in the Connecticut woods with large amounts of cash.

This is the first time in my life I’m afraid to travel to an American city.

I’m not afraid of the citizens of Minneapolis. I’m not afraid of immigrants, Somali or otherwise, documented or undocumented. I’m afraid of our president’s secret police, commonly known as ICE.

When someone dies, life continues.

It’s shocking. My father dies, yet school opens. I am given homework. I see people laughing in the hall.

I can’t square up my reality with theirs. Why are they pretending life is still the same?

Traveling to Minneapolis for a wedding after Minneapolis loses Renee Good seems bad form.

It feels like cognitive dissonance. To be concerned about things like “can’t be late for the wedding” in the face of what happened.

I feel for my nephew and his bride, that it happened in her hometown right before their wedding. But in the scheme of things, they’re fine. They’re both alive.

I research our hotel to see if ICE agents are there. To my relief, it seems the hotel is ICE-free.

What would I do if face to face with an ICE agent? What if we’re at the breakfast buffet together?

I pack my suitcase.

I wonder what Minneapolis will be like.

I wonder what the wedding will be like, and if we have to do play-acting like this is all normal.

I hope not.

We’re supposed to meet up with a new friend who lives there, Venus de Mars, and her spouse, the writer and poet Lynette Reini-Grandell.

I text Venus to say I’m not sure we can meet—I have no idea what protests are going on relative to where we’re staying, we don’t have a car, and I worry we won’t get back in time for the wedding.

Venus texts they’re happy to meet us at our hotel for lunch.

Then she informs me the shooting happened in their neighborhood. Lynette was less than a hundred feet away when she heard the gunshots. She called Venus, who arrived when they were performing CPR on Renee Good.

They’re witnesses. They’ve been speaking with reporters non-stop for two days.

I obsess about the shooting. I don’t understand why the officer wasn’t trained properly.

The law is clear. From our Department of Justice:

Firearms may not be discharged solely to disable moving vehicles. Specifically, firearms may not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless: (1) a person in the vehicle is threatening the officer or another person with deadly force by means other than the vehicle; or (2) the vehicle is operated in a manner that threatens to cause death or serious physical injury to the officer or others, and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle.

Political atmosphere influences how police are trained.

When George Floyd was murdered, I contacted my mayor’s office and asked what our city was doing to prevent such a thing from happening here. I got a long, thoughtful, and detailed response.

When the mayor wrote me in 2020, the term DEI—diversity, equity, and inclusion—hadn’t been banned by a sitting president. Our nation wasn’t restricting immigrants from largely Black and Brown nations while welcoming white “refugees” from South Africa.

We weren’t offering up to $50K in signing bonuses to new ICE recruits, and we didn’t turn those recruits out in our streets with their faces covered.

Kristi Noem wasn’t head of Homeland Security.

Noem gave a speech the day after Renee Good was killed. A sign on her podium read,

One of Ours, All of Yours.

If you’re confused about what this means—if you kill a government agent, our government will kill you and your entire community.

There is no ambiguity. It’s a direct threat.

If you go out in the street and protest peacefully, our intrinsic right as Americans—you are at risk of arrest or death; you might be branded a domestic terrorist.

Don’t cross the Trump regime. Don’t break Trump’s law. Don’t expect a fair trial.

Expect execution.

On the morning of January 9^th, our car arrives. As we ride to LaGuardia, I say to Secret Service,

“I have a lot of anxiety about this trip.” He holds my hand.

It’s also the second anniversary of my mother’s death.

She was my news person.

What would she say about this, I wonder. It’s so far outside the circle of normal. Could this have even happened two years ago?

Of course it could—just not to me. Black Americans have been telling us about this for decades.

I get on the plane.

We arrive in Minneapolis. Our Uber driver is Somalian. I ask him if he’s okay, if he’s had any trouble.

“Not yet,” he replies.

Anxiety roils in me, traveling down my throat to my solar plexus. I’m not breathing normally; I hold my breath.

The enormity of what Trump has done to our nation seeps through any wall of denial I might have.

Both of my stepsons and their partners are with us. It’s nice being in the Uber with them. For a minute it feels like a family vacation.

I tell them I want to see the Mary Tyler Moore statue. One of the kids ask who she is.

We explain Mary Tyler Moore.

A block from the hotel, I look up and see it.

The streets are empty. I ask the driver if this is normal.

“No,” he says. “There are usually a lot of people out. Especially Fridays.”

In the United States, people are innocent until proven guilty. There is a legal process. We aren’t supposed to try people by media.

But the officer isn’t going to trial, because he’s a member of Trump’s police force. Trump’s laws are not ours.

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”

-Donald Trump, 2016

Venus’s wife Lynette was outside that day to document ICE in her neighborhood, particularly because they live near an elementary school.

Many immigrants fear they’re in danger of getting arrested by ICE when they drop off their children.

Please note children born in the United States are U.S. citizens, according to our 14^th Amendment.

It stands to reason if we’re granted life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the ability to live at home with your parents should be included. Especially while in elementary school.

Imagine your own child at six or seven years old. A classmate’s parents are arrested.

What do you say to them?

Perhaps the reader is unsympathetic to people here without the right papers. Perhaps the reader refers to such people as illegal aliens. Perhaps the reader thinks they shouldn’t come here illegally.

Just for your information, because of course you want to be informed:

ICE does show up at citizenship hearings and arrests people following the law.

Perhaps you don’t care—survival of the fittest and all that.

What do you tell your children?

“Well, their parents are here illegally, and if you break the law you have to pay.”

What’s the answer when your child asks,

“But what happens to my friend now? Who takes care of them?”

You might tell your child you don’t know.

Good luck to you as they watch your indifferent face. They’ll remember it for the rest of their lives.

What frightens me most is indifference. I read this comment online—

This is what happens when you disobey a federal officer.

No, it’s not.

It’s one thing to have a GOP Congress backing up your lies. It’s another thing entirely to be a citizen brainwashed into believing U.S. law doesn’t apply.

I no longer wonder how Germans let Hitler come to power. I’m watching it in real time.

At lunch with Venus and Lynette, I tell them how glad I am they’re speaking up and doing interviews. Their account will be on record.

Lynette looks at me and says,

“We have privilege.”

They’re speaking up because not everyone feels they can.

The Trump administration is nothing if not misogynistic. They’re two women, one of whom is trans. They’ve been married for 42 years. A lesbian woman was just shot in the face in their neighborhood.

I think about all of us who have a hell of a lot more privilege than Venus and Lynette, saying nothing.

There are more sane Americans than fascists. But if we don’t speak up, it doesn’t matter.

Trump has the country. He’s got the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, the DHS, ICE, and Congress.

It’s all hands on deck to get it back.

On January 6^th, 2021, a mob broke into the Capitol, beat police officers, and shat in chambers.

Trump pardoned them.

He tells Iranian protesters help is on its way.

There is no help for Renee Good.

At the rehearsal dinner, I am so moved by my sister-in-law.

She gives a toast. She doesn’t pretend it’s a normal wedding during normal times. She speaks of why love is needed, particularly in dark times.

At the wedding reception, there’s a large sign on the door.

Everyone here is welcome, except ICE.

The bride gives a speech. She talks about celebrating love in order to be strong for their community. She sends us all a link to a local organization that supports immigrant rights.

I’m relieved. I’m not part of a family who pretends.

Renee Good and her wife were not worried the morning she was killed, because they thought they lived in America.

In the United States, you don’t get killed for peaceful protest. You might in Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Russia, but not here.

It’s a problem many of us share; we think we still live in the United States.

Our government is no longer the U.S. government. The coup occurred, past tense.

Accepting this makes me less anxious. Pretending is what makes me crazy.

If I protest peacefully, as I intend, I might get shot by Trump’s police.

Because how can I know his rules? They aren’t public. I imagine he makes them as he governs, by whim.

If we’ve learned anything—it can always get worse.

We are two weeks into this year. Look what he’s done.

I imagine Minneapolis is a test run, so he can send in troops to large American cities, declare martial law, and cancel the midterms.

I plan on participating in non-violent protest. I don’t know if it will be effective. But doing nothing is unacceptable.

I can’t hold my breath waiting for the Republicans in Congress to impeach him. It’s not like they’ll magically grow spines.

If I get killed while protesting, fine.

We all die. It’s better to get shot than be quiet.

There are judges, members of the Supreme Court, most Republican members of Congress, and some Democrats—who will die as cowards.

Whether I die now or in thirty years, I’ll not go a coward.

I will not be cowed. I’m an American.