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“Don’t go out because you’ll do something you’re gonna regret.”
The year started unpromisingly enough. People in my circle felt the doldrums of what would come from the start. Little did people realize the subtler tone of the second Trump transition (compared to the first one) would strike harder and faster at the country people came to know. While America has always had imperial and colonial aspirations, President Trump the sequel has sought to unveil the niceties of the last few decades. By the second week of his administration, the list of “others” looked less like 2017 and more like 1776. Even more disturbing was the list of “others” who confidently embraced that framework even when no real benefit would ever befall to them.
I felt this even more deeply as I got an urgent phone call from my wife in early February. An outside section of our apartment had just been robbed. The inside portion and all the people in it were safe. By the time the police arrived, she arranged to add extra locks. Our building superintendent helped coordinate next steps. Our landlord did nothing but connect us to the security cameras. The security personnel revealed the “suspects”: two teenagers who looked like the students we served our entire adult lives.
When we took a longer view of the footage, the teenagers paid our outside space a few visits while we were asleep. They smiled at the landlord’s security cameras.
The night of the robbery, I immediately changed our class from in-person to virtual. Suddenly, I was leading an informal security collective within my building, coordinating with the next buildings over including the school and the church, all of whom had similar run-ins with the teens. I set aside some of my passion projects along with their deadlines. I didn’t sleep well for the next few months as we preserved the facade of stability. My closest friends and associates learned of the incident. Even my more radical friends suggested I get my own security camera and I obliged.
In another time, such an incident wouldn’t have shaken me so. But it felt like I and my people were getting robbed on multiple fronts. As a recently certified social scientist and veteran educator, it made me think: “How did we even get here?”
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