A time to mourn, a time to protest

I grew up in a parochial Minneapolis, where a mixed marriage was between a Norwegian Lutheran and a Swedish Lutheran. It was a city of division, called the capital of anti Semitism in the United States, the hate driven by several fundamentalist preachers who spewed hate not Christian love to their huge congregations. We had a small Black population confined to a rundown neighborhood and the lowest paying jobs. Jews were isolated in a couple neighborhoods.

Despite those roots, Minneapolis grew into a city I loved. We overcame division for a city of an embracing decency. Both liberal and conservative political leaders were better than their peers in other states. “Minnesota Nice” described the reality. It wasn’t perfect, but it really stood apart from the rest of the country.

Much of the change came from a liberal spirit that grew into the Democratic Famer Labor party, but Minnesota Republicans were often more liberal than elsewhere. We had Hubert Humphrey and Fritz Mondale, but they had David Durenberger and Harold Stassen. Durenberger was an early and ardent anti-Trump voice.

“Minnesota Nice” was not an empty slogan, but defined the state and accounts for the protests of this month when two Border Patrol agents fired nine bullets into Alex Pretti, an unarmed ICU nurse who worked at the local veterans’ hospital. His death may not meet the legal standard for premeditated murder, but it seems to me that the agents came on the scene intent on shooting someone.

Pretti was not a threatening brute acting dangerously. He was a 37-year-old guy exercising his rights as a citizen to protest. The initial words from “authorities” were ready made lies. Only citizen protest, spontaneous and widespread, has fed our outrage. My evidence is personal.

My nephew and his wife stood with about 20 neighbors huddled in 25 below zero windchill near their condominium. A fellow resident, a retired Lutheran minister, called within an hour of Pretti’s murder to gather and to show their anger at the murder of a young harmless citizen.

My nephew is not young. He is in his 80s and had never been in a protest. He ran his business, raised a family, and voted. His outrage at the Trump-inspired, if not directed, murder of peaceful American citizens took him to the street.

Here is what Pretti’s sister said to the Associated Press. She described her grief as “a pain no words can fully capture” and asked “When does this end? How many more innocent lives must be lost before we say enough?”

I think people across the country, not just in Minnesota, have shown their disgust with Donald Trump and his toadies. We have said “enough” and will show it in the next election. It won’t bring victims back, but it may bury the worst president in our history.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.